Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1977

The Contenders:

Annie Hall (winner)
The Goodbye Girl
The Late Show
Star Wars
The Turning Point

More Film Gris than Film Noir

Film: The Late Show
Format: Streaming video from TCM Watch on laptop.

There are few joys in watching a new movie like seeing a septuagenarian character beat the crap out of a guy half his age. That’s one of the perks of The Late Show. This was a “target of opportunity” for me; it was streaming on TCM’s site and it’s a film not currently available on NetFlix. When a movie like this shows up, it only makes sense to save myself the trouble of tracking it down later and to watch it right away.

The Late Show is a very unusual neo-noir. Imagine Sam Spade 30 years older with a bleeding ulcer, living in a boarding house and looking to get out of the detective game. As the film opens, aging detective Ira Wells (Art Carney) is visited by an old friend named Harry Regan (Howard Duff). It soon becomes evident that Harry has taken a bullet and is about to die.