There's no way in hell that this sour old coot and this New Age flake should get along, and yet, by the end of the film, it's pretty clear to everyone that they've begrudgingly developed a little mutual affection for each other. Not that a the course of true love would ever be likely to run smoothly, with these two. It was a concept that evidently served as the basis for, or at least the inspiration for, an extremely short-lived 1985 TV series, Eye To Eye , which was a little harder to swallow. Screenwriter and director Benton, who was also behind Kramer vs. Kramer , Nobody's Fool and Places in the Heart , returned to the P.I. genre, and many of the same themes, more than twenty years later with 1998's Twilight , starring Paul Newman as another aging eye. Also highly recommended.
Nobody can palm a forty-five.
Listen, sweetheart, you're talking to Ira Wells, not some low-rent gumshoe. It's my gut, it's my life. I won't let anybody call me a God-damned coward. It's raining everywhere these days, lady. I've been in this business for thirty-one years, give or take a couple of months.