Private eye Philip Marlowe drives a friend to Mexico, but later learns his passenger had apparently killed his wife - and once over the border, the fugitive kills himself. When a mysterious woman asks Marlowe to find her missing husband and gangsters come looking for money stolen from them, the detective suspects a connection between these events. Robert Altman's detective drama, based on Raymond Chandler's novel, starring Elliott Gould and Sterling Hayden.

In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.