Marlowe

In 1939 Los Angeles, private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by glamorous heiress Clare Cavendish to find her missing lover, Nico Peterson, a prop master at Pacific Film Studios. He quickly learns that Peterson is dead, having been killed after falling down drunk before a car ran over his head outside the exclusive luxury Corbata Club. Marlowe visits Cavendish to tell her of Peterson's demise, also meeting the Pacific's owner, Philip O'Reilly, the soon-to-be Ambassador to England. Cavendish reveals she has seen Peterson since his supposed death, driving past her in Tijuana. Annoyed at her withholding this information, Marlowe goes to leave, running into Cavendish's mother, film star Dorothy Quincannon, who fails to learn what service Marlowe is providing to her daughter.