Clean Slate
A private eye who has amnesia must go to court about a kingpin’s murder.
- Director:Mick Jackson
- Genre:Comedy | Mystery
Cast
Dana Carvey : Maurice L. Pogue
Valeria Golino : Sarah Novak / Beth Holly
James Earl Jones : John Dolby
Kevin Pollak : Rosenheim
Michael Gambon : Cornell
On a Monday morning, Maurice Pogue (Carvey) finds a tape recording which reveals that he has Korsakoff’s syndrome, a form of amnesia that prevents him from remembering anything that happened to him the day before. He realizes that he recorded the message to himself the previous night, a system he’s worked out to keep himself in the know. He also learns from the recording that he’s a private investigator and obtained the condition after being injured during a case. The tape tells Pogue not to reveal his condition to anyone, as he’s the key witness in the case against the man responsible for his amnesia. While listening to the recording, a strange woman (Golino) bursts into Pogue’s office. Pogue learns that her name is Sarah Novak, and that she’s been living under the alias Beth Holly in San Francisco. She tells Pogue someone’s trying to blackmail her, which is why she’s come to L.A. The police then come to Pogue’s office, and take him to what turns out to be his birthday party. When he tells his friend Dolby (Jones) that he’s seen Sarah, Dolby tells him that Sarah is dead. While at the party, Pogue also meets Anthony Doover (Michael Murphy), his doctor. Dr. Doover is the only person to whom Pogue has revealed his condition.
Pogue is lead away from the party by two henchmen, who take him to meet Philip Cornell (Gambon), the man Pogue is to testify against. Cornell offers Pogue a large sum of money to deny witnessing Cornell’s involvement in the crime. When Pogue goes through his files at the office, he learns that Sarah was once Cornell’s lover. When the two broke up, Sarah decided to testify against Cornell for fear that he might kill her because of her knowledge of his illegal activities. Sarah hired Pogue to protect her but was killed by a car bomb, the same bomb that caused his amnesia. That night, Pogue meets Sarah at a fashion show she’s modeling in. She tells him the girl that was killed in the explosion was a double, and that someone’s threatening to tell Cornell she’s still alive. Sarah also tells Pogue about a valuable coin Cornell stole from the L.A. County Museum, which she in turn stole from him. Sarah tells Pogue that she gave him the coin the morning before the explosion; Pogue, of course, can’t remember. The only clue the two have about the coin’s location is one word Pogue said when Sarah gave it to him, “Baby.”
On Tuesday morning, Pogue has forgotten everything again. Cornell shows up to his office to get Pogue’s sworn statement but Pogue gives him a check for $800, mistaking Cornell for his landlord. Pogue tries throughout the day to figure out where the coin is but doesn’t find any answers. Later on he meets with Sarah and the two spend some time together. She stays at his place for the night and they make love. The next morning, when Pogue wakes up, he remembers everything from the day before. While trying to think of clues, Pogue learns his dog is Baby, and that he hid the coin in its collar. When he takes Sarah to a payphone to call the people who are blackmailing her, she writes “I love you” on the window. Pogue notices her handwriting and the writing on the note the coin was wrapped in are different and realizes she must not really be Sarah Novak, so he switches the coin without her knowledge. He then follows her and finds that Dr. Doover and she have set him up in order to get the coin. When Doover says they’ll have to start all over again, Sarah (or the woman posing as Sarah) says she won’t do it anymore. That night, while sitting in Pogue’s car outside his office, the woman reveals into one of Pogue’s recorders that she’s really Beth Holly, and that Doover hired her because of her resemblance to Novak. Cornell’s men then kidnap Beth when they see her in the car. Read more
Watch full Clean Slate online streaming for free
