| Overview: | Ben Gazzara plays Charles Serking, a down and out, hard drinking poet based on the legendary Los Angeles wordsmith, Charles Bukowski.
The character refers to his fellow Los Angelenos as "lost angels" and throughout the film the viewer observes his encounters with "real people" in the squalid underbelly of Hollywood.
Serking has several seedy encounters, including one with an underage runaway who, after spending the night with him, robs him of all he has on him. The whole film is a chronicle of his involvement and respect for down and outs and street prostitutes.
His ex-wife attempts to help him by settling his bills and destroying his booze, but the real love of his life is Cass (Ornella Muti), a suicidal prostitute with whom one feels he may achieve solitude and redemption, and even make his mark as a serious poet.
The film is often dark, especially when it concerns Serking's numerous sexual encounters with disturbed female characters, but at the same time it displays an erotic quality even in the midst of the cast's soulless existence.
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