This contains a Spoiler!
HARPER(1966) is the first U. S. film that - by it's ending - has the perpetrator of a crime not go punished. Even Edward G.Robinson in SCARLET STREET went insane at the end. Harper and his lawyer/ best friend - the Arthur Hill character - essentially agree at the end of the film to not turn the lawyer/friend in for the killing. SPOILER! Newman (Harper) throws up his hands in a Christ-like gesture and the film is over. Essentially, it's a "whoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone" ending. Harper is not going to cast his best friend to the wolves (the cops) over a dead kidnapped millionaire no one in the film liked. A bad man, forget it, let's split the money and just go on with our lives. This was the first US film - by my reckoning - to do this.
Unlike other Hollywood attempts of the mid-1960's - i.e. clumsily handled sex scenes - to be as honest as the foreign films of that era,
this one got it right. From this point on, no one had to go to jail or die by the last reel. Morally dubious? Yes. Realistic? Also, Yes.
For this, Harper is a milestone. - James Wiser, Hollywood, CA,USA
HARPER(1966) is the first U. S. film that - by it's ending - has the perpetrator of a crime not go punished. Even Edward G.Robinson in SCARLET STREET went insane at the end. Harper and his lawyer/ best friend - the Arthur Hill character - essentially agree at the end of the film to not turn the lawyer/friend in for the killing. SPOILER! Newman (Harper) throws up his hands in a Christ-like gesture and the film is over. Essentially, it's a "whoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone" ending. Harper is not going to cast his best friend to the wolves (the cops) over a dead kidnapped millionaire no one in the film liked. A bad man, forget it, let's split the money and just go on with our lives. This was the first US film - by my reckoning - to do this.
Unlike other Hollywood attempts of the mid-1960's - i.e. clumsily handled sex scenes - to be as honest as the foreign films of that era,
this one got it right. From this point on, no one had to go to jail or die by the last reel. Morally dubious? Yes. Realistic? Also, Yes.
For this, Harper is a milestone. - James Wiser, Hollywood, CA,USA