Another of Newman's own preferred "H" films (c.f. "The Hustler", "Hud" and "Hombre") "Harper" sees him cast as a hard-boiled private detective in and around L.A. in this gritty, contemporary thriller. Obviously riffing off Bogart 40's noir movies, especially "The Big Sleep", to the extent where it prominently casts Bogie's old missus Lauren Bacall, we first see Harper slobbishly rise if not exactly shine from his den and learn that he's recently separated from his long-suffering wife, Janet Leigh. He's been summoned by Bacall's Mrs Sampson to her Bel-Air mansion and hired by her to find her wealthy husband, who has disappeared after stepping off a plane, not that she or her sex-kitten daughter Miranda really care a whit for him, or as it turns out, for each other either.
The daughter, Pamela Tiffin, hangs around with daddy's handsome pilot Robert Wagner but is being set up by dad to marry the family lawyer, safe, conservative, bespectacled Albert, played by Arthur Hill, an old acquaintance of Harper's. Harper follows the scent to Shelley Winters' fast-fading and fat-gaining ex-starlet and her boorish husband, Robert Webber, who tends to call people he encounters "old stick", which of course marks him out as a sinister baddie. Also in the mix is a weird, charlatan guru, Strother Martin, who operates out of an ashram high up in the hills and Julie Harris, a dissolute bar-room singer with a drug habit, who we first see trilling an original Andre & Dory Previn song in her act.
These elements are all mixed in together with a drugs sub-plot, but ultimately it's a case of searching for Sampson and seeing who's still standing at the end. Newman's ticks and flicks can mildly irritate as much as entertain, especially when he camps it up to booze and schmooze Winters for information, but in the main, he's good value and drives the action forward. He gets good support from the quality cast around him and while the direction and soundtrack are fairly de-rigeur, it's a watchable feature which just about holds you till the end, for what is in fact probably the best scene in the film, its freeze-frame conclusion anticipating a more famous one Newman would play a few years later alongside the Sundance Kid.
It lacks the tautness and visual style of Hawks' direction and Newman ultimately lacks Bogart's charisma, making it more "The Big Nap" than "The Big Sleep" but while it didn't exactly get me het-up or leave me completely happy, it was still a half-way decent watch.
H for hope that's okay, Paul...
The daughter, Pamela Tiffin, hangs around with daddy's handsome pilot Robert Wagner but is being set up by dad to marry the family lawyer, safe, conservative, bespectacled Albert, played by Arthur Hill, an old acquaintance of Harper's. Harper follows the scent to Shelley Winters' fast-fading and fat-gaining ex-starlet and her boorish husband, Robert Webber, who tends to call people he encounters "old stick", which of course marks him out as a sinister baddie. Also in the mix is a weird, charlatan guru, Strother Martin, who operates out of an ashram high up in the hills and Julie Harris, a dissolute bar-room singer with a drug habit, who we first see trilling an original Andre & Dory Previn song in her act.
These elements are all mixed in together with a drugs sub-plot, but ultimately it's a case of searching for Sampson and seeing who's still standing at the end. Newman's ticks and flicks can mildly irritate as much as entertain, especially when he camps it up to booze and schmooze Winters for information, but in the main, he's good value and drives the action forward. He gets good support from the quality cast around him and while the direction and soundtrack are fairly de-rigeur, it's a watchable feature which just about holds you till the end, for what is in fact probably the best scene in the film, its freeze-frame conclusion anticipating a more famous one Newman would play a few years later alongside the Sundance Kid.
It lacks the tautness and visual style of Hawks' direction and Newman ultimately lacks Bogart's charisma, making it more "The Big Nap" than "The Big Sleep" but while it didn't exactly get me het-up or leave me completely happy, it was still a half-way decent watch.
H for hope that's okay, Paul...