Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring. Lew Harper is a Los Angeles based private investigator whose marriage to Susan Harper, who he still loves, is ending in imminent divorce since she can't stand being second fiddle to his work, which is always taking him away at the most inopportune of times. His latest client is tough talking and physically disabled Elaine Sampson, who wants him to find her wealthy husband, Ralph Sampson, missing now for twenty-four hours, ever since he disappeared at Van Nuys Airport after having just arrived from Vegas. No one seems to like Ralph, Elaine included. She believes he is cavorting with some woman, which to her would be more a fact than a problem. Harper got the case on the recommendation of the Sampsons' lawyer and Harper's personal friend, milquetoast Albert Graves, who is unrequitedly in love with Sampson's seductive daughter, Miranda Sampson. Miranda, who Harper later states throws herself at anything "pretty in pants", also has a decidedly cold relationship with her stepmother, Elaine. As Harper begins his investigation, he is often joined by one or two new sidekicks, Miranda, and/or Allan Taggert, Sampson's private pilot who was the last person to see him before his disappearance. Living on the Sampson estate, Allan is also Miranda's casual boyfriend who Harper coins "Beauty" because of his preppy good looks. They discover that Sampson has indeed been kidnapped as they receive a ransom note. As Harper follows leads, he ends up in the underbelly of Los Angeles society, which includes encounters with Betty Fraley, a junkie lounge singer, Fay Estabrook, an ex-movie ingénue now overweight alcoholic, and Claude, a religious cult leader. At each of Harper's stops, people seem to want to beat him up or worse kill him. The case takes a slight turn after they decide to pay the $500,000 ransom to see where it leads. When this movie came out in 1966, it was 10 years since Paul Newman's hit role in "Somebody Up There Likes Me." He was now a major Hollywood star. Newman was a versatile actor who could play well in any number of genres. In this action-crime thriller, he plays Lew Harper, a private eye. <br/><br/>"Harper" is a complex mystery drama with a huge cast of prominent screen and stage names. Lauren Bacall plays Mrs. Sampson, Julie Harris is Betty Fraley, Janet Leigh is Susan Harper, Pamela Tiffin is Miranda Sampson and Shelley Winters if Fay Estabrook. On the male side, along with Newman, are Arthur Hill as Albert Graves, Robert Wagner as Allan Taggert, Robert Webber as Dwight Troy, Harold Gould as the sheriff and Strother Martin as Claude. All do very well in their roles.<br/><br/>The movie is based on a 1949 novel by Kenneth Millar under his pen name, Ross Macdonald. The book title, "The Moving Target," is a good description of the film and the character of Harper. Macdonald's Harper is similar to the hard-boiled Sam Spade of Dashiell Hammett's "Maltese Falcon." But, Macdonald introduces a psychological twist in this story. And the script is peppered with short witticisms and sardonic comments by Harper.<br/><br/>Here are some samples, beginning with my favorite exchange in the film. Miranda, "What do you do this kind of crummy work for anyway?" Harper, "What, are you trying to be funny? I do it because I believe in the United Nations, and Southeast Asia, and think it's funny if your life depends on what goes through the Panama Canal. What about the English pound? Tell you something, baby, so long as there's a Siberia, you'll find Lew Harper on the job." Miranda, "Are you putting me on?" Harper, "Geez, I didn't think so." (He looks away to hide his smile and keep from laughing.)<br/><br/>Harper, "I used to be a sheriff until I passed my literacy test." Sheriff, "If I wanted to be ugly " Harper, You are ugly." <br/><br/>This is a first-rate detective mystery with plenty of action and intrigue. It's all the better because it isn't loaded down with gratuitous sex scenes that detract from the engaging story. Now that he's no longer with us, it behooves us to remember the kind of versatile actor that Paul Newman was throughout the years. Whether it was in films like HUD, THE HUSTLER, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, SLAP SHOT, COOL HAND Luke, or THE VERDICT, Newman's talent was unquestionable. And one of his best roles was as private detective Lew Harper in the 1966 crime drama HARPER (based on Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer character). Getting into the kind of role that Humphrey Bogart did so well was a cagey move on Newman's part, and paid off in spades with critics and audiences alike.<br/><br/>At the behest of an old friend (Arthur Hill), Newman takes up the case of an eccentric millionaire who has gone missing in a coastal town two hours from Los Angeles. As he gets further and further into the case, he finds a whole viper's nest of loathsome types: the millionaire's jealous wife (the legendary Lauren Bacall); his daughter (Pamela Tiffin); a playboy pilot (Robert Wagner); a jazz-club junkie (Julie Harris); a fading actress (Shelley Winters); a ladies' man (Robert Webber) involved in illegal immigrant smuggling; and a religious fanatic (Strother Martin) whose "Temple In The Clouds" was bought and paid for with money from the missing millionaire. All of them give Newman the run-around in many twisting and often humorous ways, but eventually Newman does get to the bottom of things. The missing man wasn't exactly known for his likability, nor did a lot of people care that he even be found alive. That, and the fact that Newman's own estranged wife (Janet Leigh) doesn't care that Newman himself ever shows up at her doorstep alive again either.<br/><br/>Newman benefits a lot from Jack Smight's highly polished direction and a solid, often funny, screenplay by William Goldman (one of his earliest), as well as a jazzy score by Johnny Mandel. The many little twists and turns in the story are, admittedly, fairly typical of the private-eye genre; but with Newman and a great supporting cast, all of whom turn in fine performances, there's never a dull moment during its 122-minute running time. Martin's appearance as Claude, the "Holy Man On The Mountain", is particularly good, and helped establish him as one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history.<br/><br/>All of this made HARPER not only a great addition to Newman's filmography, but also undoubtedly made for one of the greatest of all private-eye and crime films of all times. The action is swift and the mystery fetching in this handsomely made color film. But eventually it seems a bit too obvious, imitative, old-fashioned and, worst of all, stale.
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