Harper

In 1966 Paul Newman made Harper, his first private eye flick, and the results are mixed. Based on a Ross McDonald novel, Moving Target, Newman agreed to do it but asked that the name of McDonald's private eye, Lew Archer, be changed to something beginning with an H, and that the film be titled after that name. Because Newman had had success with The Hustler and Hud, he thought of H as his lucky letter.

He got his wish, and played a very familiar type. In the opening credits we see Newman as Harper waking up in his small apartment, which turns out to be connected to his office. The test-pattern is on the TV and he has to drink used coffee grounds. He drives a beat up Porsche, and heads out to a mansion somewhere a few hours from L.A. There he meets a very rich woman, played by Lauren Bacall (to connect viewers to the glory days of film noir, no doubt), who tells him her husband is missing.

Soon Harper interacts with a variety of characters, including the missing man's pretty-boy pilot (Robert Wagner), his sexpot daughter (Pamela Tiffin), a washed-up film star (Shelley Winters), a junkie jazz singer (Julie Harris) and a crackpot religious cult leader (Strother Martin). The mystery is only slightly engaging, as the primary interest is on Newman's characterization. His Harper is tough and honest, but also something of a jokester, given to calling his soon-to-be ex-wife (Janet Leigh) pretending to be different people. Over the course of the film we hear Newman do Southern, New York, and British accents.

Newman is good, but he's not good enough to save this material. The overall look of the film, directed by Jack Smight, has a TV quality, like every Quinn Martin production you've ever seen. It's also one of those mysteries in which the detective never comes across a dead end. He locates Winters simply by finding her picture in the missing man's hotel room, or pulls a matchbook out of the pocket of a corpse, and it leads him to a bar where he learns everything about him. There is also, of course, the requisite beatings that the hero receives, a staple in these things.

Harper is diverting entertainment, and a must for Newman fanatics, and would fit the bill for a late late show on a night of insomnia, but it's not a great example of private eye film.