HARPER (1966) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Jack Smight
Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris,
Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin,
Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters,
Strother Martin, Roy Jensen, Harold Gould
Private eye Lew Harper (Paul Newman) cruises around L.A. in a battered Porsche, tracking down leads in a missing-person case. William Goldman wrote the wise-cracking script from a Ross Macdonald novel, with the detective's name changed from "Archer" to "Harper" to accommodate Newman's fondness for titles starting with the letter "H". It's the kind of thing Bogart might've done, if Bogart was Paul Newman making movies in the 1960s, reinforced by the presence of Lauren Bacall in the supporting cast. All these years later, it holds up pretty well, and I imagine there are still women out there who can't get enough of those famous blue eyes.
