Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786300269415 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC ISBN: 6300269418 Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: February 07, 1995 Running Time: 121 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: February 23, 1966 Sales Rank: 17529
Amazon.com: The reason to see Harper is the kooky mid-Sixties design, the peculiar over-the-hill-gang supporting cast, and the crazy Rat Pack lingo written by famed screenwriter William Goldman. And, of course, Paul Newman fans will want to see their guy in the full flower of his anti-hero hero phase. Anyone seeking a decent adaptation of Ross Macdonald's great series of detective novels will, however, be sorely disappointed. Macdonald's Lew Archer is a melancholy knight who operates in an increasingly somber tangle of family crimes; the movie's Lew Harper is a wisecracking hepcat who mugs his way through an indifferent missing-persons investigation. (Frank Sinatra, who was offered the role, would have been a better fit than Newman.) The cast includes Lauren Bacall, Janet Leigh, Julie Harris, and Shelley Winters as various femmes, none of them especially fatale, and Robert Wagner has one of his better roles as a kind of cabana boy to the rich. Strother Martin pops up as a bearded guru with a love temple on top of a Southern California mountain. The director is Jack Smight, whose career was largely made up of TV work. This was the first Goldman script to be made into a film, based on Macdonald's novel The Moving Target; as Goldman states in an enjoyable DVD commentary track, the name Lew Archer was switched to Harper because of Macdonald's reluctance to sign away franchise rights to his private eye's name, not because Newman wanted to have another movie with an "H" title (after The Hustler and Hud). That clears up a long-running urban legend. Newman did make another Macdonald adaptation, The Drowning Pool, in 1975 again using the Harper name. For a much better mid-sixties cool private-eye picture, see Blake Edwards' Gunn. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Newman At His Best
Besides this being just a flat out great detective story, it has style and character. It's great entertainment, and solid acting from all involved like Robert Wagner, Julie Harris and Arthur Hill. If ... Read More
Rating: - Paul Newman is ice cool in Harper
This is an interesting film. Newman plays Lew Harper who is kind of like a groovy 60's version of Phillip Marlowe; sardonic, tough, irresistable to women. While the movie is dated and sexist, it is well ... Read More
Rating: - An Infectious Gem from the 1960s
I recall seeing Harper on the big screen when it came out in '66, and have owned the VHS tape. The new DVD release is a joy: the incredibly cinematography looks gorgous, the award-winning soundtrack pops, ... Read More
Rating: - "He's fuzz, Puddler. Private."
Not a classic, but fun and Paul is clearly having a blast.
On the commentary track Goldman covers much of the anecdotes and opinions those who've read his books are familiar with. The bombshell ... Read More
Rating: - Harper
Based on Ross MacDonald's novel, this big-city thriller is notable for two reasons: It marks the debut of Newman's ultra-cool Lew Harper character (later seen to lesser effect in "The Drowning Pool") and was ... Read More
- Newman At His Best
- Paul Newman is ice cool in Harper