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Harper
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569816718
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Item Dimensions: 20
Label: Warner Home Video
Languages: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled),
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
MPN: 81671
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Running Time: 121 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: February 23, 1966
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Editorial Review:
Hard-boiled private investigator Lew Harper is hired to locate a missing millionaire named Sampson. Elaine Sampson the victim's invalid wife is indifferent and apparently happy he's gone. The trail leads him to the plush pad that Sampson maintained in Los Angeles where the clues indicate that he had a cultist's preoccupation with astrology and was under the influence of a one time movie star Fay Estabrook. with junkie pianists double-crossing lawyers brutal beatins and car crashes Harper has his work cut out for him.Running Time: 121 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569816718 Manufacturer No: 81671
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:  - 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, and the commentary from William Goldman adds new insights to this unappreciated classic.
Harper is a classic, very funny, character-driven private eye yarn with a great cast set against the hopped-up world of mid 1960's LA. Sure, maybe a few things are dated but this film stands up ... 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 is his revelation that he wrote a follow-up adaptation of The Chill - maybe the best detective novel by an American. It never happened. Why? So Paul could make The Secret War of Harry Frigg? Oh, the pangs.
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 William Goldman's maiden voyage as a screenwriter. Peppered with witty dialogue and immersed in the sex-and-drugs cult weirdness of mid-sixties California, "Harper" is directed with flair by Jack Smight. Shelley Winters, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, and Bacall all contribute choice ... Read More
Rating: - Fun whodunnit, with a superb cast and an intriguing plot
Like so many movies, I just picked this one up on a whim off the shelves of our local library (Netflix will never get my business until I've gone through every enticing movie at the libs which, truth to tell, I don't see ever happening).
At any rate, it was a fun movie, not only because of its storyline, but also because of the cast: Paul Newman, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris, Robert Wagner, Janet Leigh--all in top form and having a blast with their noir roles. Newman is the lead and ... Read More
Rating: - Slightly above average...slightly.
So, at some point in the sixties either the people who watched films or the people who made them grew tired of the same film-noir/detective films that had been around for ages featuring stars like Humphrey Bogart. As a result, the detective movie changed, and the focus was more on making the lead character cool or funny or tough. Some of these new films were good (the absolute best is Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" with Elliott Gould), some were not so good, and some were just in the middle. ... Read More
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