Harper - Region 1 DVD

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Directed by :

Jack Smight

Starring :

Paul Newman

Lauren Bacall

Janet Leigh

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Review

10 months, 3 weeks ago at Jul 25 17:57

JR1220

What better (or perhaps worse, depending on your sensibilities) guide through the Southern California of the mid 1960s than Paul Newman's rough around the edges, but charming nonetheless, Lew Harper. The titular character is back on the case for an acerbic woman of means played by the legendary Lauren Becall. She's desperate to find her husband, who has gone missing, but we get a sense that she do... read more

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Description: 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 inv
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

: Im Auftrag der reichen Mrs. Sampson sucht Privatdetektiv Harper ihren spurlos verschwundenen Ehemann. Scheinbar wurde der MillionÃ¤r entfÃ¼hrt â€" und Harper trifft gleich auf mehrere VerdÃ¤chtige, denen er allesamt mehr als lÃ¤stig ist, darunter seine Auftraggeberin (Lauren Bacall), ein Anwalt mit nervÃ¶sem Finger am Abzug (Arthur Hill), ein Swimmingpool-Gigolo (Robert Wagner), ein versoffenes Ex-Starlet (Shelley Winters), ein Jazz-Junkie (Julie Harris) und Harpers Ex-Frau (Janet Leigh). Paul Newman zeigt eine unvergessliche Leistung als Titelheld dieses KassenknÃ¼llers nach Ross MacDonalds Reiche sterben auch nicht anders. Newman hatte damals bereits 23 Filme gedreht, aber noch nie einen Detektiv gespielt â€" mit Ein Fall fÃ¼r Harper gab er dem Genre neue Impulse. In seinem cleveren Skript erweist sich William Goldman als Meister scharfzÃ¼ngiger Dialoge.

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Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Release date: 14 November 2006
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0012569816718 UPC: 012569816718

Tags: 1960's (1), Biglots (1)

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JR1220 posted a review 10 months, 3 weeks ago

“What better (or perhaps worse, depending on your sensibilities) guide through the Southern California of the mid 1960s than Paul Newman's rough around the edges, but charming nonetheless, Lew Harper. The titular character is back on the case for an acerbic woman of means played by the legendary Lauren Becall. She's desperate to find her husband, who has gone missing, but we get a sense that she doesn't care either way.

Through the case, like all good noir cases, we are along for the ride in Harper's Porsche 356 Speedster, which, like Harper, is dinged up a bit and has some damage to the driver's side panels. Apropos, yes?

Newman seems to be having a great time in this role, and like any good Private Eye, is cool as a cucumber. He'll do whatever it takes, short of romanc” read more

JR1220 rated this 9/10 10 months, 3 weeks ago

YAHEMMI added this to a list 5 years, 3 months ago

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garfield2710 added this to a list 9 years, 3 months ago

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