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USA 1966
Directed by
Jack Smight
121 minutes
Rated PG

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
2 stars

Harper

Directed by television director Jack Smight in the distinctive style of Alfred Hitchcock of the period (in particular Torn Curtain in which Paul Newman also starred and that was released the same year), watching this film one can’t help but want to work out why it fails so obviously. All the essentials of a Raymond Chandler crime yarn  are here but formally the treatment is like Phillip Marlowe in a suit of ill-fitting clothes

Newman plays Lew Harper, a private investigator who is hired by a wealthy California matron (Lauren Bacall) to locate her missing husband.  Harper is living in his office and in the process of being divorced by his wife (Janet Leigh) who is tired of his crummy going-nowhere lifestyle. And sure enough, yet again, Harper finds himself up to his neck in shady characters and dirty deeds.

Part of the problem is the look of the film - the widescreen Technicolor format lacks the seediness of  classic black and white film noir and the extensive use of back-projection is symptomatic of its overall ersatz tone. In this respect casting too is a problem. Newman is too well-turned out to convince as a low-rent PI and he also spends much of the time signaling his thought processes with obvious facial expressions (and when he’s called upon to be flippant he’s just awful). Buying Julie Harris as a junkie jazz pianist is a big ask and Shelley Winters' standard slatternly schtick only adds to the lack of credibility. Also guilty in this department is Strother Martin as a fake faith healer.

William Goldman’s script delivers some good lines of dialogue although the plot is a tad hard to follow at times. This is more Smight’s responsibility however as, bar a couple of strong scenes, a suggestive “bedroom” scene between Harper and his estranged wife and the discovery of the kidnap victim’s  body, he seems to have no idea how to stage the material, the action in particular. The result is dutiful but mechanical with no real sense of there being anything at stake. The result must be counted as a wasted opportunity.

 

 

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