Harper

 

Director Jack Smight

Smight on the set

Screenwriter William Goldman

HARPER                    B                                                                                                                 USA  (121 mi)  1966  ‘Scope  d: Jack Smight

Just an infinitely lingering disease…                                                                                          —Susan Harper (Janet Leigh), referring to Harper walking out the door as she angrily sticks a fork into the egg yolks she had been cooking for him

Your husband keeps lousy company, Mrs. Sampson, as bad as there is in LA.  And that’s as bad as there is.                                                                                                                                          —Lew Harper (Paul Newman)

By the mid 60’s the private eye genre was dead in the water after Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and this film more or less revived it, as it was relegated to television shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Peter Gunn, Hawaiian Eye, Honey West, and Johnny Staccato, which are just a few of the better known shows that began in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  The template for Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) and Polanski’s CHINATOWN (1974), with Elliot Gould and Jack Nicholson channeling Newman, not Bogart, in these mood driven private eye flicks set in Los Angeles where the larger-than-life atmosphere of the seamy city itself swells to become one of the leading characters.  It would be hard not to mention Lee Marvin in John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967), whose single-minded purpose he shares, similarly offering a nihilistic sense of despair in one of the most extraordinarily bleak visions of Los Angeles.  Curiously, Johnny Mandel wrote the musical score for both.  One could add Steve McQueen’s Bullitt (1968) or Eastwood’s DIRTY HARRY (1971) to that list as well, with both set in San Francisco, as this film predates the rebirth of cool and sophisticated crime thrillers, using arrogant, updated modernized characters who are sick of the world and sarcastically throw off memorable one-liners with ease, fully integrated into the complexities of wealth, corruption, and urban ennui.  Not exactly film noir, the film instead exploits the lifestyles of the wealthy, featuring the Beverly House in Beverly Hills (Legendary Beverly House, Where JFK and Jackie O. ...), later used as the home of movie producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) in THE GODFATHER (1972), with Italian style columns and statues leading to the backyard pool, creating an idealized picture of decadence for Lauren Bacall, the crippled wife of millionaire Ralph Sampson, Harper (1966) -- (Movie Clip) A Poor Thing But Mine Own YouTube (3:48), or Harper’s car, an old beat up black-top gray/silver Porsche 356 A Speedster (one of only 140 made), perhaps a 1956 model which was the predecessor to the 911 series, which he can take for a spin off road at a moment’s notice.  In addition, there is prevalent use of Malibu beach on Southern California’s Pacific Coast Highway, but also fully integrated after hours joints that highlight the quirkiness of the youth movement in the mid 60’s, with the Shindig! and Hullabaloo style dancers.  Paul Newman plays gum chewing Lew Harper, changing the last name from the Ross Macdonald novel of 1949, The Moving Target (they only bought the rights to one book, not the character franchise), where private investigator Lew Archer, unlike Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, was not so much a man of action as he was a cerebral thinker who figured things out by listening to people, often times feigning a character in order to interact with unsuspecting witnesses.  Following the success of earlier movies THE HUSTLER (1961) and Hud (1963), it was Newman who endorsed the name change from Archer to Harper, continuing a series of 60’s movies beginning with the letter “H,” which also included HOMBRE (1967).  One quirky gesture to his personality is creating characters on the phone when he calls his separated wife, Janet Leigh, who is tired of his false promises and quick disappearances and wants a divorce, but by using a fake personality he can actually hear her voice and talk with her awhile, even if it’s something nonsensical that he completely made up.  This is an endearing aspect to his nature, as otherwise he’s all business.  

Screenwriter William Goldman had long been an admirer of Ross Macdonald (the pseudonym used by Kenneth Millar), especially his Lew Archer novels, filled with melancholy at a disappointing world, writing eighteen Archer novels between 1949 and 1976, and a handful of short story collections, but despite being one of the most prolific and admired of all twentieth-century American crime novelists, his work remains largely untouched by filmmakers.  Known for adding psychological depth to the detective genre, Goldman offered to write an adaptation, where this early script was tight and amusing, with Newman acknowledging that Harper was one of his favorite characters to play, becoming a box office hit, eventually earning Academy Awards for his screenplays of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969), the likeable buddy movie with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976), a Woodward and Bernstein journalistic exposé of the Watergate era.  “Well, you’re not very hip... but you’ve got cop’s eyes.”  While completely unconvincing as an addict, jazz singer Betty Frayley’s (Julie Harris) description of Harper lures him into a kidnapping scheme, Harper (1966) -- (Movie Clip) You've Got Cops' Eyes - TCM  YouTube (4:14), where Lauren Bacall’s drunk but filthy rich husband goes missing, and she could care less, as she’s more interested in inheriting his millions, so she hires Harper to find him, not exactly losing a tear over it.  Add to the equation Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), the scantily clad, drop dead gorgeous daughter who’s not exactly broken up over daddy’s disappearance either.  Instead she’s dancing on the diving board without a care in the world as poolboy gigolo and Sampson’s personal pilot Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner) looks on with a mixture of boredom and cynicism, apparently a reflection of that LA state of mind, Harper (1966) -- (Movie Clip) I'm A Very Modern Type Fellow YouTube (3:10).  From this family love fest Harper must determine the rest, starting with an utterly captivating performance by Fay Estabrook (Shelly Winters), an aging movie star who can’t stop drinking and eating, a lethal combination in show business, (“She got fat” revels Wagner) but her charming performance pokes fun at her own weight problem.  Harper feeds her liquor to get a good look around her house, as she’s a drinking partner of the missing husband and the gauche astrological designer of his gaudy bachelor pad on the side.  But he runs into her slimy gun toting husband Dwight Troy (Robert Webber), making a hasty retreat.  Not so complex as it is perpetually perplexing, there are enough twists and turns here to keep anyone’s head on a swivel, but it reveals a dense landscape steeped in murky atmosphere.  As he gets closer to the scene of the crime and its major players, Harper discovers what he’s always suspected, a world of greed and corruption have replaced long-lost dreams and ambitions, where Los Angeles becomes associated with a vibrant sense of artificiality and empty sterile space, little more than a façade for what’s lurking underneath. 

In a contemporary homage to Humphrey Bogart and THE BIG SLEEP (1946), which incidentally also starred Lauren Bacall, director Jack Smight was mostly a director of television dramas, which impressed Newman enough to want to work with him, but others found him lacking confidence on the set, requiring the constant presence of his reassuring wife, but it was a strong cast and a well-written story, packed full of scintillating dialogue, where the cynical and overly detached Newman is effortlessly cool with his constant wisecracks, literally carrying the picture in a film that helped establish his reputation as one of the screen’s biggest stars, never getting rattled, even as he constantly finds himself drawn into a complicated web of deceit in an underworld of trouble.  But there are little compassionate touches that make him feel more familiar, like living out of his office, where he dunks his head in a sinkful of ice cubes to rouse himself awake in the opening sequence, something he repeated in THE STING (1973), or re-using day-old coffee grinds out of the garbage when he discovers he’s run out, so he’s an ordinary guy in that sense, ill-equipped to be living on his own, but by the time he steps out the door he looks like a million bucks.  The role became so associated with Newman that he would play Harper nine years later in THE DROWNING POOL (1975).  Having won a Tony for his lead role in the original Broadway production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, the straightlaced Arthur Hill as gun-toting lawyer Albert Graves is Newman’s best friend, an old war buddy, seen doing isometric exercises at his desk when introduced, normally smart and dependable, but he has a weakness for Miranda, with Harper acknowledging he’s old enough to be her grandfather.  Imaginatively shot in ‘Scope by Conrad Hall, who disliked the artificial style of Hollywood lighting, favoring a naturalistic or impressionist approach, making clever use of offbeat locations as well as dangerous and eccentric characters, including Strother Martin as the leader of nutty religious order “Temple Of The Clouds” that covers as an illegal human trafficking operation, Harper (1966) -- (Movie Clip) Disciples For Supper YouTube (4:04). Equally clever, the man who hired Phillip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP was confined to a wheelchair, as is Lauren Bacall, the one hiring Harper in this film.  The addition of Janet Leigh in the ex-wife scenes may seem superfluous, as they were not in the novel, and this sort of thing would never have happened in 40’s film noir, but they add a mysterious vulnerability to Harper’s personality, as we see his continued devotion to her, not ready to let her go, still in love, apparently, whatever that’s worth, and he’s perfectly willing to try to repair the damage, though that train left the station ages ago, and all he’s left with is just a pipe dream.  This humanization of his world-weary character offers a sense of moral decency, beautifully contrasted against an underground cesspool of criminal entrepreneurs, where Los Angeles is seen as a feverish den of illicit immorality, all supposedly tucked carefully out of sight, where Harper is forced to look head-on into the gloom and doom of society’s lost ideals.  Paul Newman’s last line in Hud (1963) would seem appropriate here:  “This world is so full of crap, a man’s gonna get into it sooner or later whether he’s careful or not.”    

Watch Harper Full Movie Online Free With English Subtitles  entire film may be seen on Fshare TV (2:00:48)

The Hot Rock

Director Peter Yates

ensemble cast photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE  HOT ROCK      B                                                                                                               USA  (101 mi)  1972  ‘Scope  d: Peter Yates

A somewhat quirky comedy of errors movie that is a combination of character study and heist film gone wrong that got poor reviews at the time of its release, yet is something of a hidden gem to watch, offering a time capsule of Manhattan in the early 1970’s, with an aerial helicopter shot that beautifully merges the Hudson River with New York City skyscrapers, providing ample evidence of the still-under-construction twin towers of the World Trade Center buildings clearly seen when they were nearing completion.  With more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit, specializing in crime fiction, Donald E. Westlake had been providing material for some of the better American thrillers for years, usually centered around a single character, where he is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional master thief criminal characters who each starred in a long-running book series with over a dozen books, starting with the relentless, hardboiled Parker, published under the pen name Richard Stark, where his 1962 novel The Hunter was the source material for John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967), later introducing the more stoic and notably pessimistic John Dortmunder, where bad luck seems to find him, developing the reputation of being jinxed, allowing the author to explore greater aspects of unexpected humor.  Written in 1970, adapted for the movie by heralded screenwriter William Goldman, this was the first of the Dortmunder novels, the protagonist of 14 novels and 11 short stories published between 1970 and 2009, a character known for his careful and meticulous planning, where there’s literally nothing he can’t steal, yet he’s twice been convicted of burglary, where hanging over his head is the knowledge that a third conviction will mean that he will be sent back to prison for the rest of his life with no chance of parole.  Yet moments after his release from his second stint in prison, he’s already plotting the masterplan for a new crime.  According to Westlake, this started out as one of his darker Parker novels, but that “it kept turning funny.”  Essentially a story involving a precious gem that is stolen, lost, reacquired, stolen again, lost again, becoming a revolving door of utter futility, featuring a likable yet bumbling cast of characters, where despite their best efforts, something always seems to go wrong.  In the eyes of British director Peter Yates, who had a short-lived career as as a professional race car driver, he actually preferred this movie to the much more acclaimed Bullitt (1968), proving there’s just no accounting for taste, yet this film accentuates characters who, “like many people, plan things all their lives and never have it work out.”  While the film was surprisingly nominated for an Academy Award for best editing, what stands out is the eloquent and sophisticated quality of the jazz score composed by Quincy Jones, where each of the musicians are listed in the end credits, an unheard of practice at the time. 

Robert Redford plays Dortmunder, having recently learned the trade of plumbing while in prison, met on the outside in a stolen Cadillac by his perky brother-in-law Andy Kelp, George Segal, a locksmith whose cheerful optimism is the polar opposite of Dortmunder’s dour reticence, schmoozing up to him while making immediate suggestions, as a giant African diamond, the Sahara Stone, is currently on display in the Brooklyn Museum, the crown jewel of a former British colony that was recently granted independence and split into two nations, remaining a bone of contention between two rival African nations, unfortunately claimed by both ever since it was stolen during colonial days.  Hired by an unscrupulous United Nations ambassador representing one of the countries, Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn), Dortmunder hires his team, including Kelp, of course, explosives expert Allan Greenberg (Paul Sand), learning his trade at the Sorbonne and from esteemed college campuses across the country known for expressing political dissent, and the gang’s driver, Stan March (a memorably over-the-top Ron Leibman), a jack-of-all trades who can drive anything, living at home with his cab-driver mother (Charlotte Rae), where his life is consumed by cars, yet his happiest moment is listening to audio LP recordings of the revving engines racing by from the Indianapolis 500 race for relaxation, and virtually every conversation he has includes a wildly detailed account of his most recent excursions in his car.  Despite careful planning, something always goes wrong, and the group must steal the diamond all over again, as the list of items needed keep accumulating expenses, yet the inventive aspects of each heist grow wildly imaginative, where the preposterousness of their daring acts is extraordinary to behold, becoming the template (along with the Ratpack’s original version of OCEAN’S 11 in 1960) for Soderbergh’s Ocean's film series (2001 – 2007), with an all-female spinoff in 2018, along with a host of other heist flicks, becoming an elaborate choreography of outlandish criminal acts mixed with well-known celebrities, recognized for displaying stellar ensemble casts.  The real flavor of this film is just how unlikely the personalities mesh, as they all kind of get on each other’s nerves, yet they’re all skilled at what they do.  Dortmunder, as the master planner, gets no more than the rest, each one distinguishing themselves in their roles, so it’s a carefully calibrated operation where everyone gets an equal share, yet the atmospheric jazz music gives this a cool, laid-back vibe, where the whole thing looks effortless.  The 70’s was a terrific era of American films, (In '70s, movies were more daring, real - Chicago Tribune), with many scholars claiming it was the greatest decade overall due to the arrival of a new young crop of directors, not only New Hollywood, but around the world.  Adding to the illustrious mix of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas would be new talents like Hal Ashby and Alan J. Pakula, Sidney Lumet and Robert Altman, Barbara Loden and Elaine May, John Cassavetes and David Lynch, Gordon Parks and Melvin van Peebles, along with German New Wave legends Rainier Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, and Werner Herzog, just to name a few. 

In an interview with Daily Blender back in 2017, Steven Soderbergh offered some insight into his Ocean’s films, An Interview with Steven Soderbergh | Daily Blender.  “There’s no rational reason why, as a kid, what I would call caper movies would have such an appeal to me.  But they always did.  There’s a great film called ‘The Hot Rock.’  It’s really good.  Robert Redford, 1972.  It’s hilarious.  You’ll see how much of an influence it was on the Ocean’s films.  That sense of humor.  I just like them.  That kind of humor and a sort of puzzle.  It’s something that movies are good for.”  When the film tanked at the box office, Redford blamed it on the British director, known for making action movies, contending this is a small, character-driven comedy filled with American humor that had a difficult time resonating onscreen.  Not so sure that’s true at all, as this is a comedy of misdirection, providing some zany, off-the-wall heists, carried out to perfection, yet something invariably goes wrong, something impossible to plan for, reality perhaps.  They’re such smooth operators that you have to admire their obvious skills, ability to improvise on the spot, and continuously throw others off-track, and while these are career criminals, their perspective is so calculated and so expertly realized that audiences will side with them, turning this into an ensemble buddy movie, where the extreme degree of personal flavor added only adds to our appreciation of them as a group overall.  They’re just a likable bunch, willing to go the extra mile to create and execute ingenious plans that carry a heavy entertainment value, where handing over the new shopping list of their requirements grows increasingly hilarious, and it’s not based on guns and explosions, or heavy gratuitous violence, and no sex to speak of, yet the ability to bring so much character development into the film works wonders, as we feel like we know these guys, having hung out with them for a good part of the film.  But things take a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse when we are introduced to a new character, the larger-than-life, fedora-wearing Zero Mostel as Abe Greenberg, a scene-stealer if ever there was one, a variation of his slimy role of Max Bialystock in THE PRODUCERS (1967), a man who could con anyone out of their money and do it with a smile.  He is the unexpected roadblock that puts the kibosh on all their hard-earned plans, suddenly outsmarted by a venerable old lawyer whose wretchedly underhanded tactics are the picture of corruption and sleaze, so extravagantly unorthodox and evil that even this cabal of thieves must sit back and admire, throwing a monkey wrench into their entire operations.  Mostel is so adorably repugnant that in the theater he would get a standing ovation for his mastery of sheer gall on display, taking a back seat to no one, where in a nod to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), a hypnotist named Miasmo (Lynne Gordon) provides the missing ingredient.  Seeing as how this is a breezy, feel-good movie, it all works out in the end.  Bookending the beginning with Redford cautiously walking down the street after he gets out of prison, yet breaking into a playful dance at the end as he so effortlessly strolls across the busy streets and down the heavily populated Manhattan sidewalks of New York, confidently walking a couple of blocks, relishing his celebratory mood to the music of Dixieland, bringing the film to a rollicking curtain-ending close where it will likely leave you with a smile.