Harper

Lew Harper is a private detective in Los Angeles who is always short of money and whose marriage is coming apart. A wealthy woman hires him to find her missing husband, and as the file opens it produces kidnapping, religious racketeering, people smuggling and the arithmetic inside the family itself. The film is adapted from Ross Macdonald's 1949 novel The Moving Target, but the detective's name was changed. The reason is legal: the producers had bought only that book, not the character. There is a second story told about it too, that Paul Newman considered the letter H lucky after Hud and The Hustler. William Goldman wrote the screenplay and the dialogue is the best thing in it. Lauren Bacall, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris and Robert Wagner fill the cast. Its flaw is an overcrowded plot. Several connections only assemble at the very end and the middle stretch loses pace. Who it is for: fans of the classic private eye film and of Newman. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a tight, followable mystery.