Harper (1966) on Netflix
Private eye Lew Harper is hired by Elaine Sampson to find her missing husband Ralph, last seen at Van Nuys Airport after arriving from Las Vegas. Harper's own marriage is ending.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.8/1012,401 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lew Harper is a Los Angeles private investigator whose marriage to Susan is coming apart because the work keeps pulling him away. Elaine Sampson, his new client, is physically disabled and tough talking, and she wants her wealthy husband Ralph found. Ralph has been missing for a day; he flew in from Las Vegas and vanished at Van Nuys Airport. Elaine believes he is with another woman, and she wants to know the fortune she hopes to inherit is safe. The case came to Harper through the Sampsons' lawyer, Albert Graves, an old friend who is in love with Ralph's flirtatious daughter Miranda. Allan Taggert, Ralph's private pilot and the last person to see him, lives on the Sampson estate and is Miranda's casual boyfriend.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Harper (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Frank Sinatra was offered the part of private eye Lew Harper first and turned it down, and Paul Newman took it because he had just starred in the flop Lady L and wanted to make something contemporary.
- Because the producers had bought only The Moving Target and not the rest of the Archer series, the detective's name was changed from Lew Archer to Harper; Paul Newman also asked for the change after his hits The Hustler and Hud, and the film kept the title The Moving Target outside North America.
- Robert Wagner recalled that director Jack Smight lacked confidence and that Smight's wife stayed on the set for the whole shoot like a security blanket, and that Paul Newman pretended not to notice and his confidence spread to the cast.
- Producer Elliot Kastner paid Ross Macdonald just $1,000 for the film rights to his novel and William Goldman $5,000 to write the screenplay, a script that became the hit Harper.
- In the title sequence Paul Newman's Harper dunks his head into a sinkful of ice cubes to wake himself up, a bit Newman repeated in the 1973 film The Sting; he reportedly did the same thing every morning in real life.
- The film is credited with launching William Goldman's career as a screenwriter, and it was also a financial success.
