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Harper Overview:

Harper (1966) was a Crime - Mystery Film directed by Jack Smight and produced by Elliott Kastner and Jerry Gershwin.

Harper BlogHub Articles:

The Deadly Affair and Harper

By Rick29 on Aug 7, 2023 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

James Mason as Charles Dobbs.The Deadly Affair (1967). James Mason stars as Charles Dobbs--a renamed George Smiley--in Sidney Lumet's moderately successful adaptation of John Le Carre's novel Call for the Dead. The plot is more mystery than espionage as Dobbs tries to discover whether a diplomat (re... Read full article

book: The Lost Man (2018) by Jane Harper

By John Grant on Apr 7, 2019 From Noirish

I hugely enjoyed Jane Harper’s first novel, The Dry, then enjoyed her second, Force of Nature, even more than that. I think her third, The Lost Man, somehow manages to be the best of the three. I’m awestruck by the talents of this UK/Australian author. The setting is the Australian Out... Read full article

O Caçador de Aventuras / Harper (1966)

By Lê on Sep 16, 2018 From Critica Retro

O Caçador de Aventuras / Harper (1966) Um fato pouco conhecido na comunidade de cinema clássico é que eu queria ser detetive quando era criança. OK, esse pode não ser um fato relevante para a comunidade de cinema clássico, mas é importante para este artigo. Quando criança, minha úni... Read full article

book: Force of Nature (2017) by Jane Harper

By John Grant on Apr 25, 2018 From Noirish

I read Jane Harper’s debut novel The Dry last year and enjoyed it very much, so when I spotted its successor I grabbed it. And quite rightly so, as I discovered: if anything I like Force of Nature the better of the two novels, which is saying something. A Melbourne company sends ten of its em... Read full article

On Blu-ray: Paul Newman is Detective Lew Harper in Harper (1966) and The Drowning Pool (1975)

By KC on Mar 28, 2018 From Classic Movies

Paul Newman took a crack at playing a gumshoe for the first time in Harper (1966), following that success years later with the sequel, The Drowning Pool (1975). This pair of films was inspired by Ross MacDonald’s novels about the detective Lew Archer, which was changed to Harper for the adapt... Read full article

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Harper Quotes:

Fay Estabrook: [obviously pleased that Harper's interest is apparently the result of jealousy] You're getting jealous! You're getting jealous I can tell! What is it with me that men all the time want to possess me?
Allan Taggert, Sampson's Pilot: [Leering at Fay through the door] Well...
Lew Harper: [Dismissively] It's nothing like that. She happens to be a hard night's work
Fay Estabrook: [in a small scared voice after she briefly awakens when Harper has dumped her drunken body on the sofa] Don't try to do anything to me tonight, dumpling, everything is tilting! Some other time, any other...
Dwight Troy: [about Fay Estabrook] Why are you interested in an old bag of worms like her?
Lew Harper: She's not an old bag of worms. She's the sexiest thing I ever seen.
Dwight Troy: Well I disagree, but then, you see, I am married to Miss Estabrook and I know whereof I speak. Hey, don't get me wrong, sport, I am not the jealous type. You want her, you can have her!
Lew Harper: [placing a crank call to his wife, imitating English accent into phone] Mrs. Harper? Mrs. Lewis Harper?
Susan Harper: [puzzled and sleepy] Yes...
Lew Harper: Oh thank heavens! You see, we've just picked your name from this enormous drum full of names... Only you had to be there to win... and you are, so you have!
Susan Harper: Win?
Lew Harper: [flustered, thinking] ... Six... one-hour frug lessons, absolutely free. Yes. I'm Austin Schwartz-Marmaduke, of the Schwartz-Marmaduke Institue for Ballroom Education. You must've heard of us, we're just off Wilshire near the Frug Foundation...
Susan Harper: I don't want any frug lessons.
Lew Harper: Of course you do, dear lady. Why just think how t'riffic you'll feel next time you and your husband try frugging...
[starts to break up, chuckling at his own humor]
Lew Harper: how endlessly feminine you'll feel...
[starts to really break up]
Susan Harper: [she has recognized Harper's voice and is paying him back now] My husband is dead!
Lew Harper: [not sure where this is going] Well, that's too bad, as a matter of fact...
Susan Harper: [gaining the upper hand in this joke] No... as a matter of fact, you're wrong. His death did nothing but serve the cause of mankind. He was a fool, a sadist, a functioning pathological pervert... He was grotesque in all ways. Can a soul be atrocious?
[Harper has lost control and covers the phone, chuckling]
Susan Harper: His was. He was a degenerate's degenerate. You won't believe this, Mr. "Marmaduke", but he used to call me on the phone sometimes, pretending to be other people. He actually thought it was funny!
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Harper Facts
The opening credits sequence (where Harper makes himself a terrible cup of coffee, among other things) was written and shot after the first cut of the film had already been delivered to the studio.
Paul Newman:  [H]  The character Lew Harper is based on novelist Ross Macdonald's character Lew Archer. The name was changed for the film supposedly because Paul Newman had recently enjoyed success with Hud (one of his many successful films beginning with H) and the producers wanted the movie's title to begin with "H". Also, the Macdonald estate did not want the name "Archer" used in the movie. There may have been fear of legal complications because Macdonald got the name "Archer" in the first place from Miles Archer, Sam Spade's partner who is killed early on in Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon."
Average Shot Length = ~8.5 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~7.9 seconds.
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