Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.
Acting
Newman's Harper smirks through pain like it's a hobby
Cinematography
LA mansions shot like they're hiding corpses in the grout
Director
Jack Smight
Paul Newman
Lew Harper
Lauren Bacall
Elaine Sampson
Julie Harris
Betty Fraley
Arthur Hill
Albert Graves
Janet Leigh
Susan Harper
Pamela Tiffin
Miranda Sampson
Robert Wagner
Allan Taggert
Robert Webber
Dwight Troy
Shelley Winters
Fay Estabrook
Harold Gould
Sheriff Spanner
Roy Jenson
Puddler
Strother Martin
Claude
Martin West
Deputy
Jacqueline deWit
Mrs. Kronberg
Eugene Iglesias
Felix
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The role was originally written for Frank Sinatra, who dropped out—Newman stepped in and made Harper his own franchise starter, though only one sequel followed.
Bacall playing a wealthy ice queen hiring Newman mirrors her own Bogart legacy; the film winks at noir history while the sun-bleached California setting deliberately rejects shadowy black-and-white tradition.
US
