Harper

Harper (released in the UK as The Moving Target) is a 1966 American mystery film based on Ross Macdonald's 1949 novel The Moving Target and adapted for the screen by novelist William Goldman, who admired MacDonald's writings. The film stars Paul Newman as Lew Harper (Lew Archer in the novel), and was directed by Jack Smight, with a cast that includes Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Lauren Bacall, and Arthur Hill. The film pays homage to Humphrey Bogart's portrayals of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe by featuring Lauren Bacall, Bogart's widow, who plays a wounded wife searching for her missing husband, a role similar to General Sternwood in the 1946 Bogart-and-Bacall film The Big Sleep. Goldman received a 1967 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. In 1975, Newman reprised his role in The Drowning Pool. Plot Private investigator Lew Harper skips the appointment to sign his divorce papers when asked to search for multi-millionaire Ralph Sampson, who has disappeared after flying into Los Angeles. Sampson’s wife Elaine is physically disabled and wants to be sure he is not squandering the fortune she hopes to inherit. Harper interviews Allan Taggert, Sampson’s private pilot, and his flirtatious daughter Miranda. An old photo of a glamorous starlet in Sampson's bungalow leads Harper to Fay Estabrook, now an aging alcoholic. Harper gets her drunk to see if she is connected to Sampson's disappearance. When she passes out, he encounters the armed Dwight Troy, Fay's husband, who falls for Harper's cover story that he is just a lovesick fan of the former star.