A down-at-heel Los Angeles private eye is hired to track down a missing millionaire. His investigations begin to unravel a complex plot involving blackmail, human trafficking and a drug-smuggling operation - as well as a personal betrayal from an unexpected quarter. Detective thriller, starring Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh and Robert Wagner
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). It is directed by Jack Smight, with an ensemble cast that includes Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters and Arthur Hill. The film pays homage to Humphrey Bogart's portrayals of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe by featuring Bogart's widow, Lauren Bacall, 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. In 1975, Newman reprised the role in The Drowning Pool.
