With just two Screenplays behind him - including an adaptation of his own novel, Soldier In The Rain - novelist Bill Goldman was tapped to script a Private Eye movie in the Chandler mould. He suggested Ross MacDonald's The Moving Target, the Producer concurred and the rest as they say ... Following this assignment Goldman scripted another of his own novels (written under a John Doe) No Way To Treat A Lady and then, working again with Paul Newman, hit one out of the park with Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
By the mid 60s the Private Eye genre was dead in the water and Harper more or less revived it. When you hear the expression Private Eye the name Paul Newman doesn't spring immediately to mind and nor does he attempt to emulate Bogie, Dick Powell or indeed anyone else. Whether it was part of his contract or not Newman ends up with no real co-stars but a hell of a gallery of 'supporting' players from Lauren Bacall to Shelly Winters via Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Julie Harris, Strother Martin and Arthur Hill, fresh from playing the male lead in Who's Afraid Of Viginia Woolf opposite Uta Hagen. The plot ducks and weaves and may be a tad overlong at two hours but Goldman keeps the dialogue sharp and throws in a couple of set-pieces that keep the pot boiling. Arguably showing its age but certainly worth watching.
By the mid 60s the Private Eye genre was dead in the water and Harper more or less revived it. When you hear the expression Private Eye the name Paul Newman doesn't spring immediately to mind and nor does he attempt to emulate Bogie, Dick Powell or indeed anyone else. Whether it was part of his contract or not Newman ends up with no real co-stars but a hell of a gallery of 'supporting' players from Lauren Bacall to Shelly Winters via Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Julie Harris, Strother Martin and Arthur Hill, fresh from playing the male lead in Who's Afraid Of Viginia Woolf opposite Uta Hagen. The plot ducks and weaves and may be a tad overlong at two hours but Goldman keeps the dialogue sharp and throws in a couple of set-pieces that keep the pot boiling. Arguably showing its age but certainly worth watching.