Harper [VHS]
Private eye Lew Harper shows up early at the Southern California estate of Elain Sampson.  She offers a drink, he declines, "I though you were a detective," she says.  "New type," Harper answers.  Paul Newman memorably plays that new type in Harper, based on Ross MacDonald's The Moving Target.  The first detective film in Newman's then 23-film career (he later reprised Harper in The Drowning Pool), Harper revitalized the genre.  Newman's sleuth chews gum fast...and slips out of jams even faster as he unravels a twisted case of kidnapping and murder.  William Goldman's (Misery, All the President's Men) clever screen-play throws quips and a parade of LA-LA-Land characters Harper's way.  There's a woman of means (Lauren Bacall), a gun-toting attorney (Arthur Hill), a poolside gigolo (Robert Wagner), a boozy ex-starlet (Shelley Winters), a jazz junkie (Julie Harris), Harper's estranged wife (Janet Leigh) and the unholy order of the Temple of the Clouds (led by Strother Martin).  Each may possess a clue.  Or a bullet for Harper.