And he discovered a secret salad dressing ingredient, to boot: "Harper"

I know, I know ... it's been slow going here at Ye Olde Movievangelist. What can I say? I've been busy around the house, the fall TV season has started -- stay tuned for thoughts on that later -- and I'm just low on energy when it comes to new posts. Not that I've seen too many movies lately. It's kind of shameful, I know. Sure, there's not a whole lot of great stuff in theaters, but I need to get out of the house more often. I hear they even show talkies now ...

Anyway, I ended up recording a movie not long ago that I had never heard of but seemed somewhat decent. "Harper" has Paul Newman as an L.A. private eye hired to find a missing man. Ah, but not just any missing man. A rich missing man, whose wife, Lauren Bacall, doesn't really care if he's found alive since that means she won't get all his loot. Still, she does need to know if he's dead, and that's where Lew Harper comes in.

Interesting little fact: This character is based on a series of Ross McDonald books are a p.i. named Lew Archer. I read a couple of those books as a kid, but didn't know that Archer became Harper so the movie would fit in with some of Newman's other films, such as "Hud" and "The Hustler." Hey, how about that?

(Side note: Isn't "Lew" a funny name? Lou? Sure. But Lew? Just looks weird. And notice how there are plenty of Louies out there but nobody who goes by Lewie. Like I said, weird. Or is it just me?)

Decent cast here, most notably the boyish Robert Wagner and a pushing-40 Janet Leigh. Newman is the big star, though, and he's actually pretty good. This came out a year before "Cool Hand Luke" and three years before "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," two movies that many rattle off early on when reciting the Newman filmography. But "Harper" also gives him plenty of chances to have fun and play rough -- with police, the missing man's daughter, his estranged wife.

Sure, Newman may be too pretty to be a private dick, but he seemed to get into the role. I especially liked the jawing with the sheriff, the subterfuge in the bar and the whole dynamic with his wife. The story isn't bad, either, with enough twists to keep things interesting pretty much to the end. I'm not sure what I expected, but overall this is a nice, relatively unknown mystery movie. Much better than his peach salsa. Bleeech.