“Whaddya Do This Kinda Crummy Work For?”

Hard as this is to believe, it was a year ago today that actor Paul Newman died of lung cancer at age 83. I gave some thought recently to how I might celebrate his life on this occasion, and decided that nothing could be better than to showcase his acting talents.

The Rap Sheet already featured his performance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid earlier this week. For today, I could have chosen clips of his roles in Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, Absence of Malice, The Verdict, Nobody’s Fool, Twilight, or Road to Perdition, all movies I’ve enjoyed over the years. But since this is supposed to be a crime-fiction blog, it seemed best to focus on another of my favorite Newman flicks, Harper (1966), in which he played author Ross Macdonald’s famous fictional private eye, Lew Archer (though the character’s moniker was changed for reasons that are still disputed*). I dropped a brief and sexy clip from Harper into The Rap Sheet a few months back, but here I’m going to embed that film’s delightful trailer for your enjoyment:



* In his 1999 biography of Ross Macdonald (né Kenneth Millar), Tom Nolan recalls the circumstances by which Warner Bros. went about making Harper from Macdonald’s 1949 novel, The Moving Target. It seems the studio balked at paying Millar his $50,000 asking price for the rights to adapt his story. “The studio’s solution: use the book [producer Elliott] Kastner owned but not its title, and change the detective’s name,” writes Nolan. “[Screenwriter William] Goldman was asked to rename the hero. ‘I came up with “Harper,”’ he said, ‘because it was almost the same: Lew Harper, Lew Archer.’ Thus the film became Harper. Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, later claimed on The Tonight Show that Archer’s name was changed because Newman had had two hits (Hud, The Hustler) with H titles. Goldman’s response: ‘If you know anything about the movie business, you know it’s all bullshit.’”

READ MORE: “Only Cream and Bastards Rise,” by Marty McKee
(Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot).

“Who Are Those Guys?”

Despite the abundant offenses committed during its 112-minute run, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid can’t really be called “a crime-fiction film.” But no matter. That movie, which first opened in limited release on September 23, 1969--40 years ago today--remains one of my all-time favorites. I’m pretty sure my original viewing of it came in the early 1980s, in a small vintage-films theater in Portland, Oregon, and I was accompanied by a cadre of friends from my initial post-college job. Since then, I’ve watched Butch Cassidy at least, oh, a dozen times. And enjoyed it on each and every occasion. The only other motion pictures I have sat through nearly as often are Casablanca, Chinatown, Harper, Seabiscuit, Citizen Kane, The Aviator, and James Garner’s Marlowe. And none of those other films makes me smile as often or as broadly as Butch Cassidy does.

William Goldman’s screenplay mixed conjecture, romance, lightheartedness, and good-spirited lies with the porous truth behind the legend at the heart of his tale. Butch Cassidy (né Robert LeRoy Parker) was a real figure, born in Utah in 1866. After leading a cowboy’s existence, he formed the notorious Wild Bunch (or Hole-in-the-Wall Gang) which operated out of a hideout in Johnson County, Wyoming (scene of the deadly Johnson County War of 1892). Cassidy’s desperadoes--a cabal that, by the mid-1890s, included Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan (later fictionalized in the TV series Alias Smith and Jones) and Pennsylvania-born Harry A. Longabaugh, better known as “The Sundance Kid”--became adept at knocking over banks and robbing trains, much to the disgruntlement of the folks who owned and ran such enterprises. After a few years of this existence, however, Cassidy sought legal amnesty and peace with the railroad companies. Neither was granted, unfortunately, and in 1901 he and Sundance, along with the Kid’s girlfriend (or maybe common-law wife), the mysterious Etta Place, hightailed it to New York City and from there shipped off to Buenos Aires, Argentina. They apparently hoped to settle down as legitimate ranchers, but in the meantime resumed their criminal ways. The Pinkerton Detective Agency continued to pursue the outlaws, and South American authorities did their best to apprehend Butch, Sundance, and Etta, eventually chasing them out of Argentina, through Chile, and up to Bolivia. One story goes that, by 1906, Etta Place had finally had enough of this life on the run, and departed for San Francisco. Butch and Sundance remained in South America, and were supposedly killed during a shootout in southern Bolivia two years later. Rumors, though, persist to this day that both survived and returned to spend the rest of their lives in the States under aliases.

But any part of that recap could be wrong. History leaves much to the imagination as far as these bandits go. Which made their story inviting to screenwriter Goldman and director George Roy Hill.

What they’ve given us in the Academy Award-winning Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a rollicking yarn about the closing days of America’s Old West and the blessings of friendship. Paul Newman (who died from cancer just about a year ago) was a boyish Butch, a fugitive with an unexpectedly deep well of optimism. As Sundance--the role that would first make him famous--Robert Redford comes off as laconic, fatalistic, an action-seeking man who has little time for ideals. (It’s hard to imagine how Steve McQueen, who had originally been offered the Sundance role, could have done better than Redford.) And playing the part of Etta, beautiful Katharine Ross witnesses the best and worst of each.

There are plenty of choice scenes in Butch Cassidy. I particularly remember the wonderful knife-fight episode, with Butch going up against the towering and ambitious Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy). Then there’s that section in which the partners, fleeing from a posse that’s chased them to the cliffs above a river, have no hope but to leap down together. Still, Sundance balks. “I can’t swim,” he concedes through gritted teeth. To which Butch replies, “Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.” And off they go.

But the scene I always look forward to watching most, is the one in which Butch rides Etta along on the handlebars of his rickety bicycle--a particularly sweet, playful, and innocent interlude in the action. And one that makes you wonder why Etta stayed with the phlegmatic Kid, rather than going off with Butch. The accompanying song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and performed by B.J. Thomas. Watch it below, in two parts:





So happy 40th birthday to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I think it’s about time to saddle up for another DVD showing.

READ MORE: “12 Wild Facts About Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” by Eric D. Snider (Mental Floss); “Falling in Love With, and At, the Movies. What I Said to an Oscar-Nominated Actress. To Which Your Reaction Will Be--I Promise You--No, He Didn’t Really Say That. But Yes, I Really Did,” by Chuck Ross (TV Week).

Gratuitous “Harper” Film Clip

I just returned from playing a bit of tennis, and the sun is shining (finally) in Seattle, and I’ve begun to think that maybe--just maybe--summer will arrive soon. Which immediately put me in mind of this clip from 1966’s Harper, a film that was adapted from Ross Macdonald’s first Lew Archer novel, The Moving Target (1949). That movie found Paul Newman playing the slightly renamed private eye Lew Harper, working an odd kidnapping case. The scene below finds Newman questioning Robert Wagner (who plays the missing man’s pilot) and a delightfully plush young Pamela Tiffin (as the kidnap victim’s daughter). Ah, the joys of summer ...



READ MORE: “Acting Up,” by Peter Rozovsky (Detectives Beyond Borders).

Damn!

We have lost one of the greatest actors of our time. Paul Newman “died Friday after a long battle with cancer at his farmhouse near Westport,” according to the Associated Press. He was 83 years old.

Newman’s presence on the screen was magnetic, whether he was performing in Exodus (1960), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), The Verdict (1982), Road to Perdition (2002), or ... well, the list could go on and on. As Britain’s The Guardian notes, “He appeared in about 60 films over a period of 50 years.” In two of those, Newman played Ross Macdonald’s fictional private eye, Lew Archer (renamed Lew Harper for Hollywood): Harper (1966, adapted from 1949’s The Moving Target) and The Drowning Pool (1975). And in a third film, the 1998 noir thriller Twilight, he played another ex-cop turned private detective, Harry Ross, who could have been Archer/Harper at an older age. (That film, by the way, also featured James Garner, whose creds in the fictional P.I. field are equally strong.)

In addition to his screen work, the handsome, blue-eyed Newman was famous for his charitable contributions and his political activism. A strong and determined liberal, he wound up on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list,” supported Ned Lamont’s candidacy in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic Primary race against turncoat Senator Joe Lieberman, contributed infrequently to The Nation, and would no doubt have loved to be around to see an end to George W. Bush’s presidency and the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. (Fingers crossed.)

This is a day for remembering all of Paul Newman’s fine work, in various arenas. But tonight will be spent at my house with Harper and Butch Cassidy in the DVD deck.

SEE MORE: For your viewing entertainment, here’s the trailer for Harper. And to watch a couple of clips, click here and here.

READ MORE: “Paul Newman, 83, Magnetic Hollywood Titan, Dies,” by Aljean Harmetz (The New York Times); “More Than Just a Pretty Face,” by Stephanie Zacharek (Salon); “Paul Newman, 1925-2008,” compiled by Dana Cook (Salon); “Remembering Paul Newman, the Philanthropist,” by Dahlia Lithwick (Slate); “Saturday Night at the Movies,” by Taylor Marsh; “Actor Paul Newman Dies at 83,” by Lynn Smith (Los Angeles Times); “The Bluest Eyes: The Pleasures of Watching Paul Newman,” by Dana Stevens (Slate); “Newman’s Own Politics,” by John Nichols (The Nation); “The Graceful Exit,” by Scott Raab (Esquire).

Best Wishes, Mr. Newman

Amid news that he’s giving to charity an extraordinary $120 million--“the entire value of his ownership in Newman’s Own, the company that makes salad dressing and cookies”--there’s more gabbing on the Web about how 83-year-old screen legend Paul Newman is sick with lung cancer. Newman (who in January of this year celebrated 50 years of marriage to actress Joanne Woodward) downplays any health concerns, as do his friends. I hope their reassurances are more than smoke.

Newman, like James Garner and Robert Redford, is one of those veteran actors who seems unable to turn in a bad performance, even when the script they’re working from could have used another rewrite. Although my favorite among his pictures is probably the lighthearted western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), I also remember Newman fondly for his portrayal of Ross Macdonald’s fictional private eye, Lew Archer (renamed Lew Harper for Hollywood), in a pair of films: Harper (1966, adapted from 1949’s The Moving Target), and--not quite as exceptional, but nonetheless fun--The Drowning Pool (1975).

It would be a shame to lose him so soon.