Psycho(1960)..97% Harper(1966)...100% "On the Tomatometer"

Well, here's a little something I don't talk about much: Rotten Tomatoes. Interesting in its reviews of new movies like Avengers: Endgame. But more interesting about OLD movies.

I was recently gifted with a DVD of the 1966 private detective movie "Harper," starring Paul Newman and quite the supporting cast. Its a favorite movie of mine both on its own terms -- as an atmospheric and witty SoCal mystery -- and as an item of nostalgia. I remember seeing it as a kid in the theater in 1966; I remember seeing it on the CBS Thursday Night Movie(it was a Big Deal) around 1970 or so.

Overarching the whole project is Johnny Mandel's hip, cool, jazzy but sometimes lush score; if Bernard Herrmann was too old-fashioned for the sixties, Johnny Mandel was right there with Mancini and Neal Hefti in giving a movie a smooth, jazzy "warm and fuzzy" feeling in the 60's tradition. (And all the way to the 70s; Mandel wrote the music for MASH the movie and a truly moving score for "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.")
I linger on Johnny Mandel's score for "Harper" because it makes the movie feel very sophisticated, and more exciting than the events on screen really are.

And this: I went to find some old "Harper" reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, and I found it got a "100%" on the Tomatometer,whatever that is. I double-checked Psycho on the Tomatometer: 97%. Not bad but...in Tomato land...Harper is BETTER than Psycho?

Eh, maybe a little bit. Harper is hardly a bona fide classic, and shares nothing of the terror capabilities of Psycho. BUT...Harper is, perhaps, just a bit more adult in the writing, a bit more realistic in the playing, than Hitchcock's trademark "silent movies done for the 60's" style for Psycho.

Indeed, the next movie that Paul Newman made after Harper -- and also for 1966 release -- was Hitchcock's Torn Curtain. And side by side, "Harper" looks for a perfect fit for Newman (hip, mugging, modern) and Torn Curtain gives us Newman trapped in by Hitchcock in a filmic style of great formality, "from an earlier time." And Torn Curtain, while considered much lesser than Psycho, at least looks and feels like Psycho -- because it is a Hitchcock.

I'm not quite sure what I'm looking to say here other than I guess on the Tomatometer, Harper is a better movie than Psycho and...that's that?

But also, I'll concede that Harper is a more MODERN movie than Psycho. Hitchcock established his own style which, however "modernized" with actors and story(and, in Psycho, shock), was still pretty much the style he worked in, in 1925.

Also, Harper has no psychiatrist scene, and no lines like "I declare...I don't, that's how I get to keep it." And John Gavin isn't in it.

Janet Leigh IS in it, as Harper's estranged-trying-to-divorce-him wife, and ...well, the famous Psycho voice is well in evidence even if the actress is starting to age.

Harper was one of the first movies written by William Goldman, that guy I've quoted for years here, thanks to his nifty book "Adventures in the Screen Trade." Goldman -- Oscar winner for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, died recently, but on this 2004 commentary track, he's talking away in full glory as Harper unwinds...and it is great to hear.

About 60% of what Goldman says on the "Harper" commentary track is from "Adventures in the Screen Trade"(including his tales of what a decent and humble superstar Paul Newman was), but there are some new stories.

I love this one:

Lauren Bacall, giving Harper his case(and a connection to Bogart, of course) was supposed to say:

"I hear you find missing things. My husband has disappeared." (As if to say: "my husband is a thing.")

But what Bacall DOES say is:

"I hear you find missing things. You're sitting on my robe."

(Business: Newman gets off the robe, hands it to Bacall.)

"My husband has disappeared."

Says Goldman: "Bless Bacall for her improvisation, but she ruined my punchline."

Ha.

At one point, Goldman says of Newman in Harper: "Movie stars are different today. I'm not sure who could play this role today. Tom Hanks? No. Tom Cruise? No. Maybe Mel Gibson."

Hopefully not Matt Damon.

IN 1966, says Goldman, "McQueen probably could have played this."

And so forth and so on.

The Professionals is officially my favorite movie of 1966; I remember the Christmas Day afternoon I saw that , like it was only yesterday. But Harper may come in a close second; I liked it then, and I love it now.

Over on the Moviechat Harper page, you can find an old imdb thread started by me on Harper. Its a long OP. That's how much I like it. That OP is 13 years old!

But for here and now.. Harper is.100% on the Tomatometer. Versus 97% for Psycho. Hmmm....