The Paul Newman Collection (Harper / The Drowning Pool / The Left-Handed Gun / The Mackintosh Man / Pocket Money / Somebody Up There Likes Me / The Young Philadelphians)
by Arthur Penn, Jack Smight, John Huston, Robert Wise, Stuart Rosenberg
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Actor: Dominique Sanda, Joanne Woodward, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman, Pier AngeliDirector: Arthur Penn, Jack Smight, John Huston, Robert Wise, Stuart Rosenberg
Brand: WHV
Writer: Desmond Bagley
Writer: Ernest Lehman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 779 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-14
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Number of Discs: 7
- Format: Region 1, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
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DVD Reviews of The Paul Newman Collection (Harper / The Drowning Pool / The Left-Handed Gun / The Mackintosh Man / Pocket Money / Somebody Up There Likes Me / The Young Philadelphians)
DVD Review: Early to Mid-Career Work Of A Star
Summary: 5 Stars
Somebody Up There Likes Me
This is the earliest of Newman's work in a group of seven films that make up this Paul Newman collection. Each film in the collection arrived in its own case embossed with appropriate art work and film credits, major co-stars and copyright date.
The film, based on the autobiography of Rocky Graziano, was due to star James Dean, but he was killed in an automobile accident shortly after filming "Giant". Newman was under contract to Warner Brothers at the time, which lent him out to MGM to do the part.
Through the 1950's, American literature had been hugely critical of the conformist nature of military service; books like Norman Mailer's The Naked And The Dead took as their theme the suppression of individuality. However in cinema, military service was often a search for individuality. We saw this at work in An Officer And A Gentleman where Richard Gere's character holds a secret unearthed by his Marine Corp drill sergeant played by Louis Gosset Jr. In boot camp, Gere's character assumed a swaggering cool, but outside the military, he had broken every relationship of worth and literally had no where else to go. Once that discovery is made, the drill sergeant uses it relentlessly as a motivational tool.
In Somebody Up There Likes Me, an Army observer pinpoints the core trait driving the Paul Newman character when Newman is told "your punches have hate in them. I've never seen that before in a fighter." The discovery drives the fighter and the film forward as director Robert Wise explores the urban jungle of Rocky Graziano's past and the manner in which he used his fists as tools of escape.
In a minor way, interplay between film and music is at work in this movie. After capturing the middleweight championship of the world, Newman muses, "Somebody up there likes me". Graziano's wife, played sensitively by Pier Angeli, has the best line in the film when she responds, there is nothing more to say after her reply but the movie continues on with Bing Crosby singing a final refrain that seems unnecessary. No wonder Alfred Hitchcock worked with the same composer for nine films.
Pocket Money
We get a larger inconsistency between music and script in Pocket Money, where Newman stars as a by-the-book livestock broker enlisting the aid of Lee Marvin as they form a tandem looking to buy beef on the hoof for an unscrupulous Arizona cattle baron. They have a rough and tumble picaresque adventure along dusty roads that have Marvin driving a red Buick Electra seemingly designed by Picasso, or at least it is director Stewart Rosenberg's genius making the car seem a sharp edged piece of cubist sculpture. Like a Buick, the car does its job admirably and one wishes the music did as well, but the score cloyingly reminds the actors of the need to "keep moving on" as though hard boiled film veterans like Newman and Marvin needed such information . Indeed, there are spots where the film ignores the score's advice and lingers. This happens in a jailhouse scene where a minor character is given precious film time to explain the circumstances of his predicament and the effect is to round out the story and add dimension to what was in danger of becoming a slapstick night in the local drunk tank for Newman. Despite ubiquitous obstacles placed in the path of our picaros, they manage to hold up their end of the bargain although at payout time, our Arizona cattle baron seems suddenly short of cash. With Paul Newman and Lee Marvin starring, you know suitable contretemps ensue.
Harper
Frank Sinatra turned down the lead for this picture and Paul Newman turned it into one of his "H" movies (others being Hud, Hombre, and The Hustler) which began its life with a main character named Lew Archer, changed at Newman's insistence to Lew Harper. He is full of imperfections and contradictions: cerebral enough to ignore wanton seduction - insisting instead on deduction - blithe enough to take the punches, although juking and even surviving, dumb enough to walk out on the only woman who understands and loves him. Not as sleek as Donald Sutherland in Klute, Harper is more confident than Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) in his ability to charm facts out of wary targets. What he lacks in stealth Harper makes up for with an obsession to follow every lead and complete the assignment. A legendary supporting cast includes Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, and Janet Leigh as Harper's estranged wife in self delusion mode when she takes Harper back for a night. When he leaves the next morning she exacts a measure of revenge stabbing the yolks on their four fried eggs but it isn't enough to assuage her angst. As a bonus, the film comes with commentary on film history by screenwriter William Goldman (Harper, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
The Drowning Pool
Lew Harper still chews gum, conveniences still defeat him (a coffee maker in the earlier movie, the seatbelt of his rental car in this version) he still answers other people's telephones and soaks the party for information, but Paul Newman is noticeably older in this sequel to the 1966 edition of Harper. He's is still in fine shape physically ("must be all that swimming, huh?" - a line he uses with understated sarcasm when pinning a murder on sylvan seductress Schuyler Devereaux played by Melanie Griffith). This edition also retains Harper's defining trait, his obsession to see an assignment through. Even after he is fired, he refuses to drop the case if he thinks there are loose ends. Wife Joann Woodward co-stars as Iris Devereaux, having met Harper in LA six years prior where they had a liaison purely platonic in nature as Iris left LA to be with her true amour New Orleans detective Broussard, with Tony Franciosa, turning in a terrific performance. This is a movie with more action when a door opens than any other film you have seen; it's a worthy sequel to the first edition.
The McIntosh Man
The late Senator J.W. Fulbright famously said Americans had trouble with Vietnam because it was half nationalism which they like, and half communism which they don't like; it's understandable critics are confused by The McIntosh Man which is half spy story, half femme fatale yarn. Pair up Paul Newman with the beautiful Dominique Sanda and audiences expect kissing not murder. All the beauty and high art in the world don't undermine the fact that Sanda's character kills. It's a role Lizabeth Scott (The Secret Love of Martha Ivers, The Racket) could have played without flinching. Then too, when Sanda is not on camera and Newman is at a safe house apparently to decompress, how many times is he kicked where it hurts when his female host turns captor? His cover blown, we get the chase across the moors, and Newman deploys his car driving skills (2nd in Le Mans, 1979) in a landscape director John Huston knew well. James Mason is simultaneously suave and sticky as a compromised member of the British Parliament. This movie challenges expectations rather than catering to them.
The Young Philadelphians
Men and women have two common quests: career and love. The extent to which they mess up on one while chasing the other is the subject of this film. And rarely has the raw exuberance of youth in pursuit of quest been on such open display. Newman's entrance in The Young Philadelphians has the feel of owning a 1985 Cal Ripken baseball card. The rookie jitters are over, the star can perform at the position, the future feels unlimited. The amazing thing about Newman is that he plays out of age. The part called for a college student on a working summer, so you might say 22, tops. Newman was 34 when this film was made, but he blends into the role and makes it work. Robert Vaughn (Man From U.N.C.L.E.) earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Chet Gywnn, the heir to a family fortune kept from him by an unscrupulous trustee. Newman, a tax lawyer deep into the film, gambles agreeing to defend Vaughn on a murder rap. It's a spin of the wheel he performs again in The Verdict.
The Left Handed Gun
The legend of Billy the Kid received an update on December 31, 2010 when Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico announced on his final day in office that Billy would not be receiving an official pardon. The Governor noted that his reading of the historical record allowed him to believe that such a pardon was indeed offered to Billy in 1879 if he would testify at a grand jury inquiry. Billy testified, but the pardon offer was rescinded and Governor Richardson noted that he had no evidence as to why the 1879 pardon offer was revoked. Embedded In the news was the sentiment by some that history was best served by leaving it alone. The opposite is almost certain to happen.
The Governor's action and the movie The Left Handed Gun are both testaments to the attraction of the Billy the Kid legend and its ability to endure. Instead of a pardon, an amnesty is at stake in the movie. As in The Young Philadelphians, at age 34, Newman plays a role intended for a 21 year old. It works because of Newman's method style acting, his ability to engage with other actors in the pranks of children so that they come across not as grown men but as overgrown 12 year olds. There are points when the script aids and abets the process with dialogue spot on for adolescents. When Billy breaks the peace established by the amnesty, he learns that ostracism can be a worse fate than death.
If costs can be controlled the way they were in this spare and lean Western directed by the noted Arthur Penn, it should be no surprise if a movie update occurs on the heels of current events.
To sum up this collection, there are concerns that the collection doesn't contain Hud and it doesn't contain Hustler, but those films cost $25 each almost anywhere. For that price, you get a collection that takes a viewer from Newman's early period through middle age, in films where its possible to see the method style that allowed him to go deep into character, give life to a script, and carry an entire film. Your basic good deal.
More The Paul Newman Collection (Harper / The Drowning Pool / The Left-Handed Gun / The Mackintosh Man / Pocket Money / Somebody Up There Likes Me / The Young Philadelphians) reviews:
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Description of The Paul Newman Collection (Harper / The Drowning Pool / The Left-Handed Gun / The Mackintosh Man / Pocket Money / Somebody Up There Likes Me / The Young Philadelphians)
Includes: Harper (1966), Drowning Pool (1975), The Left Handed Gun (1958), Pocket Money (1972), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and The Young Philadelphians (1959).Paul Newman's career slipped onto an unstoppable track with Somebody Up There Likes Me, his 1956 biopic about boxer Rocky Graziano. Of course that was his second picture, the first being the oft-joked-about bungle The Silver Chalice. Newman's Method-y intensity and dazzling good looks brought him stardom, and his intelligence and uncommon seriousness as an actor kept his movies interesting, especially as he tackled some of the best roles of the "antihero" era--an era he helped create.
Somebody Up There Likes Me is included in The Paul Newman Collection, a bulging seven-DVD package that shakes out thusly: three late-1950s titles from the beginning of his career, one mid-sixties hit, and three lesser films of the early 1970s. It's by no means a "best of" compilation, being limited to Warners and MGM titles, but it gives a flavor of Newman in his prime time. He got the Graziano role after James Dean died, and his performance is a very busy, post-Brando jumble of tics and mumbles. The movie holds up nicely as a boxing picture, and the location NYC shooting won an Oscar for cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg (you can see why director Robert Wise got hired to do West Side Story after this). Sal Mineo and Steve McQueen are in the cast as Newman's fellow j.d.s.
The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a teleplay by Gore Vidal, is a truly weird, compulsively watchable artifact from the psychological-Western genre. Newman plays Billy the Kid, glowering and grimacing like a rebel without a cause. It's one of those films that has much more to do with the time it was made than the time it is set; also notable as the big-screen debut for stage and TV director Arthur Penn. The Young Philadelphians (1959) is more conventional, an entertaining soap opera about a young lawyer (Newman) with an old-money Philly name but no money, who gets burned by love and decides to connive his way to the top. Young Robert Vaughn snagged an Oscar nomination for a showy turn as an alcoholic society lad.
Harper (1966) is chockfull of kooky mid-Sixties design and Rat Pack patter (courtesy screenwriter William Goldman). But it must be said that Newman is miscast as the melancholic private eye of Ross Macdonald's literary world, here re-imagined as a wisecracking hepcat who mugs his way through a missing-persons investigation. The supporting cast is a weird over-the-hill gang including Lauren Bacall, Janet Leigh, and Shelley Winters. That film's hero, Lew Harper (renamed from Macdonald's "Archer"), returned in 1976's The Drowning Pool, a more bearable if somewhat humdrum whodunit set in New Orleans. Newman's wife, Joanne Woodward, has a supporting part, but the picture is most notable for an early Melanie Griffith nymphet role.
Pocket Money (1972) is one of those only-in-the-seventies movies that pairs Newman with Lee Marvin in a drowsy, nearly plotless comedy. Both actors give elaborate performances: Newman plays a numbskull two-bit cattle broker who takes absolutely everything literally, and Marvin is his buddy in Mexico who signs on for an ill-considered cattle-buying job. One of the credited screenwriters is Terrence Malick, and the movie has a highly eccentric feel for language. Finally, The Mackintosh Man (1973) is one of the periodic duds that director John Huston would crank out in his otherwise starry career, with Newman as a spy on an incomprehensible case in England. The first half is a red herring, and Dominique Sanda (more recently of The Conformist) is out of depth with the English language. It's a bleak film with a kind of grinding fascination, and the Maurice Jarre score is catchy but fatally overused. --Robert Horton
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