THE DROWNING POOL (1975)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Stuart Rosenberg

SCREENWRITER: Tracy Keenan Wynn, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Walter Hill

FILM STARS: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Richard Derr, Anthony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton, Gail Strickland, Melanie Griffith, Richard Jaeckel, Paul Koslo, Joe Canutt, Andrew Robinson, Coral Browne, Helena Kallianiotes

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Ross Macdonald

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Fontana

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1975

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1950

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Crime

WORDS: I love the Ross Macdonald “Lew Archer” private detective novels …. err “Lew Harper” novels. In 1966, a film starring Paul Newman, called Harper, was made of a Macdonald novel, “The Moving Target” (1949) which had as its lead cynical private eye Lew Archer. Why the change from Archer to Harper? Rumour has it that Newman wanted a “H” film name after the character after his success in The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963) (and he did Hombre in 1967). So “Archer” became “Harper”. Well, “Harcher” doesn’t work. Harper was  big hit … and after much toing and froing this is its sequel.

It wasn’t a hit. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the lack of a “H” title.

Though watchable, in that everything from the 70s is watchable way, I’m not sure why the film wasn’t better. Director Stuart Rosenberg is good and much underrated director, one of the films early draft screenplays was written by the great (later director) Walter Hill, and the cast is good. Newman (an excellent Harper / Archer) and wife Joanne Woodward supported by (the the always reliable) Tony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton, Gail Strickland, (a young) Melanie Griffith, (the always good) Richard Jaeckel, and (the wonderful) Paul Koslo. In a support is Andrew Robinson who played the psychotic serial killer Scorpio in Dirty Harry (1971).

Perhaps the the problem with the film is they moved it from California to Louisiana, and from 1950 to 1975 (though that they had to do as the first film was set in 1966). Lew Archer is (largely) a product of southern California just before the counterculture revolution and looks out of place elsewhere (though the fish out of water theme is (a small) part of the narrative in the film).  It’s not bad but the book is better.

The novel is an excellent entertaining read. I read a lot of Ross Macdonald as my clear the head, stimulate but don’t over exercise the brain late night reads (I also read John D MacDonald (both Ross and John were crime writers writing at the same time – yes unfortunately, from time to time, I attribute one novel to the other in my head) and western writer Louis L’Amour late at night for the same reason). Some will throw “pulp” at these authors. I’m not sure if that is pejorative term anymore but even if it was these writers are a cut above. The stories don’t change greatly from book to book, and the characters only have occasional deep insight but they all usually have a wonderful sense of time and place, or at least they conjure up a time and place I can instantly visualise. And that is, to me, gold.

LINKS

TRAILER