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)

Paul Newman is one of the all-time great movie actors with a career that now spans six decades. Among his biggest movies are The Hustler, Hud, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Cool Hand Luke The Verdict, The Color of Money (for which he won the Oscar) and even Cars. None of these movies are in the Paul Newman Collection, which features seven of his second-tier efforts. That does not mean they are bad movies, merely not as big.

In chronological order, the first movie in the set is Somebody Up There Likes Me, a biopic of boxer Rocky Graziano. Directed by Robert Wise (who had previously made one of the best boxing movies ever, The Set-Up), this is an entertaining film of a man successfully wrestling his inner demons to become a success. In one of his earliest roles, Newman is already showing why he a cinema immortal.

The next movie is The Left-Handed Gun, a decent, if unspectacular, version of the Billy the Kid story (the best version of this story is Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). Newman, as the title character, plays Billy similarly to his Rocky: a self-destructive outlaw. Unlike Graziano, however, Billy never finds redemption through family and friends.

The Young Philadelphians has a more easy-going Newman playing the ambitious Anthony Lawrence who climbs the social and business ladder, often with more than a little ruthlessness. When his best friend is accused of murder, his efforts towards acquittal threaten both his happiness and reputation. This is an entertaining melodrama. A little bonus is seeing a pre-Batman Adam West as a man who is very briefly married to Anthony's mother.

Harper is the first of two Newman movie adaptations of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels (the name was changed to continue Newman's string of "H" movies: Hud, Hustler, etc.). This fun private eye story is a real all-star flick: it also stars Janet Leigh, Lauren Bacall, Robert Wagner and Shelly Winters. The plot deals with Harper's attempts to find a missing - apparently kidnapped - man; in his search, he unearths all kinds of family scandal. The sequel (and last movie, chronologically) is The Drowning Pool, which transports Harper to New Orleans to help an old flame with a blackmailer. Like most sequels, this is a pale shadow of its predecessor, but it has its moments. It also has Melanie Griffith in one of her earliest roles.

Pocket Money is probably the weakest in the set, an amiable but meandering movie with Newman as a modern day cowboy hired to buy and transport some cattle for a shady businessman. Lee Marvin co-stars as his friend and partner. It's a movie in which the parts just don't seem to fit together all that well.

Finally, there is the Mackintosh Man, a spy flick with Newman as a British agent out to stop a Soviet network inside England that specializes in smuggling people out of the country. While this is an interesting movie, Newman's foray into James Bond territory is a little too serious to be fully enjoyed. From an acting standpoint, this is probably his least compelling role in the set.

There are lots of bonuses with the set, including commentaries on the first four movies; the best of these is William Goldman's amusing and biting track for Harper. On the Amazon rating system, Pocket Money is a low-three stars, The Left Handed Gun, The Mackintosh Man and the Drowning Pool a straight three, and the remainder four stars. As is my practice with boxed sets, I average this out to a high-three stars or low-four, but the extras push it up to a comfortable four stars. You don't get the best or most well-known Newman with this set, but you do get a good sampling of his talent and range.

I really enjoyed watching theses seven movies the Young Philadelphians, Somebody Up There Likes me and, the Drowning Pool and Harper were amoung my favorite. the Left handed Gun, the Mackintosh Man, and Pocket were good but seemed to be a little slow in parts. I still enjoyed them however, I've always liked Paul Newman, and there are not to many movies,
he has been in that I haven't liked.

I love this collection. I have some of these on VCR but now I have them all on DVD and I am thrilled.

"Somebody Up There Likes Me", the movie that made Paul Newman,is included here,along with stylishly dated "Harper", and one of thousands (it seems) movies about Billy the Kid, "The Left-Handed Gun". The others are typically cool Newman movies. A pretty good collection, but I'd still like to see a box set of his classics.

I've waited years for the DVD release of my favorite Newman movie, The Young Philadelphians. That opus is a wonderful example of 1950s melodrama with wonderful characters and acting, a joy to watch. Nevertheless, Hollywood for years busied itself with releasing DVDs of every middling new movie and TV series, ignoring quality works like TYP and the Heston/Hayward masterpiece, The President's Lady, which still is not available. For the first time The Young Philadelphians is here on DVD.

Enjoy!

It's time now to release The President's Lady and others of its type!