There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Paul Newman returns to his private detective role Lew Harper, following 1966's "Harper", in another murder-yarn adapted from a Ross Macdonald novel (wherein the lead character was named Archer). Transplanted from Southern California to the bayous of Louisiana, Harper is up to his aw-shucks smile in trouble while investigating a blackmail plot which involves his former lady-friend (Joanne Woodward), a Southern belle from a prominent New Orleans family living under the thumb of an oppressive matriarch. An intimidating letter soon turns to murder, and the suspects include: the woman's nubile daughter (Melanie Griffith), a wealthy fat-cat (Murray Hamilton), and even the police chief (Tony Franciosa, sporting an oddball walrus mustache). Strictly TV-detective stuff, polished by the classy cast and Gordon Willis' terrific cinematography. It looks good and goes down smoothly, but doesn't leave a trace of itself behind. ** from ****

This is one of the best films Newman made in a very distinguished career. It's his second performance as Lew Harper and this time he is away from his usual California stamping grounds. There are some very fine performances including a knock-out appearance from a very young Melanie Griffith. Ross MacDonald was one of the most thoughtful detective writers, with great plots and strong characterisations. If I had to choose one performance to highlight it would be Tony Franciosa as a tough but decent police chief. But there are no bad performances at all. And in this story, as with many others MacDonald wrote, the motive driving the villainous Kilbourne (brilliantly played by Murray Hamilton,) is big enough to justify the story. But something even darker is at work as we discover. A great and underrated film.

This film is finally decent and the suspense is quite OK, though with some little thinking we could think the end right from the very beginning. I can't tell you how otherwise you may yell SPOILER in about twenty-five languages including Arabic and Hebrew, both modern and old. Louisiana is there in front of you, New Orleans, a little bit though not the Mardi Gras festivities, too bad, but the bayous quite a lot, though they seem to look like the Everglades in Florida. Well I must be fantasizing or I must have watched too many Miami Vice-Squad series. One thing is sure down south they sure have an accent and they sure do not work the same way as in any other part of the world. But I guess they kill the same, they embezzle the same, they corrupt the same as anywhere else in the whole world. With money, for money, under the influence and the smell of money. What a universal devil those satanic green backs are and you can't escape them, no matter how much money you yourself have, no matter how many bodyguards you may have, no matter how many guns you may be able to brandish, no matter how many corrupted fiendish friends you must be able to have in the wings. A bullet or some pills will do the job quite well. That's the main interest of a private eye series: it can without any reserve reveal the depth of the guano we are living in all the time and every day, and in this case you can't imagine, and a "normal" cops series will not show you how decayed any police department must be. Well even Dexter is slightly short on that one. I liked the trickiness and intricacies of the plot, the unbearable arrogance of local cops, the thickness of the local accent, the superb local streetcars called Desire, but I didn't see one alligator, too bad. They must have been gone on vacation, or maybe they had been substituted with caimans or crocodiles, who knows, but I would have enjoyed a bowl of alligator soup in a Rue Royale restaurant. Run to that film, it is funny, more strange than ah ah. And girls are just what they are supposed to be, big traps with long teeth, but they bark more than they bite.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

What a lesson this is in how slight humor moves out of its zone in time! When this was new, Paul Newman delivered a perfect character, one with smart, funny lines, an attitude and a sexual presence. We saw New Orleans, which then by definition was something of a fun joke. We had sexual encounters with four sexy women. And we had one impressive stunt. Newman's character is trapped in an abandoned mental hospital. He and the villain's sexy wife have as few clothes as the raters will allow, and fill the room with water with the plan of floating to a skylight to escape.When we saw this new, somehow we didn't care that Newman's 50 year old body was not attractive. The sexy women — who include a seventeen year old Melanie Griffith, are by today's standards as outside the profile of humorous sex and the other humor is. Nothing works here, including the 70's shirts and hair styles.When Newman finally thought he achieved a level of competence in acting — decades later — this would be one of the main films he would mention as horrible.Except for Newman, Woodward and Lolita Griffith, all the actors were pulled from the TeeVee pool, and look like it.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.