SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Predrag This is follow up to "Harper" and Paul Newman reprises his role as a private detective loosely based on Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer. The plot is based around Harper being a few years older but basically the same style PI you came to like in Harper. He is smart and has a drive to finish a case; even if he ends up in trouble. You get a mix of Joanne Woodward, Melanie Griffith (as a teen), Tony Franciosa (doing a very good job acting) and a stellar supporting cast. There are a lot of twists and turns, a lot of dialog, one shootout - it's Newman as Harper! Set in pre-Katrina New Orleans, "The Drowning Pool" is a rich stew of intrigue, great cast performances and classic MacDonald twists and turns within a dangerously dysfunctional family. Paul Newman completely inhabits Lew Harper's character, the settings are alternately grand and deliciously seedy, and the cinematography is excellent. A very young Melany Griffith place the infant terrible' in this film, not bad for a kid breaking into the movie game. But the chief action focuses on Newman and he does not disappoint. There's also some interesting plot points involving oil off the coast, and the resulting corruption of the police as money was shovelled around to secure drilling rights.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Robert J. Maxwell Paul Newman is the same private detective he played in "Harper" but about the only connection between the two films is his mostly offhand attitude towards events. "The Drowning Pool" is set in New Orleans and doesn't have a dozen recognizable character actors in supporting roles. It's more focused, less ambiguous, and doesn't end with a great big question mark. Newman digs up all the answers and leaves the resolution in the hands of the locals. Of course he gets slugged a few times and almost drowned but he does some slugging of his own.It's a complex mystery story and rather routine. The director was Stuart Rosenberg, who gave us a genuine handful in "Cool Hand Luke" but here is saddled with a pedestrian script. A lot of sentiment is lavished on the apparent suicide of Joanne Woodward, a local belle whom we've hardly gotten to know. The ultimate killer is a flighty young girl who hardly seems capable of such intrigue.Yet the film has its moments. There is, for instance, Paul Newman's first abduction by the local oil baron, Murray Hamilton. In a scene we're all familiar with, three or four over-sized goons approach Newman and order him into their car. Newman backs away with a determined expression and says, "Look, I think it's only fair to warn you fellas that my hands are registered in California as lethal weapons." One of the fellas opens his jacket to reveal an automatic tucked into his belt. Newman laughs it off with a joke about only being a brown belt. But the switch from defiance to compliance is done with a panache that only Newman could deliver. Burt Reynolds would have tried but not succeeded. Neither Sylvester Stallone nor Clint Eastwood would have bothered trying.Then, later, there is a short exchange between Newman and Murray Hamilton, who is sitting on a couch complaining that his bad stomach won't let him eat the shrimp étouffé that he himself has prepared. Hamilton, who was a great snooker player against Newman in "The Hustler," asks with a vast phony smile just what it is that Newman wants. "I want a big chunk of those oil fields," Newman replies. A moment passes while Hamilton continues to smile off into empty space, before replying, "You know, in addition to this bad stomach of mine, I think Nature has left me a little hard of hearing." I know it's not funny in print but it is on screen.Final moment: Newman and the nicely assembled Gail Strickland are in their underwear gasping for the bit of air remaining in a space at the top of a hydrotherapy room in an abandoned mental hospital. (Don't ask.) Gail Strickland has always reminded me of Gayle Hunnicut, another Southern beauty, so much so that I've come to believe they're one and the same person. No? Then let me ask: Has anyone ever seen them in the same room at the same time? I thought not. Q.E.D.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) With the possible exception of his movie debut as Basil the Sculptor in the bombed out, at the box office, 1954 film "the Silver Chalice" the movie "The Drowning Pool" is one film that the late Paul Newman would most want to forget being in.Follow up to his 1966 hit "Harper" Newman is back as the wisecracking and handsome as a movie star, which in fact he is, cool as a cucumber private eye Lew Harper but in new surroundings. Called from his home base in L.A Harper is hired to go to the Bayou Country by his former lover Iris Devereaux, Joanne Woodward, who's being blackmailed. What exactly Iris is being blackmailed about seemed a bit muddy, like the Southern Louisiana swamps, but according to her it somehow has to do with Iris' just fired chauffeur Pat Reavis, Andy Robinson, who claims-in the blackmail note-that he's got the goods on her! As Harper starts to get some mileage in his investigation he runs into local police Chief Broussard, Anthony Franciosa, who tries to put the cuffs on him at every opportunity. There's also Brossard' second in command the sweaty and high strung Lt. Franks, Richard Jaeckel, who's even more determined to put Harper away then even his neurotic boss, in regards to what's going on in the movie, Chief Broussard!We soon find out that Iris' step-mother Mrs. Olivia Devereaux, Coral Browne, known in these parts as the "Bird Lady" is really the cause to all the problems that both she and her sexy Lolita like 17 year-old daughter Schuyler, Melanie Griffith, are having. It fact it's Schuyler who at first tried to entrap Harper in having sex with her in a local motel which he gentlemanly refused by smacking Schuyler around! We also find out that the very hot to trot Schuyler was, or is still, having a hot and heavy affair with Reavis which may be the reason he's, in revenge for her firing him, blackmailing her mom Iris!The movie "The Drowning Pool" goes on and on with different plot-line thrown into it including Mrs. Olivia Devereaux's land holdings which Oil Barron Kilbourne, Murray Hamilton, whats to get his grubby hands on. It's also Kilbourne who, surprise surprise, the just fired Pat Reavis just happens to be working for. ironically one of the hoods that also works for Kilbourne Candy, Paul Koslo, looks so much like Reavis that for a moment,long after Revis departed from the movie, I though they were one and the same person!****SPOILER**** As you would have expected nothing is what it at first seems to be in a movie like this with the truth in this case being far more believable and logical then what the film tried to make you think it was. The half-a** surprise ending was anything but surprising in that by just observing the body language of the those in the movie it gave itself away within the first ten minutes! Only worth watching because of Paul Newman's super-cool performance as P.I Lew Harper with a really cool sequence towards the end of the movie with Newman, or Lew Harper, and Milbourne's abused wife Marvis, Gail Strickland, almost drowning in and effort to escape from being murdered by Kilbourne and his sidekick Candy in what's to be known as the film's title: "The Drowning Pool".

tedg 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.