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The Drowning Pool

The Drowning Pool

Thriller · Mystery · 1975

Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.

Movie details

The Drowning Pool

“Harper days are here again...”

1975 Thriller · Mystery 1h 49m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.3 / 10

Community rating

Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Drowning Pool?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Harper

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Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.

Woman on the Run

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The Apology

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The Big Fix

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Minority Report

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Stuart Rosenberg

Written by

Tracy Keenan Wynn · Lorenzo Semple Jr. · Walter Hill

Paul Newman

Paul Newman

Lew Harper

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward

Iris

Anthony Franciosa

Anthony Franciosa

Broussard

Murray Hamilton

Murray Hamilton

Kilbourne

Gail Strickland

Gail Strickland

Mavis

Melanie Griffith

Melanie Griffith

Schuyler

Linda Haynes

Linda Haynes

Gretchen

Court is in session

Put The Drowning Pool on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Big-Idea Head

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.