Paul Newman steps into the hard-boiled tradition of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe as Lew Harper, a "new type" of detective -- as he puts it. Lauren Bacall plays the wife of a missing millionaire who hires the reluctant Harper to find him. Coming across a menagerie of pulp characters including a gigolo (Robert Wagner), a junkie (Julie Harris) and a group of cultists, Harper unravels a case of kidnap and murder in this sharply written mystery.