The dames just melt in the presence of Paul Newman’s laconic title character in “Harper,” a serio-comic detective thriller filmed when Newman was at his peak, but a film never regarded as one of his best. Because it isn’t.

“Dames” as an expression had gone out of fashion by the time this William Goldman adaptation of a Ross MacDonald book came out. It’s still something of a throwback picture — smart-assed and half “hip,” but old-fashioned touches abound.

Rear-projection was passe, and day-for-night filming was fading from use, which didn’t keep director Jack Smight from clumsily trotting it out (It’s “night” and no car lights are on.). He was a “Twilight Zone” veteran who’d make lots of TV, and bloated ’70s actioners like “Airport ’75” and “Midway” before retiring well short of ever achieving critic Andrew Sarris’s vaunted “pantheon.”

But watching Newman hardboil his way through a sea of swans, tough but fearful, physically overmatched (he rarely came off “shorter” on the screen) but quick on the uptake, quicker on the comeback, is pure Newmanesque pleasure.

Lew Harper is a gumshoe cliche, a not-that-successful PI who lives in a two room flat, dozing off with the TV on. He drives a half-primered ’55 Porsche 356 convertible and before we meet the almost-ex (Janet Leigh) we’ve guessed he’s going through a divorce.

But thanks to an old pal Albert (Arthur Hill), he catches a break. A rich paraplegic (Lauren Bacall) wants him to track down her oft-wandering husband. Her husband’s private pilot (Robert Wagner) might be a help. Her stepdaughter, the vivacious Miranda (Pamela Tiffin) probably won’t. She’s smitten with the pilot and might be interested in Mr. Bright Blue Eyes just enough to make the flyboy jealous.

Harper’s hunt will take him to a lot of bars, one where a faded screen starlet (Shelley Winters) will need to be flirted with and plyed with drinks, another where a junky singer (Julie Harris) presides at the piano.

There’s also a cult leader (“Cool Hand Luke’s” tormentor, Strother Martin!) and the “fat” starlet’s menacing gay husband (Robert Webber) to contend with, as well as cops (Newman’s “The Sting” co star Harold Gould) to insult.

“I used to be a sheriff, till I pass my literacy test.”

Harper’s got a mouth on him, and considering he’s dealing with possible kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, cult leaders and goons, that’s always going to get him into trouble.

“You gotta way of starting conversations that end conversation.”

Thriller novelist MacDonald was a natural match for the then-rising Dean of Hollywood screenwriters, William Goldman, who’d go on to script “The Sting” and adapt “Misery” and write THE book on screenwriting and “the business” — “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” The story is twisty and convoluted, usually to the film’s advantage. Characters give each other cutting nicknames — “Old Stick” and “Beauty.” And the dialogue crackles.

“‘The Bottom’ is loaded with ‘nice’ people, Albert. Only cream and bastards rise.”

Harper’s good at brushing off the flirtatious 20ish Miranda.

“You need a tail on your kite – something to slow you down. So you’ll stop acting like a bitch in heat every time something pretty in pants wanders by.”

The picture’s a tad coarse, with “fat” jokes at Winters’ character’s expense, Hispanophobic cracks from her character and a homophobic slur adorning Harper’s jaded sexism.

You don’t have to buy into Western icon Strother Martin as a mountaintop guru getting his cult up and running. But film buffs will be amused by the casting and Martin’s take on the character.

“Harper” is long, and even if it doesn’t play that way, the finale feels abrupt — like a producer threw a fit, waved a bill and a call sheet and yelled “Wrap this up — NOW!”

Goldman contended for a couple of awards for the script, which are the only laurels this one collected. But seen now, “Harper” feels like a transitional film, airing out the old gumshoe picture cliches one more time, and adding the cliches of all private eye movies to come — the “car with character,” among them.

And Newman, aging but doing it gracefully, tough but plainly too short to be “that” tough, twinkling every time he delivers a zinger, and holding his own with the most formidable cast of women — Leigh, Bacall, Winters, Harris and Tiffin — he’d ever work with, carries this thriller in ways that let us forget that there are a long time between thrills.

Rating: TV-PG, violence, alcohol abuse, sexual situations, profanity and a homophobic slur

Cast: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Shelley Winters, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Pamela Tiffin, Strother Martin, Robert Webber and Arthur Hill.

Credits: Directed by Jack Smight, scripted by William Goldman, based on a Ross MacDonald novel. A Warner Brothers release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 2:00