Mrs. Dalloway

(Paramount)

Robert Benton's tepid noir has Paul Newman as former private investigator Harry Ross, now a live-in assistant at the palatial Hollywood estate of old pal Gene Hackman and keeping company with Jack's still nubile wife, Catherine (Susan Sarandon). Jack asks Harry to look into some people who are blackmailing him; what follows is breezy, predictable, and incoherent, with the legendary cast evoking past greatness long enough to underscore the present movie's inadequacies.