Night Moves

Plot synopsis:
Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a retired professional football player now working as a private investigator in Los Angeles. He discovers that his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) is having an affair with a man named Marty Heller (Harris Yulin).
Aging actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to find her 16-year-old daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith). Arlene's only source of income is her daughter's trust fund, but it requires Delly to be living with her. Arlene gives Harry the name of one of Delly's friends in Los Angeles, a mechanic called Quentin (James Woods). Quentin tells Harry that he last saw Delly at a New Mexico film location, where she started flirting with one of Arlene's old flames, stuntman Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello). Harry realizes that the injuries to Quentin's face are from fighting the stuntman and sympathizes with his bitterness towards Delly. He travels to the film location and talks to Marv and stunt coordinator, Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns). Before returning to Los Angeles, Harry is surprised to see Quentin working on Marv's stunt plane.
Harry suspects that Delly may be trying to seduce her mother's ex-lovers and travels to the Florida Keys, where her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford) lives. In Florida, Harry finds Delly staying with Tom and a woman named Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry, Paula, and Delly take a boat trip to go swimming, but Delly becomes distraught when she finds the submerged wreckage of a small plane with the decomposing body of the pilot inside. Paula marks the spot with a buoy, and when they return to shore, she appears to report the find to the Coast Guard.
Harry persuades Delly to return to her mother in California. After he drops her off at her California home, he still is uneasy about the case, but focuses on patching up his own marriage. He tells his wife he will give up the agency, something she has wanted him to do for a long time, but then he learns that Delly has been killed in a car accident on the set of a movie.
Harry questions the driver of the car, Joey, who was injured. Joey lets him view footage of the crash, which raises Harry's suspicions about Quentin the mechanic. He goes to the home of Arlene Iverson and finds her drunk by the pool, not particularly grief-stricken over the death of her daughter. Arlene now stands to inherit her daughter's wealth. Harry tracks down Quentin, who denies being the killer, but tells him that Marv Ellman was the dead pilot in the plane and that Ellman was involved in smuggling. Quentin manages to escape before Harry can learn more.
Harry returns to Florida, where he finds the body of Quentin the mechanic floating in Tom's dolphin pen. Harry accuses Tom of the murder, they fight, and Tom is knocked unconscious. Paula admits she did not report the dead body in the plane because the aircraft contained a valuable sculpture that they were smuggling piecemeal to the United States. Harry and Paula set off to retrieve the sculpture. While Paula is diving, a seaplane arrives and the pilot strafes the boat, machine-gunning Harry in the leg. The seaplane lands on the ocean, but when the pilot sees Paula surface with the sculpture, he charges the plane at her and she is killed. The impact of the pontoons on the surfaced sculpture shatters the seaplane, and as the cockpit submerges into the ocean, Harry is able to see through the glass window beneath his boat that the drowning pilot is Joey Ziegler.
Harry unsuccessfully tries to steer the boat which is now travelling in circles.
=== My Night at Maud's ===
An often quoted line from Night Moves occurs when Moseby declines an invitation from his wife to see the movie My Night at Maud's: "I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kinda like watching paint dry." The exchange from Night Moves was quoted in director Éric Rohmer's New York Times obituary in 2010. Penn himself was an admirer of Rohmer's films; Jim Emerson has written that, "Harry's remark, as scripted by Alan Sharp, is a brittle homophobic jab at a gay friend of his wife's." Bruce Jackson has written an extended discussion of the role of My Night at Maud's (1970) in Night Moves; viewers familiar with the earlier film may recognize that its protagonist and Moseby have related opportunities for infidelity, but respond differently.

Tags: neo noir, murder

Review:
Private investigator Harry Moseby (Hackman) has his hands full retrieving a teen runaway (Griffith) from the Florida Keys back to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, the private detective and former athlete Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is hired by the retired obscure Hollywood actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) to find her 16 year-old missing daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith).
It is however one of Hackman's best outings - whether he liked it or not.Lots of great detail - the contrast between Hackman's study with the black and white TV where sports will kill his eyes and Yullin's tasteful home, which makes us share Hackman's loathing of the character, feeding dolphins, the glass bottom boat or the theatre viewing (which respects the different format of the two cameras for once.) The performances are consistently vivid, reflecting well on Penn, with soon to be stars Griffith (particularly memorable) and Woods running level with largely forgotten character people.
It stars Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Susan Clark, James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin, Kenneth Mars and Janet Ward.
Music is by Michael Small and cinematography by Bruce Surtees.Former footballer turned private detective in Los Angeles Harry Moseby (Hackman), gets hired by an ageing actress to track down her trust- funded daughter Delly Grastner (Griffith), who is known to be in Florida.
And that's the lasting reputation of the film, that it pulls off this kind of modernized noir world with originality.The director is Arthur Penn, who's great "Bonnie and Clyde" kicked off the shift into New Hollywood sensibility.
Hackman is the one great actor here, however, and if there's a key problem with "Night Moves," it's that he almost but not quite supports the film alone.
It also benefits from being from that new golden era of cinema, the 70s, where the films showcase a gritty side to characters, often played by some of the best anti-hero actors of all time -- Hackman, in this case.
A two-bit private investigator named Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), who has problems with his wife, goes in search of a runaway sixteen year old girl.
Background music sounds cheap, canned, and nondescript."Night Moves" may be a great movie for fans of Gene Hackman, who does a nice job in his role.
All other characters orbit Hackman's character, and exist solely to give Harry Moseby a reason to exist.But I was more interested in the film's mystery element, and that was left muddled, convoluted, and poorly plotted.
About the best I can say for "Night Moves", apart from Hackman's good performance, is that there is some technically well-done stunt work near the end, involving a small plane on pontoons..
The plot starts in a rather straightforward way: We have a former footballer, Harry Moseby (Hackman), who now makes his living as a private detective, and gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case.
As Moseby starts his investigation however, he realizes that nothing is as straightforward as it seemed; if you add the complication that his marriage has got into serious trouble, then you can realize that he is probably in a situation which he can barely handle...Although the plot is quite fascinating in itself, providing us with several twists until the very end, the secret of the film's attractiveness lies in psychology: Director Arthur Penn does a magnificent job in showing us how a beaming, full of dynamism and self-confidence Moseby, is getting entangled in a situation which progressively drives him to successive bottoms.
The film offers other good performances as well, including the young James Woods and Melanie Griffith who are in the beginning of their careers."Night Moves" is also full of subtle symbolism, with Penn providing us with plenty of arty material.
***SPOILERS*** Like the champion chess games that we see private detective Harry Moseby, Gene Hackman, play and replay in the film "Night Moves" the case that he's taken on to find former Hollywood starlet Arleen Iverson's, Janet Ward, 16 year-old runaway daughter Delly, Melanie Griffith, has a number of important moves that he, like the chess-masters who he's studying, completely overlooked.On the first night on the job on the Delly Grastner case Harry catches his wife Ellen, Susan Clark, leaving an art movie with the co-owner of her antique shop Charles, Ben Archibek, and takes off with a stranger (to Harry) the limping Marty Heller, Harris Yulin, and then make out with him in the back of his car.
The movie "Night Moves" unwinds slowly from an missing person case to a multi-million dollar smuggling operation involving Yucatan artifacts that has a number of Hollywood-types, who end up dead, involved in it.
Harry, who during the movie has an affair with Paula and at the same time gets Ellen to come back to him doesn't know what he up against and is slowly made to understand just who his friends and enemies really are in the film by all the chess pieces falling into place..
"Night Moves" is one of the better neo-noirs of the '70s, with Hackman in a similar role to the one Nicholson perfected in "Chinatown" the year before.I think the contribution that the filmmakers of the '70s made to film noir was to create a character who was as lost in the plot as we were.
What I missed personally was the lack of real confrontation between the detective and his "enemies", the characters of them were rather schematic.Most of the names within the movie do not require introduction even for current film lovers - Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Melanie Griffith, James Woods, whereas the last two give pleasant and memorable supporting performances.
Gene Hackman plays former football player now private detective Harry Mosby who is hired by a former Hollywood star to find her wayward stepdaughter(played by Melanie Griffith) His attempts to locate her lead him to a shady mechanic(played by James Woods) and some Hollywood stunt men.
This proves to be far from a simple missing person case, even after he does locate her...because that doesn't conclude things, but instead leads to a bigger mystery, and a murder.Directed by Arthur Penn, this is an intriguing and solid mystery that doesn't unfold the way you would expect, leading to an exciting climax on the ocean between a boat and a plane.
And that's a real movie-making accomplishment, whether the story is taken as a murder mystery, a character study or an existentialist exercise.Anyway, if you don't mind looking through a glass darkly, this is the PI film to catch.(In passing—for those really into unlocking the puzzle, catch the thread 'Night Moves ending- huh?' on the Discussion Board.
Our subject movie title is a play on words involving a chess gambit using the "knight" pieces demonstrated by our PI Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) during the course of the film.
(It's written by Alan Sharp who also scripted cult favourites like Peter Fonda's 'The Hired Hand' and Peckinpah's final movie 'The Osterman Weekend') Gene Hackman had made 'The Conversation' with Coppola the previous year, why 'Night Moves' isn't thought of as highly is a mystery to me.
A teenage Melanie Griffith understandably gets a lot of attention, as does her future 'Another Day In Paradise' co-star James Woods (looking very skinny and intense!) but there's also fine acting from lesser known performers like Jennifer Warren, Janet Ward, Harris Yulin and Susan Clark.
NIGHT MOVES (mystery-thriller, 1975) Private detective Harry (Gene Hackman) is hired by ex-model-turned-actress Arlene to find her missing 16-year old daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith).
A tricky mystery ensues and Moseby has to rely on all his experience to solve it.Critique: Tough, sometimes confusing thriller packs surefire acting, direction (by Arthur Penn) that is reminiscent of the classic film-noir of 1940s and 50s crime flicks.
Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a modern-day private eye in Los Angeles who is hired by a former-actress to find her runaway 16-year-old daughter.
Cited by many critics as one of the best and most important American movies of the 1970s, Arthur Penn's Night Moves hasn't stood the test of time in terms of popularity.
But no film has been as successful at cutting to the heart of what drives these self- loathing deadbeats and the manipulating bombshells distracting them as Arthur Penn's Night Moves.Private investigator and former American football star Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) works freelance, preferring to gulp down coffees during long stakeouts on his own time than to be on the payroll of a larger agency.
A conversation with mechanic Quentin (James Woods) leads Harry to a thrill-seeking movie stuntman, and then to the Florida Keys, where he discovers Delly hiding out with her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford), and a striking woman named Paula (Jennifer Warren).As a straight-forward detective story, Night Moves will likely divide an audience.
Surely a better film could have secured for Gene Hackman and director Arthur Penn.
What separated Arthur Penn's vision from that of Altman's down and dirty Marlowe or the successful private dick up against a huge behemoth of a case of Polanski's is that we get to know this character a lot better early on than we do in other detective movies and, notwithstanding the hazardous nature of the case at hand, feels grounded in a sense of reality that is uncommon to the genre.
Penn also realizes that it's not always about story but about mood; those Florida scenes are exceptionally staged, given moments of shock (the discovery of the body, not to mention the nudity right before it from young Melanie Griffifth) and those scenes in the night or in Harry's bed for a sex scene.
Even the way he'll place music in certain scenes is fascinating; what could be used as something to pump up the adrenaline for the fight between Harry and Tom with the Spanish music station is more like a subtle backdrop, meant more for the location than the actual physical event.While I'm also leaving out other great things about the technical side of the picture- Dede Allen's editing, which goes without saying how brilliant another end-edit job she does at the ocean/plane climax, not to mention the careful but firm handling of all the actors- Gene Hackman is most likely the best reason to seek out the picture.
It's not just his former football gig that mucked Harry up, but his inability to reach out to his father, or to his wife before it was too late, and we see this disconnect portrayed wonderfully by Hackman here, even in moments that might slip some viewers by like the 'Where were you when Kennedy...' question.I may have not spent too much time saying what the plot is about.
Leisurely paced, often tedious modern film noir, somewhat redeemed by fine performances (especially by Gene Hackman) and some admittedly well-handled scenes (the two final deaths in the movie are very memorable).
In "Night Moves", Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a private investigator from L.A. who takes on the case of a missing daughter.
As he focuses on his cases, he misses the peripheral details of his own life and the clues to remedy the situation.The film's title is a variation on "knight moves", which refers to a famous chess game and implies that Harry might be more successful in life if he thought creatively (instead of getting bogged down in minutiae).Directed by Arthur Penn, "Night Moves" may not appeal to viewers who prefer traditional story arcs.
It features Jennifer Warren in her second big screen role, a young James Woods two years after "The Way We Were", and teenage Melanie Griffith in her first credited performance.
I mention this because viewers might wanna consider that when they are thinking about watching the movie.The story is about a rather earthy and non-glamorous private investigator, Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman).
Given a script which is at least competent, certainly fresh and bordering on perceptive in places - plus a largely excellent cast (poor Susan Clark is horribly miscast as the wayward wife, about as bad as you might expect Doris Day to be) - you'd think that the creator of Bonny & Clyde and Little Big Man would have done so much better with the tools at his disposal.Gene Hackman manfully keeps on trying to blow life into the lead character of Harry Moseby, and the script helps him do so, but the whole effort lacks conviction.
So that taught me something about good and bad editing.When young Melanie Griffiths appeared in her very first credited movie role, nailing her part with utter conviction, she made every other player look pedestrian, including the highly experienced Hackman.
You can enjoy "Night moves" as a simple thriller , but not only ending should suggest you that this is more of an art drama .Gene Hackman is superb as the rude detective .
When Arthur Penn's Night Moves was filmed, Melanie Griffith was sixteen years old and as beautiful a young lady as you would ever find on this planet.
Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a terribly flawed L.A. private detective and former football star.
Harry and Paula are on a boat with Delly diving when she finds a dead man in a crashed plane.This is a lesser known gem from Hackman in the same era as his classic 'The Conversation'.
Much Admired Neo-Noir from Director Arthur Penn and Starring Gene Hackman and a Very Young and Very Nude Melanie Griffith in Her First Credited Performance.
But as he is able to locate people, Harry can divert from his marital problems.Harry's front man Nick (Kenneth Mars), who collects old Mexican statuary, leads him to frumpy alcoholic Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), a most promiscuous and aging B-grade movie actress, to retrieve her 16-year old runaway stepdaughter Delilah "Delly" Grastner (an uninhibited 16 or 17-year old Melanie Griffith during filming).
One of the more interesting and overlooked mystery films of the 1970s is Arthur Penns' "Night Moves", a snappily written and neatly plotted (by Alan Sharp) concoction about Harry Moseby, played by Gene Hackman.
The relationships are well developed, with Hackman getting some good chemistry going with both Warren and Clark; the scenes with these performers tend to be the best in the film.
Although there's nothing remarkable about the investigation that follows, it soon leads into a complex mystery that involves a number of murders, a collection of suspicious characters and an investigator who's constantly baffled by the events that go on around him.Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is the down-on-his-luck, L.A. private detective who's hired by a former actress to find her promiscuous 16-year-old daughter, Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith).
Gene Hackman shines in this excellent and hauntingly downbeat 70's private eye film noir mystery thriller gem.
Gene Hackman gives a typically fine and compelling performance as Harry Moseby, a former pro football player turned brusque and scruffy private detective who takes on the deceptively simple case of finding the brash and alluring 16-year-old runaway nymphet daughter (a very young and enticing Melanie Griffith in her first substantial film role) of a boozy, faded erstwhile actress (superbly played to bitchy perfection by Janet Ward).
If you want to see the reason that Gene Hackman is probably one of the best American actors EVER, watch "The Conversation", "The French Connection", "Unforgiven", "Hoosiers", hell almost anything other than "Night Moves".SPOILERS AHEAD!===========================================I wanted to point out two specific things that I found particularly terrible about this film.
Private eye Harry Mosby (Gene Hackman) in Los Angeles is hired to bring back the daughter of a former film star and has to go to the Florida keys to get her.
Since Mosby and his wife have reconciled earlier in the film, I think it's fair to assume that they will try to make a go of it together, rather than ending up dead or lost, like every other character in the movie.
The classic ending for every film that never had any real plot to begin with.I like Penn a lot and also just recently watched his Little Big Man, which I consider a masterpiece.
Hackman plays a washed up football player now working in a dead end job of a private detective in L.A. His wife is unfaithful, and he gets emotionally invested in a sleazy case that involves a runaway teenager.The setting shifts to Florida with another dreary subplot and miserable characters.
Somehow, the sleazy Los Angeles characters are linked to those in Florida, where a totally confusing ending takes place on a boat.Typically a competent film director, Arthur Penn seems like an amateur in this half-baked thriller/detective yarn.
NIGHT MOVES (1975) **** Gene Hackman, Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, Ed Binns, Harris Yulin, Kenneth Mars, Janet Ward, James Woods, Melanie Griffith.
Little gem from the '70s with Hackman in top form as ex-athlete turned private eye Harry Moseby (great name), whose preoccupation with his disintergrating marriage leads him into a missing persons case involving a long-in-the-tooth B-movie has-been (Ward) whose daughter (a surprisingly young, comely Griffith) she wants found.
If you can look past the 70s mustache and Donald Trump comb over that Gene Hackman is sporting in this film, Night Moves is an enjoyable twist on the classic private eye story.Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) used to be a pro football player.
Middle aged former movie actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to track down her wayward 16 year old daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith).
That sets in motion a chain of events that sends Delly to her mother in Los Angeles but eventually leads Harry back to Florida to discover what's really going onwith murderous consequences all around.Being born in 1971, I didn't have much chance to see many 70s movies like Night Moves.
The story also creates a nice mix of the grown up, touchy-feely stuff between Harry and his wife and the rapid-fire pace at which the plot of Harry and Delly unfolds.Night Moves is a treat for all Hackman fans or anyone who likes their mysteries with more drama than melodrama.