Night Moves (1975) User Reviews

A Thriller about a Private Investigator (with a Stunning Conclusion)

[romanorum1 · 8/10 · 15 May 2015]

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), LA private investigator and former NFL player, has a marital problem. He likes his loner private eye lifestyle, but his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) wants Harry to join a large detective agency. Ellen, an antiques vendor, commits adultery and even has the effrontery to take offense. 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). Arlene's deceased first husband was a movie mogul, the reason for her getting a few acting roles. Divorced from her second, Tom Iverson, Arlene relies on Delly for her only means of support through a trust-fund, although step-mom needs to maintain custody. Arlene tells Harry that Delly uses drugs and has a licentious lifestyle (like step-mom). Acting on a tip from mechanic Quentin (James Woods) one of Delly's former boyfriends whom Harry tracked down, Harry heads to a filming location, where he meets stunt pilots Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns) and Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello); the latter and Quentin fought over Delly. After, during Harry's second meeting with Arlene, he learns that he can find Delly in the Florida Keys living with her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford) a charter pilot. In Florida Harry finds Delly, who is staying with Iverson and Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry soon becomes aware that Tom is involved with smuggling of some kind. Tom tells Harry that he wants Delly to return to her stepmother. We later learn that Tom "got foolish" with Delly. "There oughta be a law," he says to the investigator. Harry retorts, "There is."

SPOILERS BEGIN: Meanwhile we are immersed in a convoluted plot, not always well explained, about smuggling $500,000 worth of Yucatan art treasures and murder. One night during a boating trip in Iverson's boat ("Point of View"), skinny-dipping Delly locates a crashed airplane with a dead pilot inside, his face eaten away by fish. (We later learn that it is Marv; observe he is no longer seen on the film.) Paula lies to Harry that she placed a float to mark the spot for the Coast Guard. In reality she wants to help Tom locate and move the sunken smuggled artifacts. Paula lies often. Now Harry loves chess. He tells Paula about a 1922 game (Germany) where Black had a checkmate over White with a Queen sacrifice and three follow up moves with Knights: "He played something else and he lost. He must have regretted it every day of his life. I know I would have." Will Harry be like him and not see the correct moves until it is too late? The movie title can metaphorically morph to "Knight Moves." Anyway at night Paula makes a move on Harry, but it is really a diversion for Tom to get away and move the downed artifacts. During the same night skittish Delly has a nightmare, after which she demands to be taken home.

Back in LA Delly argues with Arlene, and Harry's wife Ellen still has her lover. Then Ellen hears that Delly died while filming an on-location stunt with Joey Ziegler. Was she put away purposely? Probably she naively blabbed her discovery to the wrong folks. Anyway, Ziegler himself was injured and has his right arm in a full, extended cast. Did Quentin tamper with the prop car or even Marv's crashed airplane? He denies everything, but tells Harry that Marv was the dead pilot. In any case Arlene does not morn the deceased Delly. Later Harry seems to reconcile with Ellen.

Back in Florida, Harry finds Quentin's body floating in the water off Iverson's dock. A man is seen nearby in a powerboat moving quickly. Harry, noting that Tom killed Quentin, pulls a handgun on Tom and Paula. There is a subsequent fist-fight, after which Tom's head strikes hard against a post (cold-cocked or dead). From Paula Harry gathers that Marv, Tom, Quentin, and Paula were involved in smuggling statues from the Yucatan. Marv's job was to fly them into the US and deliver them to Tom and Paula in Florida. Tom and Paula brought them to another who sold them to Nick. Perhaps Nick (who supposedly – but falsely – does not know Ziegler) got the original assignment to Harry to return Delly home before she could somehow interfere with the operation.

On Tom's boat Harry and Paula put out to sea to find the submerged airplane and sunken artifacts. At the site, while Paula dives below, a seaplane intercepts them and the pilot fires a submachine gun, wounding Harry. As the airplane lands on the water Paula is struck and killed. But as the pilot also struck a hard statue, the airplane crashes with him going underwater. Drowning, Ziegler (Joey, whom Harry trusted!) seems to apologize to Harry. The entire operation was apparently Ziegler's. With the body count rising and with things getting too dangerous, Ziegler was probably trying to unload Tom (and Paula). Harry is alone as the boat curls around in circles. He never understood the events that swirled around him until it was too late. As he previously told Paula, "I didn't solve anything. This just fell in on top of me." Poor Harry!

The movie is one of the better ones of the early 1970s, when happy endings were not always the norm. For instance, "Five Easy Pieces," "Deliverance," "The Gambler," "Don't Look Now," and "The Parallax View" all come to mind. "Night Moves" is so constructed around Gene Hackman that he appears in every scene and does very well. The actor is able to get our sympathy and support, even though he is not a Bogart-type of detective. This film probably requires multiple viewings to aid in one's comprehension.

Excellent Film Noir, Superbly acted and well directed

[Kar-2 · 8/10 · 10 September 1998]

Night Moves is an underrated Film Noir. Directed by Arthur Penn (Bonnie & Clyde) it is an absolutely outstanding genre piece. Gene Hackman plays an L.A. gumshoe who is hired by a well to do ex-actress to find and bring home her runaway daughter (Melanie Griffith in her first role!). What seems to be routine detective work soon turns out to be a complicated case which finally ends in murder and mayhem. There are some remarkable stunt and underwater sequences, well photographed by Bruce Surtees (Director of Photography of many Clint Eastwood action movies). Not only Melanie Griffith but also another of today's stars, James Woods, gave his screen debut in this film. See it, it is worth the while!

A Different and Complex Detective Story

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 2 October 2010]

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). Harry discovers that the runaway girl has a promiscuous life and uses drugs, and he tracks down her last boyfriend Quinten (James Woods), who works as a mechanic on the sets. Meanwhile, Harry finds that his wife Ellen Moseby (Susan Clark) is cheating him and he has difficulties to handle the situation. Then he visits the stuntman Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello) and the stunt coordinator Joey Ziegler (Ed Binn) and follows the new lead, heading to Florida Keys, where Delly would be living with her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford). Harry is welcomed by Paula (Jennifer Warren), who works with Tom in a boat and has an open relationship with him. After seeing an accident in the sea, the reluctant Delly surprisingly accepts to return to Los Angeles with Harry to live with her mother. Harry and Ellen have a long conversation trying to solve their marriage problems. When Harry learns that Delly has died in a car crash, he suspects of Quinten. But sooner he finds that the initially missing person case is actually a complex smuggling operation of a valuable artifact.

With the recent death of Arthur Penn, I decide to see again "Night Moves", a movie that I watched in the 80's and was forgotten in my collection. "Night Moves" is a different and complex detective story, supported by an engaging and flawed screenplay and great characters development. The top-notch actor Gene Hackman in the top of his successful career performs a detective that snoops the lives of other people and is incapable to see that his marriage is deteriorating. The 18 year-old Melanie Griffith in her first credited role is extremely sexy and beautiful, undressing easily along the film. It is also interesting to see James Woods also in the beginning of career in a supporting role. It is also great to see again the gorgeous vanished actresses Jennifer Warren and Susan Clark. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Um Lance no Escuro" ("A Bid in the Dark")

Note: On 26 October 2014 I saw this movie again on DVD and now my vote is eight.

The Real Mystery Is Figuring Out That Some Likable People Do Bad Things

[JasonDanielBaker · 5 March 2014]

Private investigator Harry Moseby (Hackman) has his hands full retrieving a teen runaway (Griffith) from the Florida Keys back to Los Angeles. A routine case shuffled off to him by a rival, the matter nevertheless evolves into a complicated multiple murder plot. Normally distant Harry has difficulty separating his personal feelings from the facts.

The first half of this film is such a dull and plodding downbeat soap opera that it challenges the patience of the viewer. The relationships of a group of emotionally broken people hinting at personal guilt over sordid pasts thrown together by less than ideal circumstances don't always tie in with the actual narrative. But they aren't really meant to.

The real mystery of the story rests within the human interactions and what is important vs what is trivial. Harry is in fact a very poor detective. He lets those few emotional connections he is able to make with people cloud his judgments whilst assuming guilt on the part of those he doesn't like. What makes him a hero nevertheless is that he doesn't quit even if it means discovering personal betrayal.

Telling moments are rife. The way different people react differently from each other is a continual source of confusion for Harry. His inability to connect with his own wife on an emotional level has made her feel alone even in their most intimate moments together. Yet he lets his guard down with the wrong kinds of complete strangers. It certainly isn't by choice that he has chosen misread both the situation and the people surrounding it..

This is a more sophisticated form of detective story in that it offers an examination of the mindset of the detective - one who happens to be emotionally vulnerable and even a tad fragile.

Good film by a very good director with a great actor

[izzynfrank · 6/10 · 4 January 2017]

NIght Moves falls into that category of movies that was not so loved when it came it but since time has passed, people have come around to it. 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. Night Moves is a good movie and a lot of fun but it has some limitations which keep it from being more than that.

First of which, the story really doesn't make sense. It's clear when the case is more or less solved about an hour in that the movie is really going to be about something else. In this case, it's more about Hackman's character, a guy who despite his love of things like chess, can't seem to really figure stuff out. So we are taken through his marriage, his wife's infidelity. an attempted reconciliation, etc. All that stuff is great for a great actor like Hackman who makes you feel how lost he is.

The problem is that the ties that connect that to the real story, that of the art smuggling, which is the real mystery, are very thin. Also, the ties that connect the plot points of the smuggling story are very week. Too much coincidence, too many people happen to be exactly where they need to be. Too much crossing the country - - LA to Florida in the blink of an eye. One second Gene Hackman is chasing James Woods around LA on a motorcycle. The next scene, he finds him in Florida.

I read that the film was shot in 1973 and then shelved until 1975, meaning that there must have been issues with it then. There must have also been a lot scenes cut, because a lot is in there, it's just hidden very deeply with no way to get at it. I think this is a film to check out and enjoy for some very good elements. I just don't think we can put our blinders on and make it a 70s classic. Good film. Worth a watch.

The masterpiece of 70s American anti-detective movies (possible spoilers)

[the red duchess · 8/10 · 21 December 2000]

When you notice that a boat, on which the detective sees the crucial evidence, is hit and shot at, and finally 'solves' the crime, is called 'Point of View', you know you should have been watching harder. 'Night Moves' is the greatest of the 70s American anti-detective movies influenced by 'Vertigo', Antonioni and Bertolucci; films that used a genre all about solving the crime and re-ordering a ruptured social order, expelling the maleficent, and undermining it, to deconstruct the figure of the detective as arbiter of knowledge and order, suggesting that the world, or a human being, is not open to interpretation, ordering, patterning; that there are limits to reason. Most American anti-detective films, however, are rather heavy-handed in their messages - 'The Parallax View' obscures itself in a dense murk, 'The Conversation' is full of European austerity and ellipsis.

'Night Moves', on the other hand, plays as a hard-boiled thriller, in the style of contemporaries like 'Chinatown' or 'Farewell My Lovely'. We have a rich Chandlerian brew of flawed, basically decent dicks, femmes fatales, wastrel rich with their errant offspring, and a satisfyingly convoluted plot. And 'Night Moves' can be enjoyed like this - Penn never makes deliberately 'arty' his material. The film also functions as a complex psychological piece, about a once-successful, popular athletic man reduced to peeping on cheating wives (first his clients, then his own).

This is linked on the one hand to the decline of America (Harry's success and decline framed by the assassination of the Kennedy brothers), and to the family: Harry himself haunted by his own mysterious relations with his father, his marriage being notably childless, his quarry being a highly sexed teenager who's run away from a promiscuous mother to a smuggling father. The account of Harry's crumbling marriage and his personal regrets is as moving as his distaste or the paint-like qualities of Eric Rohmer is funny.

But this generic realism, if you like, does not preclude more abstract elements such as the title, with its suggestions of chess, of a game where Harry isn't sure whether he's grandmaster or pawn, or to the playing out of the drama, where the most significant events, both in terms of the mystery and Harry's personal life take place at night, or the idea of the narrative as a dream. For instance, what is the connection between Harry's wife's job as a vendor of antiques, and the central smuggling crime? Is Harry transposing the failure of his domestic narrative onto his professional one, in the hope that by solving this he'll make good the first?

Harry is being led by dark forces (within himself) beyond his control. The Florida Keys hideout of Delly's stepfather (where the first sequence has the time- and plot-suspending atmosphere of an enchanted realm) boasts a sign, '66', which suggest the famous route, one version of the American dream dashed in this film, or more sinister, diabolic, forces.

For me, this masterpiece is all these things, but mostly it is a critique of the gaze, the power to see and interpret that is the raison d'etre of the detective, from which he derives his power and status. Harry's gaze is severely undermined throughout, by being misled, by personal blocks, by simply interpreting wrong. When the solution is revealed, it is certainly not any of Harry's doing - it is brought to him with bloody murderousness. Throughout the movie, we see Harry looking at people or things through blinds, curtains, screens etc., his view impaired.

But it's more than this. In his wife's lover's house (is he blind? I thought he was until near the end - see, need to look harder!), there are trompe l'oeil effects in the windows which seem to transform and distort the visual field we look through. It's a small thing, but, like those little clues Nabokov scatters in his books, its reverberations and implications are potentially massive. This is linked to the cinema (Harry is seen by others through a screen-like frame) that makes up the plot's supposed background (remember, Harry discovered his wife's infidelity coming out of a movie theatre).

"You mean you're gonna solve the case and find the boodle?"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 16 November 2021]

OK, I watched the movie twice and read a whole bunch of the reviews posted here. So here's what we know:

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a private detective.

Harry's marriage to Ellen (Susan Clark) is on the rocks.

Ellen is cheating on Harry with Marty Heller (Harris Yulin).

Marty Heller was also the name of my pharmacist when I was a kid.

Harry doesn't know any of the other players he comes across until he meets them for the first time.

Harry is hired by Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) to return her runaway daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith) home.

Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello) has done the horizontal tango with both mother Arlene and daughter Delly, though not at the same time.

Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns) and Quentin (James Woods) often work together.

Tom Iverson (John Crawford) and Paula (Jennifer Warren) live together and work a charter fishing (and smuggling) operation in Florida.

Marv Ellman is found dead in the water (not hyperbole) by Delly, who high tails it back home with Harry to her mother, without telling Harry who it was she saw dead.

Delly does tell Quentin she saw Ellman dead. (She used to do the horizontal tango with Quentin).

Shortly after, Delly dies in a failed car stunt with Joey Ziegler driving.

Harry believes Quentin rigged Ellman's plane to crash, and rigged the car Joey was driving that killed Delly, because he thought Quentin knew that Delly knew that he rigged Ellman's plane.

Harry finds Quentin dead in the water (not hyperbole).

Tom Iverson admits killing Quentin to Harry before knocking himself out by ramming his head into a pole.

Paula admits that she, Tom Iverson, and Marv Ellman were in the process of smuggling a Yucatan artifact piece by piece, estimated worth a half million dollars.

Harry and Paula set out to retrieve the latest artifact, with Paula scuba diving to bring it to the surface of the ocean.

Joey Ziegler, in an airplane, attacks Harry in the Iverson boat, and manages to shoot him in the leg.

Paula surfaces with the artifact as Joey lands his plane on the water.

Joey races his plane toward Paula and the boat, striking and leaving her dead in the water (not hyperbole), hitting the floating artifact causing the plane to wreck, and finally sinking with the plane and drowning.

Why did Joey attack Harry? I don't know. Does anybody?

Like Harry, I was left going in circles at the end of the movie.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - before it's all over, Harry does the horizontal tango with Paula.

This one packs a punch

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 17 September 2016]

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. Melanie Griffith in her first film role as the daughter is reluctant but goes back with Mosby but there is more - a sunken treasure and a few people who make movies are involved before a surprising finale occurs. And Mosby is just as surprised as the audience every step of the way. Harry Mosby is in the tradition of an incorruptible hero in the midst of the muck.

I think that the ending could be considered optimistic, but it is open to interpretation. It's a dark film, as in "Chinatown" land, when the protagonist ends up in a boat going around in aimless circles with a flesh wound to the leg. 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. Gene Hackman's lone foray into the private eye genre is fortuitous. Like Bogey and Paul Newman, he is especially deft at put downs of smarmy guys and gals. And Alan Sharp's generally well written screenplay gives him ample opportunity to display this skill. Arthur Penn's direction is well paced and does not draw undue attention to itself. Occasionally, the film gets a bit pretentious. For example, I could have done without the not especially revealing anecdote that Harry relates about his father, and any time chess is mentioned in a private eye flick the pomposity level goes up. But mostly it's good seventies noir.

A strange, strange film

[sunznc · 7/10 · 29 March 2014]

Night Moves is not a bad film. It's actually quite good. It is also off-beat and a just a little bit odd but not quirky.

It is not hard to figure out why a young girl has run away from home when we see her mother, a washed up, alcoholic living in the Hollywood Hills. What is odd is trying to figure out the relationship between her, her stepfather and his girlfriend in the Florida Keys where she has gone to live. It is hinted that the stepfather is not just a stepfather.

Even stranger is Jennifer Warren's odd, abrupt, salty behavior in the film and the the strange dialog written for her. At one point, Gene Hackman even tells her he is tired of her "ping-pong talk". Was that written for the benefit of the audience or did he improvise? I felt puzzled by much of her performance.

It is also painful, really painful to watch Gene Hackman's wife struggle with their relationship and her learning new things about her husband.

Yes, a strange, strange little film. The acting is almost too revealing. I can't quite wrap my brain around the whole thing. I think it will be appreciated by fans of films from the 70's.

saw this 20 years ago,hated it,now I love it.

[ib011f9545i · 8/10 · 31 August 2020]

I saw this on tv years ago. It would have been BBC because ITV never show interesting films. I did not get it,felt it was boring. But watching it again I think it is a great but bleak film. This is a sleazy private eye drama. This is well acted and well scripted and it requires the viewer to pay attention to what is going on. I don't know what it is about 1970s American films,try to make a list of happy ones,it would not take long to do. It always surprises me how older films have casts that are full of good performances by people I don't recognise. More modern films often have bad performances by actors I am sick of seeing.

What's it all about, Harry?

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 13 August 2005]

It's a finely made movie, beginning with Michael Small's deliciously jazzy score which rolls along under the credits, using only rhythm and vibes. At more dramatic moments the theme is echoed by a mournful oboe. There are touches of Gil Evans and Gunther Schuller in the arrangements. The score could probably stand alone.

The performances vary from professional to considerably more than that. James Woods is his usual cocky hypermanic self but it fits the role. Edward Binns is a serviceable utility player. Jennifer Warren is given some lines suggesting she sees herself as homely, and it's true she's not gorgeous, but only by Hollywood standards. As it is, she's on the cusp, and she has a face that intimates character, and a nice figure to boot, though her delivery sounds more like suburban Connecticut than the Southern semi-trash the character is supposed to be. Melanie Griffith makes a very acceptable 16-year-old nympho who spreads sex around the way some other people spread good will. Susan Clark as Hackman's wife is adequate. She has an outre kind of beauty. She has a wide mouth and her upper and lower lips seem to be of identical shape. And she has the eyebrows of the Mona Lisa, which is to say none at all.

The truly outstanding performance is Gene Hackman's. He's always good without ever being bravura, but here he outdoes himself as Harry Moseby, the sleuth who's going to solve all the world's puzzles. I'll just give one example of what I mean. Watch him during the scene in which he's in bed with Clark, dipping marshmallows into the fondu and telling her the story of how he tracked down the father who'd left him as a child. He's never spilled the beans to her about this incident before. It's an intense scene. But Hackman doesn't weep or pull his hair and pound the pillow with his fist. He snickers awkwardly, makes a few feeble attempts at wisecracks, and stumbles over his words. His awkwardness masks the emotional intensity of the moment. Hackman doesn't feel the need to tell us more than that. Few self-sufficient grown men would. Well, one more example. Watch his response when Griffith, on first meeting him, asks directly, "How old are you?" Watch the way he combines a chuckle at her effrontery with a direct and unashamed answer to her question.

I need to mention Rosemary Murphy too. It would be criminal not to. We meet her as a selfish slut who only wants her daughter, Griffith, returned to her in order to deprive her divorced husband of Griffith's companionship. When Griffith turns up dead, Harry storms into Murphy's house and confronts her at the swimming pool. He chews her out for her all-too-obvious failings. She listens to this while lying on a lounge in the Southern California sunshine, a table full of booze paraphernalia next to her. When Harry's fulguration is finished, she gets uncertainly to her feet, falls against the table and smashes some glass, and we realize for the first time just how drunk she really is. She disses him for his self-righteousness and adds, "Some day I might cry for the little bitch, but when I do you won't be here," and then dismisses him. I can't think of another actress who would have pulled off that scene with such panache.

The same can't be said for the plot. It could (and should) have stayed a first-rate mystery. It's convoluted, sure, but it makes sense at the end. Instead, the writers and the director have bulked it up with "significance." Instead of settling for a well-done genre piece, they've opted for an examination of ontological Angst. What's it all about? There are multiple indications that Harry is overreaching and looking for answers that no one is capable of finding. Now I happen to think that this is a pretty noble quest but nobody else in the movie does. They all discourage him and ridicule him.

Harry demonstrates some tricky knight moves in a chess game to Jennifer Warren and she says, "It's beautiful." I didn't get it. I mean, I get the pun but what does a chess game have to do with the rest of the movie? The movie closes with a visual pun, a wounded Harry in a boat out in the Gulf of Mexico. The boat is beyond his control and is going around in circles. Why? As far as the case is concerned, Harry isn't going around in circles. He's just figured the whole thing out. As far as some banality like "life is pointless" is concerned, the movie hasn't earned the right to lecture us on the subject.

Overall the movie is exceptionally bitter. Except for Harry, there's no one in it who is really straight. It's a bleak view of the society we live in. I guess I don't mind hearing that lecture but I do wish Penn had chosen to resolve the ambiguous ending. Does Harry make it to shore or not? I'd like to know the answer to that. I gave up trying to find the answer to life years ago.

lesser known Hackman gem

[SnoopyStyle · 8/10 · 18 September 2016]

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a terribly flawed L.A. private detective and former football star. His wife Ellen is having an affair. He gets a case from Arlene Iverson looking for her missing 16 year old daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith). He discovers that failed actress Arlene needs Delly for her trust fund left to her by her late studio mogul father. Her friend Quentin (James Woods) reluctantly sends Harry to stuntman Marv Ellman. Harry follows the clues to the Florida Keys to her stepfather Tom Iverson and a mother figure in Paula. 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'. He brings out another compelling character. There is a murky story but the central story is never lost. There are a couple of future stars including a very young Melanie Griffith. This is a world of murky morality and paranoia of secrets.

The world of Ross Macdonald!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 2 April 2018]

As the story unfolded, I assumed I was watching the filmization of a Ross Macdonald novel. All the characteristics and typical Ross Macdonald touches were there - from the snappy dialogue (when asked to My Night With Maud, the hero replies that seeing a Rohmer film is like watching paint dry; when asked to share the tub with a Hollywood hot-light, the hero replies that he'll keep it in mind for when he's feeling really dirty; when the hero asks Paula, as a plane lands outside the cabin, "Is that Tom now?", she comes back, "It isn't Lindberg!") to the technique of using a multi-stranded, multi-plotted detective story to pull away seamy layer after seamy layer of Los Angeles "society".

It's a world in which nobody is as friendly as they seem on the surface, where the thickly-veiled threat is often followed through by naked action. And as too in Ross Macdonald, the plot is damned difficult to follow, part of the reason for this being that it is not regarded as all that important, merely a means to sociological and anthropological ends. I've seen the film twice now and I still can't follow it and it still doesn't make sense.

However to judge it on the shortcomings of the plot, is to do the film a grave disservice. It's the characters and the atmosphere that count, Night Moves assembles some great characters, very cleverly and skillfully played and creates a powerful atmosphere abetted by the sharp location shooting by Bruce Surtees, the music score, and the film industry background that runs underneath it all. Yes, Night Moves is a film to see yet a third time!

OTHER VIEWS: A confused and confusing plot, realistically acted, but - aside from one or two moments - directed in a disappointingly ordinary fashion. I expected a lot more drama from Arthur Penn. True, there's a bit of exciting action, but it's smothered under reams of dull talk. The photography is deliberately low-key.

Unmoved

[Lechuguilla · 3/10 · 31 October 2007]

During the first hour not much happens in this movie. 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. Then, after about an hour into the story, one of the characters dies. And the plot picks up. Yet, even with this major story event, the film never really takes off.

The main problem with "Night Moves" is the script. I think they tried to make Harry Moseby, himself, the main focus of the film, and make the PI mystery strictly ancillary. A lot of time is spent on Harry: his personality, his problems, his general outlook, and so on. An enormous amount of time is wasted on Harry's marital troubles.

Meanwhile, the rather complex mystery element gets relatively little screen time, with plot elements left unexplained at the end. When you mesh a character study with a complicated murder story, the result is likely to be a patchwork of this and that, a film that comes across as indecisive about its overall intent.

Visually, the film has a very made-for-TV look and feel. Its 1970's era setting is clearly apparent. 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. Indeed, I would describe the film as a Gene Hackman cinematic vehicle. 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.

Great film, great acting, a real surprise

[psychoren2002 · 15 August 2006]

"Night Moves" was a surprise to me. I assumed it could be a far more simple mystery/action film, but the whole thing caught my attention and really amazed me. What a great study in murder, infidelity, cruelty, sex, and relationships between strangers. A kind of film noir with dark overtones and a slow but effective suspense, the story starts as a simple investigation about a runaway teenager, but grows more and more into a complex drama plenty of unexpected twists. Gene Hackman is superb as the rude detective, the rest of the cast is also in fine form, but the real shock is to see a very young, hot (and naked) Melanie Grifith doing a terrific performance. James Woods is also here, with less impact but great to see too. An excellent film, one of the finest 70's underrated movies.

Neo-noir, with Hackman pouring it on in the best ways...

[secondtake · 7/10 · 23 September 2014]

Night Moves (1975)

An odd convolution of 1940s film noir and 1970s New Hollywood. The hero is a kind of watered down Bogart—not as romanticized, and with less exaggerated one-liners (which film noir lovers will miss but which those who like realism will appreciate). Gene Hackman is terrific, and he plays Harry Moseby, a down and out ex-football player with a drained candor that makes him pathetic as much as likable. He ends up mixed up in a Dashiell Hammett kind of plot, for sure, looking for the daughter of a rich woman and then getting way over his head.

The artifacts of New Hollywood liberation are plain to see: nudity (female only) and a kind of sexed up background even when the plot is going somewhere else. This was for the sake of an audience still astonished that the movies could do such things (they couldn't before 1967) and it's still kind of raw and edgy in a lasting way. It also feels dated, too, making you wonder if it was really so sexually liberated back then.

The trail for this daughter takes us to the Florida Keys and out into the ocean. There are mysterious motives everywhere, and it's only Moseby we trust. Completely. And we even feel him starting to get a grounding for his drifting self amidst these miscellaneous people. And we see a kind of generosity that is based on this selfish need to do something right, and all its conflicting meanings. So eventually the movie is less about who killed who for this or that reason, and more about this man and his quest for clarity.

But clarity has a cost, and the movie will take several surprising turns. Not all of the plot is supported very well. We are led along at times, and frankly told things that might have been better revealed through the plot. It's not a perfectly nuanced drama in this way. These are nitpicks, for sure, because the larger feeling takes over and is commanding. 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. (Beatty is always given too much credit for that film's audacity because he starred and funded it, but the film was Penn's at heart.) This might be called the last of Penn's great cycle from the period, and if not the equal to his 1967 breakthrough, it is in many ways more delicately felt and mature. And so in a way more watchable today a second or third time. 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. The three or four secondary characters are all of them thin, or contrived to be types, and so it falters.

See it anyway. It surprised me the way "Point Blank" from this era did. Excellent.

Take a swing at me Harry the way Sam Spade would.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 1 July 2013]

Night Moves is directed by Arthur Penn and written by Alan Sharp. 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. With his own personal life shaken by his wife's infidelity, Harry dives into the Grasten case with determination. Unfortunately nothing is as it first seems and it's not long before Harry is mired in murky goings on...

It sounds kind of bleak. Or is it just the way you tell it?

The locale is often bright and sunny but that's about the only thing that is in this excellent neo-noir. Harking back, and doffing its cap towards, the noir detective films of the classic cycle, Night Moves is ripe with characters who are either dubious or damaged. Protagonist Harry Moseby is thrust into a melancholic world that he has no control over, but he doesn't know this fact. As the mystery at the core of the dense plot starts to unravel, there's a bleakness, a 1970s air of cynicism, that pervades the narrative. Culminating in a finale that's suitably dark and ambiguous.

Harry thinks if you call him Harry again he's gonna make you eat that cat!

Alan Sharp's (Ulzana's Raid) terrific screenplay is appropriately as sharp as a razor. Dialogue is often hardboiled or zinging with wit, and the conversations come with sadness or desperation. Be it chatter about a fateful chess move, sexual enlightenment or the pains of childhood and bad parenting, Sharp's writing provides fascinating characters operating in a tense thriller environment.

Listen Delly, I know it doesn't make much sense when you're sixteen. Don't worry. When you get to be forty, it isn't any better.

Arthur Penn brilliantly threads it all together, as he hones a great performance out of Hackman and notable turns from the support players, he smoothly blends action with pulsing unease. There's nudity on show, but in Penn's hands it is never used for gratuitous purpose, it represents dangerous fantasies or dented psyches. Small's jazzy score is a fine tonal accompaniment, and Surtees' Technicolor photography provides deft mood enhancements for the interior and exterior sequences.

Biting and bitter, Night Moves is essential neo-noir. 9/10

Interesting characters, an overblown plot, and a problematic screenplay

[steiner-sam · 6/10 · 15 July 2021]

It's set in the early 1970s in Los Angeles and Key West, Florida. It involves a down-at-the-heel private detective as he tries to figure out the complexities of a seemingly missing teenager case, as well as his own failing marriage.

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a struggling detective who doesn't like his own work. He's a former NFL defensive back, and we know he's smart because he loves chess and its history. But, unfortunately, his wife, Ellen (Susan Clark), is having an affair with a wealthy man with a limp. Meanwhile, Harry has been hired by a faded middle-aged actress, Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), to find her missing 16-year-old daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith).

Along the way, Harry meets one of Delly's former boyfriends, a super mechanic named Quentin (James Woods), and former acting colony friends of Arlene's, Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello). Harry then follows Arlene's last husband, Tom Iverson (John Crawford), who lives in Key West. There he encounters Tom's current partner, Paula (Jennifer Warren), and the missing Delly. Mysterious things are happening there, and one night Harry gets it on with Paula, who is as enigmatic about her past as Harry is about his world.

Delly refuses to return to Los Angeles until she is rattled one night when swimming. She discovers a plane underwater with the pilot in a state of decomposition. Harry takes her back to Arlene, where bickering immediately begins before Delly heads off to work as an extra in movies. She soon dies in a suspicious auto accident.

Harry learns that the dead pilot was Marv Ellman and that he was involved with smuggling. This leads Harry to pursue the truth even though his "case" is over. He discovers Tom and Paula are deeply involved in the smuggling. He fights and possibly kills Tom and demands that he and Paula go out at night to resurrect the contraband (sculpture from the Yucatán Peninsula). The beyond-belief ending has Harry and the boat going in circles.

Some critics think "Night Moves" is a psychological masterpiece. I think it was a movie with interesting characters, a vastly overblown plot, and a problematic screenplay. Gene Hackman does "down-at-the-heels" very well. Quentin plays James Woods. Jennifer Warren does the enigmatic woman very well and is a good match for Hackman. John Crawford is a cipher. Melanie Griffith seems sexually over-the-top for the early 1970s. Susan Clark does well as the wife of a guy who has lost control of his life while dealing with her own issues.

Gene Hackman shines in this excellent and hauntingly downbeat 70's private eye film noir mystery thriller gem

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 31 December 2006]

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). During his investigation Harry stumbles across several murders, an art smuggling operation in the Florida Keys, and a few bitter and ugly truths about both himself and his sordid profession.

Director Arthur Penn, working from a brilliantly incisive script by Alan Sharp, astutely pegs the bummed-out malaise and sense of utter pessimism which defined the cynical post-Watergate mid 70's zeitgeist. One of this bleak film noir mystery thriller's key strengths is its laudably stubborn refusal to either sanitize or romanticize Harry's sleazy profession (having a lot of people mercilessly poke fun of Harry's job is an especially nice touch). WARNING: Possible *SPOILER* ahead. Moreover, the strikingly grim and haunting conclusion is quite potent and simply devastating: Harry does solve the convoluted case, but crucially fails to save anyone and comes to the grim realization that his whole life has been one big sham (as ingeniously symbolized by the boat Harry's on at the end going around in constant redundant circles just like Harry's been doing throughout his entire existence). The stand-out supporting cast includes Susan Clark as Harry's fed-up adulteress wife, Harris Yulin as Clark's crippled lover (the confrontation scene between Yulin and Harry is a corker), Edward Binns as an amiable stunt coordinator, Jennifer Warren as a cheery free spirit, John Crawford as Griffith's hearty stepfather, and James Woods as a weaselly mechanic. Bruce Surtees' bright, sunny cinematography, Michael Small's brooding, funky, syncopated score, and Dede Allen's snappy editing are all up to par on-target as well. An absolute knockout.

Night Moves...at a languid pace

[WeeClaude · 6/10 · 5 July 2023]

I've seen Night Moves twice, 20 years apart. Both times, I felt strangely obligated to love this movie, for two reasons: (1) Gene Hackman is one of my favorite actors; and (2) I enjoy detective stories, especially those featuring Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer (the primary inspirations for Hackman's character, rather than Sam Spade, who is misleadingly name-dropped here).

Unfortunately, both times I was frankly bored by this movie and struggled to get into it. What's the problem? Well, detective stories are a funny genre. They tend to have very little action or incident, and instead rely on character development and witty dialogue to sustain interest. For this approach to work, the dialogue must sparkle, and the cast of characters must be really compelling.

Night Moves gets this all about half right. Some of the dialogue is sharp, but the seduction scenes have rather laughable "deep" and "sexy" lines. The movie is also weighed down by a protracted marital infidelity subplot that goes nowhere interesting.

I'll say this, though - the violent finale is terrific and really sticks in the mind.

In short, it's hard to write detective fiction as well as Raymond Chandler or Ross Macdonald, and this kind of pale imitation / updating of their work mostly just annoys me. Hackman is great, and the story kind of holds together, yet somehow this movie fizzles rather than frizzles.

Good, twist-laden mystery.

[Hey_Sweden · 8/10 · 23 August 2012]

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. Harry is a former pro football player who now ekes out an unambitious living as a private eye. He's hired by a former actress, Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), to search for the lady's restless daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith), a girl who's the working definition of jailbait. Soon, Harry comes to realize that there's a fair bit going on here, more than just the story of a runaway daughter. The case takes him from L.A. to the Florida Keys, and has him encountering a variety of characters.

Among these characters is a young James Woods, already showing that intensity that has been his stock in trade. The strong supporting cast also includes Jennifer Warren as free-spirited Paula, John Crawford as Delly's stepfather Tom, Susan Clark as Harry's wife Ellen, Harris Yulin as Ellens' lover Marty, Kenneth Mars as Harry's jovial associate Nick, Edward Binns as Joey Ziegler (a stunt coordinator for the movies), and Anthony Costello as sleazy stuntman Marv. The very young Griffith (16 at the time) is showcased to great effect; she's wonderfully appealing as always.

The jazzy score by Michael Small automatically calls to mind Lalo Schifrins' work for "Dirty Harry", and the dazzling cinematography is by Bruce Surtees; excellent location work, too. Penn and Hackman make the most out of Sharps' screenplay, which nicely updates the film noir genre for the 1970s, and gives Hackman a fun character to play. Harry is not particularly great at his job, and in fact he discovered his wifes' affair by accident. Even in the end, he admits to Paula that the pieces of the puzzle sort of fell into his lap and that any deductive skills he possesses didn't have too much to do with it.

In the tradition of noir, Harry is a lead character who's not without his flaws, and once his journey reaches its destination, he won't necessarily be better off. 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. The story does, in the end, make a great point for the futility of existence and how people can easily fall into the same traps on a regular basis.

Fans of detective fiction should find it well worth a viewing.

Eight out of 10.

Story problems

[michaelprescott-00547 · 6/10 · 31 July 2021]

Caution: This review is jam-packed with spoilers. Proceed at your own risk!

"Night Moves" has a lot to offer, including an impressive cast, but I felt it was sorely lacking in the story department. For a mystery, even of the neo-noir type, this is a bad thing.

First problem: Why does Melanie (Griffith) die? Is it because her mother wants the inheritance earmarked for her? Or is it because Melanie knows that the dead pilot is the stuntman, and this knowledge makes her a danger to the smuggling operation? I assume it's the latter, but at least one other reviewer believes the first explanation is correct, and it's never made clear.

Second problem: What exactly is the plan to kill Melanie? Since the movie director is apparently in on the plot (assuming Melanie is in fact killed because she knows too much), then he must have ordered James Woods to tamper with the brakes. In which case, the director's master plan is to drive a car with no brakes directly into a wall at high speed and hope he survives the crash and his passenger doesn't. Great thinking.

Third problem: Why does the director show up in a seaplane just as Gene Hackman and Jennifer Warner are collecting the loot? Did the Florida couple arrange a rendezvous? If so, presumably Jennifer is leading Hackman into a trap. But if she is, why does the director murder her? Or does she not know he is coming, in which case his arrival at that exact moment is a total coincidence? And how can he fly a plane when his arm is immobilized in a cast anyway?

Fourth problem: Why is James Woods killed? Is it because he's become a target of Hackman's investigation, or is it because he sabotaged the stuntman's plane for personal reasons and the smugglers found out? Given his hostile attitude toward the stuntman, the second option can't be ruled out. But we never know. And incidentally, why is his body left in shallow water near the dock where anybody can find it?

Fifth problem: This one irritates me the most. Melanie leaves a message on Hackman's answering machine in which she starts to tell him something vital (it's that she knows the identity of the dead pilot - even though he was totally unrecognizable underwater, which is another problem). Hackman is interrupted before he can hear what she has to say. At no time afterward does he play back the message, even after learning of Melanie's death and suspecting foul play. He actually mentions the phone message to the director, at which point I was sure a lightbulb would go on over his head ... but nope, he still doesn't remember that he never finished listening to it. Sure, he's not supposed to be that great a detective, but ... seriously?

"Night Moves," like any film, can be appreciated on other levels - performances (generally quite good), cinematography (nothing special for the most part), dialogue (less witty than it wants to be), editing, music etc. I've focused on the plot because, to me, that's where it all unravels, especially toward the end.

Good Movie

[higherkey · 8/10 · 14 October 2021]

Gotta love Gene Hackman and a young Melanie Griffith. There's a lot of great lines in this movie, and it keeps it real. I liked the 70's music as well. Overall, it was a good watch.

Fascinating Film-Noire Despite Its Age

[jcanettis · 7/10 · 27 June 2005]

Although filmed more than 30 years ago, "Night Moves" is still a fascinating film-noire. 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. His employer is Arlene Iverson (Ward), a rather unknown aging actress, who wants him to find his missing stepdaughter (Griffith). 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. He cannot see clues which are in front of his eyes, and in the end the truth is revealed to him only by mere luck; even when he finds out about his wife's cheating in the early part of the film, it is simply because he just happened to be there. Moseby is not the talented detective of the Hercule Poirot's class: He is simply an average, well-intentioned guy who just happens to be a detective, and who has got into something that is well-above his skills.

Hackman is superb in his role, as one would of course expect from this very talented actor: He is ideally suited to portray the complex character of Harry Moseby. 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. Sometimes, this gets a bit too far, making the film a bit slow. Still, the overall result is satisfying.

Of course, the fact that the film was filmed in 1974 is something we cannot completely overlook: "Night Moves" has its age, whether we like it or not. That is one of the main reasons that I give it a 7/10, when it could get even higher.

Doesn't Add Up

[danbranan · 5/10 · 16 May 2016]

Don't worry - I'll warn you before I reveal any spoilers. Read on in good faith.

Arthur Penn: Great. 18-year-old-naked-Melanie-Griffith: Excellent. Gene Hackman: Awesome. This film: pile of garbage. The acting is great, the filmography is wonderfully dark and moody, most of the dialog is solid. I don't understand how the whole can be so much less than the sum of its parts, but this film manages to pull it off somehow. For context, I am a huge fan of the 1970's European-inspired cinema veritas movement and some of my favorite films are from this time period, and some are by Arthur Penn ("Little Big Man", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Rocky"). But this steaming pile of a film takes "cinema veritas" to the level of "cinema literal": everything you see is exactly what you think it is. The only reason I gave this film a 5 instead of a 1 is because all the individual parts were so good that it kept me watching.

Before I get all spoilery, let me recommend some films that you should watch instead of "Night Moves" (which you should NEVER watch, IMO). If you want to see Arthur Penn at his best, watch "Little Big Man" and "Bonnie and Clyde". If you want to see a mix of American cinema veritas at the top of its form watch "Chinatown", "Taxi Driver", and "Easy Rider". 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.

The Plot: As I said above, everything you see is exactly what it is. Does it seem like a girl is having a sexual relationship with her step-father? She is. Is a guy crawling underneath car just before it crashes messing with the brakes? You bet. Is the greedy mother setting up her daughter to be killed to inherit her fortune? Absolutely! If the plot itself wasn't so dead-simple and obvious, this might have been forgivable. But when you know exactly what happened before it even happens, it's a travesty. For example, "Chinatown", which this film desperately wants to be, did this very well.

The Ending: WOW, I have rarely seen a contrived ending as blatant as this one. It's clear that Penn wants Moseby to pay for his sins, but the behaviors of the characters in the last 15 minutes of the film are completely unbelievable. There was absolutely no reason for Paula to take Moseby to the smuggled loot. There was no reason for Joey to skim the plane along the water and run over Paula. There's no way that Paula wouldn't hear the plane coming! There's no reason that Moseby couldn't have crawled into the driver's seat and piloted the boat. He had one 9 mm bullet wound to the thigh - this would in no way be debilitating enough for his lazy performance at the end of the film, putting the boat into a symbolic circular course and laying down to die. Seriously, this was the worst part of an already terrible film.