Paper Moon (film)
| Paper Moon | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
|
|
| Directed by | Peter Bogdanovich |
| Produced by |
Frank Marshall Peter Bogdanovich |
| Screenplay by | Alvin Sargent |
| Based on |
Addie Pray 1971 novel by Joe David Brown |
| Starring |
Ryan O'Neal Tatum O'Neal |
| Cinematography | László Kovács |
| Edited by | Verna Fields |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.5 million |
| Box office | $30.9 million |
Paper Moon is a 1973 American comedy-drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and released by Paramount Pictures. Screenwriter Alvin Sargent adapted the script from the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown. The film, shot in black-and-white, is set in Kansas and Missouri during the Great Depression. It stars the real-life father and daughter pairing of Ryan and Tatum O'Neal as protagonists Moze and Addie.
Con man Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) meets 9-year-old Addie Loggins (Tatum O'Neal) at Addie's mother's graveside service, where the neighbors suspect he is Addie's father. He denies this, but agrees to deliver the orphaned Addie to her aunt's home in St. Joseph, Missouri.
At a local grain mill, Moses convinces the brother of the man who accidentally killed Addie's mother, to give him two hundred dollars for the newly orphaned Addie. Addie overhears this conversation and, after Moses spends nearly half the money fixing his used Model A convertible, later demands the money; whereupon Moses agrees to travel with Addie until he has raised two hundred dollars to give to her. Thereafter Moses visits recently widowed women, pretending to have recently sold an expensive, personalized Bible to the deceased husband, and the widows pay him for the bibles inscribed with their names. Addie joins the scam, pretending she is his daughter, and exhibits a talent for confidence tricks, cheating a cotton candy vendor out of a large sum of money. As time passes, Moses and Addie become a formidable team.
One night, Addie and "Moze" (as Addie addresses him) stop at a local carnival, where Moze becomes enthralled with an "exotic dancer" named Miss Trixie Delight (Madeline Kahn), and leaves Addie at a photo booth to have her photograph taken alone (of herself sitting on a crescent moon, to suggest the film's title). Much to Addie's chagrin, Moze invites "Miss Trixie"—and her downtrodden maid, Imogene (P.J. Johnson)—to join him and Addie. Addie soon becomes friends with Imogene, and becomes jealous of Trixie. When Addie subsequently discovers that Moze has spent their money on a brand-new car to impress Miss Trixie, she and Imogene devise a plan: they convince a clerk at the hotel the group are staying at to pay a visit to Trixie, subsequently Addie sends Moze up to Trixie's room where he discovers the clerk and Trixie having sex; whereupon Moze leaves Miss Trixie and Imogene behind, while Addie leaves Imogene enough money to pay for her own passage home.
...
Wikipedia