Night Moves is a 1975 American neo-noir thriller film directed by Arthur Penn from a screenplay by Alan Sharp. It stars Gene Hackman as an ex-professional football player turned Los Angeles private investigator, who uncovers a series of sinister events while searching for the missing teenaged daughter of a former film actress. The cast also features Susan Clark, Edward Binns, Jennifer Warren, James Woods, and Melanie Griffith in her film debut.

The film was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on June 11, 1975. It received positive reviews from critics, but a lukewarm commercial reception. Hackman was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance. In the years since its release, Night Moves has attracted viewers and significant critical attention following its home media releases. It has been called "a seminal modern noir work from the 1970s." The role of Ellen, played by Susan Clark, was originally offered to Faye Dunaway, who turned it down to star in 'Chinatown'. Dunaway had just split from one of the film's stars, Harris Yulin, after a two-year relationship. Night Movess original title, Dark Tower, had to be changed so as to not confuse the film with the 1974 blockbuster hit The Towering Inferno. The exchange from Night Moves was quoted in director Éric Rohmer's New York Times obituary in 2010. Arthur Penn was an admirer of Rohmer's films; Bruce Jackson has written an extended discussion of the role of My Night at Maud's in Night Moves; its protagonist and Moseby have related opportunities for infidelity, but respond differently. and as a VHS-format videotape. In 2005, it was released as a DVD in the U.S. and Canada (region 1). The DVD was favorably reviewed by Walter Chaw, who writes, "Shot through with grain and a certain, specific colour blanch I associate with the best movies from what I believe to be the best era in film history, Night Moves looks on Warner's DVD as good as it ever has, or, I daresay, should." A region 2 DVD was released in 2007. The film was released on Blu-ray in 2017 by Warner Archive Collection. A Criterion Collection 4k/Blu-ray edition was released on March 25, 2025.

Reception

Box office

Night Moves was not a commercial success at the time of its 1975 theatrical release.

Critical response

Roger Ebert gave the film a full four stars and called it "one of the best psychological thrillers in a long time, probably since Don't Look Now. It has an ending that comes not only as a complete surprise — which would be easy enough — but that also pulls everything together in a new way, one we hadn't thought of before, one that's almost unbearably poignant." Ebert ranked Night Moves at No. 2 on his year-end list of the best films of 1975, behind only Nashville. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that he had "mixed feelings" about the film, elaborating that the characters "seem to deserve better than the quality of the narrative given them. I can't figure out whether the screenplay by Alan Sharp was worked on too much or not enough, or whether Mr. Penn and his actors accepted the screenplay with more respect than it deserves." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of four and stated that the protagonist is the "kind of mixed-up character" that "seems to be Hackman's specialty", while Alan Sharp's screenplay "provides the character of Paula (Jennifer Warren) with some of the best scripting for any woman this year". Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film "a paradox. A suspenseless suspenser, very well cast with players who lend sustained interest to largely theatrical characters ... There's little rhyme or reason for the plot's progression, and the climax is far from stunning. But the curious aspect about the Warner Bros. release is that it plays well." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "a stunning, stylish detective mystery in the classic Raymond Chandler-Ross Macdonald mold," as well as "a fast, often funny movie with lots of compassionately observed real, living, breathing people. This handsome Warners presentation is still another triumph for ever-busy, ever-versatile Gene Hackman, director Arthur Penn and writer Alan Sharp."

Gary Arnold of The Washington Post was negative, stating, "The fatal weakness is Alan Sharp's screenplay, a pointlessly murky, ambiguous variation on conventional private-eye themes ... we're supposed to be so impressed by the dolorous, world-weary tone that we overlook some pretty awesome loopholes and absurdities in the story itself, which never generates much mystery, suspense or credible human interest."

Retrospective reviews

Night Moves continues to attract critical attention long after its release. Film critic Michael Sragow included the film in his 1990 review collection entitled Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You've Never Seen. Stephen Prince has written, "Penn directed a group of key pictures in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Alice's Restaurant (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Night Moves [1975]) that captured the verve of the counterculture, its subsequent collapse, and the ensuing despair of the post-Watergate era." In his monograph, The Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, Robert Kolker writes, "Night Moves was Penn's point of turning, his last carefully structured work, a strong and bitter film, whose bitterness emerges from an anxiety and from a loneliness that exists as a given, rather than a loneliness fought against, a fight that marks most of Penn's best work. Night Moves is a film of impotence and despair, and it marks the end of a cycle of films."

Dennis Schwartz characterizes the film as "a seminal modern noir work from the 1970s" and adds, "This is arguably the best film that Arthur Penn has ever done." This remark is telling in the context of Penn's earlier film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which is now considered a classic by most critics. Roger Ebert added the film to his "Great Movies" list in 2006. Jack Hawkins of Slash Film listed Night Moves among the most underrated films of the 1970s, describing the film as "a brilliant neo-noir that teems with salacious, jaded energy."

In 2010, Manohla Dargis described it as "the great, despairing Night Moves (1975), with Gene Hackman as a private detective who ends up circling the abyss, a noexit comment on the post-1968, post-Watergate times."

Griffith's appearance in the film garnered particular controversy for one nude scene that was shot when she was only 16 years old, though she also appeared nude in other films such as Smile, which was released the same year.

Night Moves has been classified by some critics as a "neo-noir" film, representing a further development of the film noir detective story. Ronald Schwartz summarizes its role: "Harry Moseby is a man with limitations and weaknesses, a new dimension for detectives in the 1970s. Gone are the Philip Marlowes and tough-guy private investigators who have tremendous insight into crime and can triumph over criminals because they carry within them a code of honor. Harry cannot fathom what honor is, much less be subsumed by it."

Awards and nominations

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Award

! Year

! Category

! Nominee

!Result

|-

| British Academy Film Award

| 1976

| Best Actor in a Leading Role

| rowspan="2" |Gene Hackman

|<br>

|-

|New York Film Critics Circle Award

|1975

|Best Actor

|

|}

See also

  • List of American films of 1975
  • Florida locations where filming took place:

:* Sanibel

:* Wakulla Springs

Further reading

::Emanuel Berman's extended interpretation of the film's screenplay.

::David N. Meyer's review includes a fairly rare effort to parse Night Moves in terms of the contributions of its screenplay, directing, acting, etc.. Meyer particularly credits Gene Hackman's performance, Alan Sharp's writing, and Dede Allen's editing.

::Emphasizes Sharp's inspiration and conflicts with Penn. Based on interviews with Sharp's widow, Warren, Clark, and others.

References

Sources

  • BFI Night Moves
  • Night Moves: Losing Ground – an essay by Mark Harris at The Criterion Collection