Paper Moon (1973)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie ever!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership. Paper Moon is another horrible and overrated mess of a film that doesn't belong into the Top 250 movies of all time, the acting was somewhat of boring, the characters were on the same exact path as well and the storyline very muddled and boring. Paper Moon is not a film that should have tried that much but is a film that at least should have a little bit of good drama but it lacks it. (0/10)

This film had a staggeringly profound affect on me. I found myself traveling on a journey with these two in a way that contemporary films haven't been able to engage me in. The simple premise and well formed characters make this a film I will continue to hold with me for the rest of my life.

Paper Moon shows us a simpler time, those Depression Era Thirties. In those days everyone was scratching for a dollar some less honestly than others like Ryan O'Neal. He plays a conman whose current scam is being a Bible salesman. Now could there be anything dishonest about a salesman of the Good Book? I won't describe his con, but it's a good one and in Middle America, Kansas of the Thirties, there's lots of suckers ready to be trimmed in this kind of scheme.But O'Neal gets a call on route that a woman he was intimately acquainted with has died. The 10 year old child she left behind could very well be O'Neal's.Ryan only agrees to deliver the girl to an aunt in St. Joseph, Missouri, but real life daughter Tatum kind of grows on him. And she certainly has his conning ways which would convince anyone she really is his daughter. She aids and abets him and comes up with some schemes of her own. Especially one involving Madeline Kahn who is a woman of some easy virtue who Ryan takes up with and Tatum can no way see as a mother figure.Paper Moon with its great musical score of 30s standards is my kind of film for that alone. But with real life father and daughter playing father and daughter on screen there's a special dimension for those really sublime and quality scenes. It's what earned Paper Moon it's Oscar for Tatum O'Neal as Best Supporting Actress. Doubly impressive since Madeline Kahn was also nominated. Paper Moon was also nominated for Best Sound and for Adapted Screenplay.In the cast you will really be surprised at John Hillerman's portrayal of a mean and corrupt redneck sheriff. It is such a far cry from being Higgins on Magnum, PI, Hillerman carries it off so well.I doubt in this day and age that Tatum and Ryan could have had the happy ending they did, but that's probably for the better. Still Paper Moon is nice nostalgic film about some less than honorable people.

Paper Moon is set in during The Great Depression, but Peter Bogdanovich does not mean for it to be a hard- hitting, no-holds-barred examination of those times and its people. The focus is on a man and his apparent daughter, who never seem to run out of money and have an abundance of time and energy to pursue their greater desires. To be fair, Bogdanovich has etched some of the background characters as figures to be sympathetic of; the black girl Imogene who was promised a hefty four dollars a week to tag along and be the personal assistant (slave) of the showgirl/part time prostitute Trixie Delight, for example. She muses she has not seen a cent of this money, but figures that driving around the countryside in a brand new luxury car and having a full belly most of the time is not such a bad time compared to her family's situation back home. This is about as deep as the hardships go; the film's presentations of the "hard times" are mostly in air quotes. It has a pretty, closed- off view of The Great Depression, a little caricature with more laughs and giggles than real insight. The main pair run a clever scam involving expensive, personalised bibles that specifically targets those already in emotional turmoil - but we are meant to brush past this fact. Bogdanovich instead goes for the simple moral lessons, from the perspective of little Addie Loggins. She sees a horde of starving, haggard children her age, and shouts out that the bible has already been paid for. She (and we) see the closeups of a wealthy women's jewellery and she hurriedly ups the price. Later we are meant to grin along with her in the car because of the tenacity of this little game - the intent is to be comedic and heartwarming. We're also supposed to laugh along as the Trixie's faux-elegance ("I have to go winkie tinkie!") is exposed and kicked out from their lives But it doesn't quite stick because the only moral difference that exists here is that they are the main protagonists and she is not. Bogdanovich only offers simply, clean-cut moral cop-outs to make us root for Addie and her mischief - which is why their scams and antics ultimately don't affect anyone in any drastic, depraved way (a well- off shop and a wealth bootlegger, in reality the cops, are two targets). Tatum O'Neal is the real star. Her character is written as endearingly feisty, but ends up a little annoying by the end. Her portrayal even nails this quality; the way she nags and nags until she gets what she wants, and the small grins afterwards. Addie's best moment is not in her brazen dialogue at all, but in her actions and how they reveal just how tender aged and sweet she is. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to peer at the one last remaining photo of her mother, and silently posing in her manner.