Tag Archives: Night Moves (1975)

Post coital fondue with Harry & Ellen

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

On his site, Hard Boiled Wonderland, Jedidiah Ayres is currently doing a series of posts In February on the theme of ‘Felonious Valentines’ – romance in crime cinema. I stopped by with a few words on one of my favourite scenes in 1970s American cinema and (to my knowledge), the only one featuring post coital fondue. The scene, featuring Gene Hackman and Susan Clark, is in, Arthur Penn’s existentially bleak 1975 neo noir, Night Moves. You can my post in full here.

Pass me a fondue fork.… Read more

→ Leave a comment

Posted in 1970s American crime films, Crime film, Gene Hackman, Neo Noir

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Moseby Confidential: Arthur Penn’s Night Moves and the Rise of Neo-Noir

Posted on May 27, 2019 by Andrew Nette| 8 Comments

To paraphrase Crocket, the cop character in Michael Mann’s 2006 movie, Miami Vice, I am a fiend for late 1960s/early 1970s American crime cinema. And Matthew Asprey Gear’s Moseby Confidential: Arthur Penn’s Nightmoves and the Rise Neo- Noir, reminded me exactly why.

Moseby Confidential is a monograph about the 1975 neo-noir, Night Moves, starring Gene Hackman as Harry Moseby. Moseby is a confused, disillusioned, deeply insecure, ex-professional footballer turned bottom feeding Los Angeles private investigator. As much to take his mind off suspicions his wife (Susan Clark) is having an affair as the need to turn a dollar, Moseby takes the job of finding the 16-year old tearaway daughter (a very young Melanie Griffiths in her first major screen role) of a washed up Hollywood star.

The case brushes up against the world of professional Hollywood stuntmen before taking Moseby to Key West, Florida, where the young girl is living her stepfather and his hardscrabble girlfriend, Paula (a terrific performance by Jennifer Warren, who Asprey Gear interviews for the book).

Like Asprey Gear, I am a big fan of Night Moves, which was reviewed on this site here back in 2013. I love its strange, discursive narrative and existentially bleak worldview, and its refusal to present its story in a nice, neat package. … Read more

→ 8 Comments

Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Gene Hackman, Neo Noir

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Projection Booth podcast #352: Kiss Me Deadly

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

It was a joy and a thrill to join film scholar Kevin Heffernan and Mike White, host of the terrific Projection Booth podcast, for an episode of his show on what is probably my favourite film noir, Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

Kiss Me Deadly is one of those films I watch every year or so and always find something new to appreciate about it. Talking with my two co-podcasters, I discovered even more to like about it. Issues canvassed during this podcast include:

Mike Hammer (and Mickey Spillane) as the personification of the crisis in post WWII masculinity, and the women in the film as examples of females who are fighting against the confines of their role in American society in the 1950s.

Pulp fiction.

The film’s popularity in France, particularly within surrealist circles for its depiction of the incoherence of everyday life and mass commercial culture.

The Cold War nuclear state, paranoia and surveillance.

THAT answering machine.

Jack Elam.

Ernest Laszlo’s sensational cinematography.

Los Angeles’ former Bunker Hill area as the 1940s/50s B-movie/noir outdoor film shooting location of choice.

The psychiatrist as an archetypal villain in 1940s/1950s American film.

Other fictional noir detective equivalents to Mike Hammer, including Harry Moseby in Arthur Penn’s 1975 film, Night Moves (okay that last part might of been just me).… Read more

→ Leave a comment

Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Film Noir, Gene Hackman, Ian Fleming, Neo Noir, Pulp fiction, Robert Aldrich

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Night Moves

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

One of the things I like best about the Christmas/New Year period is it’s a good chance to catch up on my movie viewing. This holiday season I re-watched the neo-noir, Night Moves. Made in 1973, but not released until 1975, Night Moves belongs to a period of US film making that is probably my favourite. It’s a complex, meandering and multi-layered film that perfectly captures the moral and political ambiguity of the time. I wanted to review Night Moves for this site but discovered a recent post on the same topic that does it much better than I ever could by a friend called Dean Brandum.

Dean’s the man behind a terrific web site called Technicolor Yawn (for overseas readers that’s Australian slang for throwing up), which chronicles the history of Melbourne’s now vanished grindhouse cinema scene in the seventies and early eighties. He’s a great guy and what he doesn’t know about cinema is not worth knowing. The following review appeared on his site in mid-December. Enjoy.

BTW, I’ll be interviewing Dean about Melbourne’s forgotten grindhouse cinema scene on Pulp Curry sometime in the next few weeks.

“I remember Bobby (Kennedy) when he got shot, the newsreels made it look like everything was happening under water” – Paula (Jennifer Warren) in Night Moves 

It’s that certain visual aesthetic; let’s call it “muted Cannon with a chance of showers” that veneers so many Los Angeles set film noir of the early 1970s, differentiating it from the monochrome 40s-50s and the swimming pool enhanced glare of the 1960s.… Read more

→ 5 Comments

Posted in 1970s American crime films, Crime film, Gene Hackman, Neo Noir

Tagged , , , , , , , ,