paper moon

Director: peter bogdanovich

Actor: ryan o'neal,tatum o'neal,madeline kahn,john hillerman

Data Published: Wed May 09 1973

Genres: Comedy,Crime,Drama

Key Words: great depression,father daughter relationship,amusement park,whiskey,bible

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070510/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Moon_(film)

Description: Paper Moon is a movie starring Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, and Madeline Kahn. 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...

Plot: 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 African American 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, and 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. At a hotel in Kansas Moze finds a bootlegger's store of whiskey, steals some of it, and sells it back to the bootlegger. Unfortunately the bootlegger's brother is the sheriff, who quickly arrests Moze and Addie. Addie hides their money, steals back the key to their car, and the pair escape. To elude pursuit, they trade their new car for a decrepit Model T farm truck after Moze beats a hillbilly in a "wrasslin' match." The sheriff finds them in Missouri and, unable to arrest Moze, he and his cohorts beat and rob him. Humiliated, Moze drops Addie at her aunt's house in St Joseph but Addie, disappointed, rejoins him on the road. When he refuses her company she reminds him that he still owes her two hundred dollars and reveals that his truck has rolled away without him, whereupon they leave together.