Vintage Trailer of the Week 51

Aside from his most famous work - the influential and justifiably acclaimed Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man, my favourite film by the recently-deceased Arthur Penn is Night Moves (1975).
Its a noir following an ex-football player turned PI (Gene Hackman) as he investigates a knotty missing persons case involving fading movie stars and a bunch of Hollywood stuntmen.
Penn will forever be remembered for the way Bonnie and Clyde imported the stylistic risks and innovations employed by the French Nouvelle Vague, and made them work within a defiantly American context, but his work maintained this odd European flavour right up into the 1980s. Night Moves is the best example, its downbeat tone and complex characterisation making for an impressively adult approach to this genre tale.
Writer Alan Sharp (also responsible for a stretch of minor classics such as The Hired Hand, Ulzana's Raid and Rob Roy) provides Hackman with a big, fascinating character to wrestle with, and he carries the whole thing impressively, aided by a very young James Woods and Melanie Griffith. Theres also a score by Michael Small, a bleak finale, and some great one-liners.


ARTHUR PENN 1922-2010