He completes the job yet also experiences complex relationships that undermine his professional authority, confidence and marriage. investigator Harry is hired by an ex-actress Arlene (Janet Ward) to find her missing teenage daughter Delly (Melanie Griffiths). Yet Philip Marlowe is tired of asking the questions and now plays along with a crazy game. Harry Moseby is still hanging on to the fact that he does want real answers. If Night Moves’s investigator Harry (Gene Hackman on great form) doubts the meaning and purpose of his work, whilst struggling with a troubled marriage, he still wishes to enjoy the process of detecting, whereas his contemporary Marlowe strides blithely and disengaged through dangerous and increasingly absurd situations. 1973 was also the year of Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye in which Eliot Gould’s portrayal of Philip Marlowe shunted the private eye into irreverence, parody and even de-construction. Criminal intent is blurred with human frailty and responsibility. It turns into a bleak road map for the private investigator, disturbed by a moral murkiness, that no longer allows for a comfortable resolution to a crime. Night Moves is an unusual production, as the mantle of noir is questioned and almost abandoned. The film’s noirish plot about smuggled Asian art treasures, killings and small plane crashes is made subservient to a riveting study of character: the script’s depiction of loneliness, uncertainty and failure was undoubtedly what really attracted Arthur Penn to direct, more than who did what to whom.
Certainly Alan Sharp’s screenplay is a dense and entwined narrative. Night Moves ’ sinuous storyline didn’t make for an easy film for Warner Brothers to promote. Dialogue such as this wouldn’t have helped it at the box office: Paula: Where were you when Kennedy got shot? Harry: Which Kennedy? Paula: Any Kennedy. This was probably because the film’s tone of despair echoed the country’s political disenchantment. Filming on Night Moves was completed in 1973 right in the middle of the Watergate scandal but its release was held back until 1975.
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