Paper Moon

A nine-year-old orphan attaches herself to Moses Pray, a con man working the roads of Kansas and Missouri during the Depression. Addie may or may not be his daughter; what is certain is that she is better at the work than he is. Peter Bogdanovich directed. His collaborator Polly Platt suggested the project, from Joe David Brown's novel Addie Pray. Bogdanovich moved the story from the Deep South to the Midwest and lowered Addie's age from twelve to nine because he was giving the part to Tatum O'Neal, who had never acted. The story of the title is more famous than the film. Bogdanovich first meant to keep the novel's name, changed his mind after hearing a period song, and asked his mentor Orson Welles. Welles was unambiguous: that title is so good you shouldn't even make the picture, you should just release the title. To justify the new name Bogdanovich added the scene of Addie photographed on a paper moon. At ten, Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress at the 1974 ceremony and became the youngest competitive Academy Award winner in film history. The gross was around 30.9 million dollars. Who it is for: viewers who like black-and-white American cinema and road films. Who it is not for: anyone wanting emotional resolution. The film leaves what these two are to each other unsettled to the last frame.