Nice Screenplay Character Touches in Night Moves (1975)

Budding screenwriters have a tendency to throw a lot of unnecessary things into a script. The idea at work is the more elements added to the screenplay, the more profound the plot, characters, and themes will be. Maybe that works now and then, but the common result is usually a muddled one. Too much tossed into a script has a tendency to create a massive mess.

One of the best film noirs of the 1970s is Arthur Penn's classic Night Moves. The 1975 feature was a vehicle for Gene Hackman. Like The Conversation (1974) and Prime Cut (1972), Night Moves did not reap massive ticket sales at the box office despite being an outstanding feature.

A lot could be written about Night Moves. In keeping with the theme of this particular entry, we can focus on simplicity in the outstanding screenplay.

Gene Hackman's character is not down and out financially, but spiritually. Greater days are behind him.

When JFK died, Moseby reveals he was in the middle of his stellar NFL career. When Robert died, he was staking out the home of an adulterer trying to get pictures for a divorce case. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a former professional NFL star who now works as a private investigator. The character is mired in sadness of glory lost. In one brief scene that takes place in the darkness of night, Leslie Warren's character Paula asks him where he was when the Kennedy brothers were shot.


In only three years, Moseby went from a superstar to a pathetic sad sack. No one feels more ashamed about the fall from glory than Moseby. Hackman gets the pain of his character across brilliantly. Screenwriter Alan Sharp deserves a lot of praise for coming up with this brilliant script point.