A sunny charmer with clouds enough to darken the edges of the screen, "Paper Moon" presents us with an entertainment of equal parts wit and sentiment, an underdog story that delivered a real underdog outcome in the form of a historic Oscar win for nine-year- old Tatum O'Neal.
In the time of the Great Depression, a little girl named Addie (Tatum) is left abandoned by the death of her mother, a woman who hung around in bars and left Addie with a big mystery as far as the identity of her father is concerned. At her gravesite, a dodgy stranger named Moses (Ryan O'Neal) happens by to pay his respects, and is immediately recruited by the other mourners, who don't want to be burdened with the girl, with the assignment of delivering Addie to her next-of-kin.
"God works in mysterious ways," one of the mourners says, after Moses reluctantly accepts.
"Don't He now?" Moses replies.
God indeed may have some unfinished business with Moses Pray, a conman who uses the Good Book as his device for fleecing newly-made widows of a few bucks. Watching the O'Neals work their family chemistry for sparks and laughs while Moses, with unexpected help from Addie, works his scams, is great fun. A lingering question is whether Moses and Addie are in fact related; many in the movie point out their similar jawlines, but Moses refuses to accept the idea. Addie is more open to it. Clearly Moses for all his faults fills a hole in her life.
There was a time when Peter Bogdanovich could do no wrong as a director; here he presents us with an assured callback to 1930s- period sensibilities by employing a flat Kansas landscape and scenic design that suggests a combination of Norman Rockwell and Grant Wood, at once homey and vaguely grotesque. The story moves fast, the dialogue is crisp and believable, and the O'Neals' performances of such strong quality as to make you wonder why they so seldom impressed in other roles. The talent is there on the screen.
Tatum was the real surprise here; decades later, long after the flash of her career faded, it's hard not to be as bowled over by what she gives you as all those critics and movie-goers were so long ago. Avoiding the cutesiness of child actors, she plays her character as sharp-tongued and vinegary, with a hint of real beauty beneath the smudges. "Ain't she got a sweet little face, somehow," is the best anyone can manage in the way of compliments, but Addie don't need them. She just wants her 200 dollars, or "two hundra DOLLA" as she keeps putting it to Moses.
The two of them make such a pair I get annoyed when Madeline Kahn joins them for a time as a conniving, cheapjack vixen named Trixie. Unlike the O'Neals, Kahn is an actress I usually enjoy in anything, so why is she so duff to me here? Trixie is a one-note performance that grates on me; I can't wait for the Prays to leave her in their dust.
I did enjoy P. J. Johnson as Trixie's put-upon maid, Imogene. She adds some heart and gives Addie some company for some of the movie's best scenes. So too does a raft of supporting players, most of whom like Kahn must have been waiting for Mel Brooks' call-backs for "Blazing Saddles" at the time of this production.
Mostly, though, this is Tatum's film; it rises or falls with her and, as a result of her spry performance, rises quite impressively. Bogdanovich clearly gambled putting his promising career on her little shoulders; unlike later gambles of his this paid off spectacularly and yields dividends to this day.
