While not exactly an obscure movie from the ‘70s, Night Moves has been largely forgotten or lost amongst the classics of what was arguably the best decade for cinema. Hackman is, per usual, amazing.
Night Moves
– Warner Archive Collection –
(1975)
Genre(s): Drama, Mystery, Crime
Warner Archives | R – 100 min. – $21.99 | August 15, 2017
Date Published: 08/26/2017 | Author: The Movieman
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THE MOVIE — 4.0/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: L.A. private investigator Harry Moseby (GENE HACKMAN) has problems. Missing persons and bedroom stakeouts are no match for his glory days as a pro football player. His wife (SUSAN CLARK) is having a not-so-secret affair, and while sorting things out, he takes on the case of a runaway teenager, Delilah (MELANIE GRIFFITH), that may be a lot more than he can handle.
Quick Hit Review: To be honest, I’ve never even heard of Night Moves before this release, no wonder considering the decade Gene Hackman had in the 1970s: The French Connection (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Conversation (1974), A Bridge too Far (1977) and Superman (1978). So it’s easy to see why something like this got lost in the shuffle, but what a gem of a 1970s-laden film noir this movie was. What I enjoyed about Night Moves is it would easy enough to have been a straight-forward, simple plotted, detective story and at first, that’s what it seemed it to be as Hackman’s Moseby is hired by an alcoholic has-been actress to track her daughter down but it’s not for love. Of course, Gene Hackman is the standout performance but not to be outdone Jennifer Warren is quite good as Paula, a woman who with her husband, Nick, Delilah’s step-father, has been taking care of the girl in Florida.
The film is also notable for two young performances from fresh-faced James Woods marking only his fifth feature film and Melanie Griffith making her first credited appearance following a couple uncredited roles prior. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 1.25/5 |
| This release comes with The Day of the Director (8:35; SD) archival featurette and the Theatrical Trailer (2:21; HD). |
VIDEO – 3.75/5 |
| Night Moves makes its debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner’s Archive Collection and is presented with a 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and given an adequate, albeit not great, 1080p high-definition transfer (MPEG-4 AVC codec). This is mixed transfer as detail, especially close-ups are fairly sharp but there is a heavy amount of film grain and noise, particularly prevalent in the darker shots, which tend to be murky, which at least wasn’t distracting. I did not notice any major instances of artifacting, aliasing, banding, dust marks or other flaws. |
AUDIO – 3.5/5 |
| The included DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track sounds decent enough where dialogue levels for the most part was clear throughout and while it’s not exactly a rich sounding lossless track with minimal depth even by singular channels go, it’s still effective enough. No, it’s not going to wow you, but as a movie going on 40+ years, I wouldn’t expect very much out of it. |
OVERALL – 3.5/5 |
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Overall, while not exactly an obscure movie from the ‘70s, Night Moves has been largely forgotten or lost amongst the classics of what was arguably the best decade for cinema. Hackman is, per usual, amazing and a young Melanie Griffith was impressive in her first major role. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.