Night Moves (1975) opens as all good movies should—as if we're instead watching a random episode of a long-running sleazy detective procedural. Playing private investigator Harry Moseby, Gene Hackman (may he rest in peace) lurches onto screen as if he owns the joint, stepping out of a dusty green Ford Mustang lightly tossing his keys in the air, the slinky jazz score perfectly matching the twilight mood. As the credits continue to roll, Harry idly checks the answering machine messages in his dingy, but semi-reputable looking office. Just another day on the beat.

For director Arthur Penn—most famous for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), one of the breakthrough films of the New Hollywood era—you sense that Night Moves was also another day on the job, such is its rigor and professionalism. Evidently Penn, a journeyman whose work has rarely been paid the same dues as many of his contemporary peers, had an eye for the zeitgeist. Where Bonnie and Clyde preempted many of the trends that would later define the early ‘70s scene, with its gritty violence, muddy morals, and the downbeat immediacy of its ending, Night Moves reflects the changing times through its double bluffing neo-noir narrative, declaiming the fashion in which the 1960s counterculture was fast turning sour.

Noir leads have always been somewhat unscrupulous and unromantic; fringe neurotics who rely on their sharp tongues over any ethical code. But Harry Moseby, P.I. is all that and worse, a private detective picking up small cases of little value to satisfy his need to solve puzzles and fix problems, even as his marriage (predictably) is falling into tatters. The fight scenes, what few of them there are, are sweaty, grubby affairs, in which Hackman is never made to look imposing or even competent—a desperate man rolling round in the dirt, his scruffy hair pointing like an overused toothbrush. Certainly, this is not the strong arm of the law mainstream cinema often fantasises over.

That Harry stumbles onto a legitimate conspiracy is played with a certain irony—and it's here that Penn and scriptwriter Alan Sharp take aim at the sinister cultural sea change. When the sixteen-year-old daughter of aging Hollywood actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) goes missing, the only person for the job is our man Harry—largely because it's assumed he'll get the job done with minimum friction. The trail left by teenage tearaway Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith) is certainly an easy one to follow—which explains why the concerns around her absence pertain more to Arlene's inability to access her daughter's trust fund rather than her wellbeing. Making his way down to the bright blue skies of the Florida Keys, a circle of neglect and sexual abuse is gradually made clear—one in which the motifs of the free love movement have curdled into something predatory and exploitative.

Fittingly for its title, with this new HDR release the night scenes sing, inky black waters rolling over discarded corpses and dolphins with the same stroke, threatening to swallow Harry whole whenever he steps out from beneath a light. You'd imagine even the cinephobic Harry, who at one point says bluntly, “l saw a Rohmer film once. lt was kind of like watching paint dry,” would have to appreciate the level of assured craft on display in Night Moves. A strange, subdued neo-noir that contains one of cinema's most quietly haunting images, this is a worthy addition to any physical collection.

Special Features

New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
New audio commentary by Matthew Asprey Gear, author of Moseby Confidential
New audio interview with actor Jennifer Warren
Interview with director Arthur Penn from a 1975 episode of Cinema Showcase
Interview with Penn from the 1995 documentary Arthur Penn: A Love Affair with Film
The Day of the Director, a behind-the-scenes featurette
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris