‘Drink your Nehi and eat your Coney Island,’ has long been a quotation of choice in this household – usually directed at The Daughter when she gets mouthy.
It comes from the wonderful Peter Bogdanovich film, Paper Moon. I hadn’t seen it for decades and mentioned this fact to a friend when he told me that he was going to the NFT to see a re-mastered version (if that’s the term one uses for films as well as music) of Bogdanovich’s other masterpiece of the era, The Last Picture Show.
Last Sunday, those very nice obliging people at Film Four aired Paper Moon. Someone somewhere must have got wind of the fact that I hadn’t seen it for so long and was very keen to see it again.
That same afternoon, I met up with my friend Adrian, a tree surgeon by trade, so we could walk our dogs down to the river and talk about the events of the week. He’s usually late, so I was a little anxious about getting back in time to see the film.
We met up in the square of Floirac, a delightful village in the flood plain of the Dordogne. We wandered down to the river, revelling in the sights and incredible smells of this most beautiful of springs. Alf and Polly chased each other and went swimming in the river while Adrian told me all about his latest romance. On the way back, we were passed by a parade of veteran cars from the ‘50s, including a sweet little bright-red soft-top Skoda. Back in Floirac, he suggested a beer at the crêperie, but I confessed to my pressing engagement back home.
I made it back in time. And the film didn’t disappoint after all these years. I first saw it in Stafford, during my year off between school and university when I was working as an assistant archivist for the 6th Earl of Harrowby. I think I saw Paper Moon, The Way We Were and a double bill of Don’t Look Now and The Wicker Man in the space of a few weeks: a golden time for a teenager working in almost solitary confinement.
Paper Moon, as you probably know, is a road movie involving an orphan child, played by the 10-year old Tatum O’Neal, and a confidence trickster who may well be her father, played by her dysfunctional real-life dad, Ryan O’Neal. Not only is it very funny, but Lazlo Kovacs’s resplendent black-and-white cinematography also conveys a convincing sense of the Mid West during the Great Depression.
And there is the added bonus of Madeline Khan as the floozie with airs and graces and a very weak bladder, who temporarily wins the heart of Ryan O’Neal until the orphaned Addy cooks up a plan to get rid of her. In my book, Madeline Khan was a latter-day Judy Holliday, whose look of lustful longing for Mel Brooks when he cracks the microphone lead during his Frank Sinatra piece in High Anxiety is one of the great unsung moments of cinema.
Film Four is running it on a loop as part of its fabulous Films for Life season, so be sure to catch it if you haven’t done so already. As for Peter Bogdanovich, lovers of The Sopranos might have spotted him as Tony’s shrink’s mentor. Bogdanovich is one of those incredible multi-talented human beings who can seemingly excel at anything he tries. But if he is remembered principally as a film director, that part of his career probably peaked with Paper Moon.
Anyway, thank you Film Four for showing our family his finest film. Now Tilley will understand the significance of my urging her to ‘drink her Nehi and eat her Coney Island’. And now maybe I’ll lobby them for a airing some time soon of The Last Picture Show – if I can cope with seeing Jeff Bridges looking so unbearably young.
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