Paper Moon

Paper Moon (1973) is a Peter Bogdanovich crime comedy you can watch online on iFILM. The setting is Depression-era Kansas, all dust and back roads between small towns. Working them is a small-time con man named Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal), who sells Bibles to new widows with their late husbands' names already stamped on the cover.

At a funeral he ends up stuck with nine-year-old orphan Addie (Tatum O'Neal) — maybe his daughter, maybe not, and neither of them is telling. The girl smokes, counts money faster than any grown-up and sees through every one of his scams in seconds. Moses means to hand her off to relatives, but Addie digs in: fleecing cashiers and shopkeepers pays a lot better as a pair. What grows between them is an odd partnership where it's never clear who is looking after whom.

Shot in black and white to echo 1930s newsreels, the film is based on Joe David Brown's novel. Ten-year-old Tatum O'Neal won an Academy Award for the role and remains the youngest competitive acting Oscar winner. Madeline Kahn rounds out the cast. Stream Paper Moon (1973) online on iFILM.