X

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

Continue with Facebook Continue with email

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

The Moving Finger

A rare beatnik artifact of the early 1960s, one of only a few such films made before the hippies took over Hollywood. Low budget and in b&w, it's set in Greenwich Village, with what seems like a mostly improvised script. It begins as a late film noir crime tale involving a bank robbery where only one of a group of thieves escapes with his life, as well as $90,000 in loot. Injured and on the run, he hides in a local tour bus and is soon taken in by a group of bohemians who shoot him full of morphine to ease his pain and let him sleep it off on a mattress. Mason is the head beatnik. There's also the owner of both an upstairs coffeehouse and garret, where these beatniks hang out. They, in turn, bring the tourist trade in. Although the robbery is supposed to be the main focus of the plot, it quickly turns into more of a character study featuring these rebellious bon vivants and their odd lifestyle, which includes smoking and selling dope, mooching at art galleries, long conversations about all sorts of things and a beat shindig, shot Cinema Verite style in the director's actual apartment. Along the way, they do things like shower together at the home of an heiress and mostly plot ways to get the bank heist money away from Mason, who's too clean-cut to be one of them, but wins us over with his naturally arrogant charisma. The whole thing climaxes at the Feast of San Gennaro, in a typically documentary style conclusion.

Loading. Please wait...

Content not available in your region? ExpressVPN can help you stay connected wherever you are. Get 4 extra months FREE with TV Guide's exclusive offer.

Cast & Crew See All

Lionel Stander
Anatole
Barbara London
Angel
Art Smith
Doctor

Awards

  • 1963 - Golden Gate Award - Best Director - winner

You May Also Like See All

Casablanca
Rear Window
Compensation
The Conformist

Popular Movies See all movies

That Thing You Do!

1 hr 48 mins
A Pennsylvania band scores a hit in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as it can, with lots of help from its manager.
71   Metascore
1996 Comedy, Drama, Music

Blue Film

1 hr 22 mins
Fetish camboy Aaron Eagle agrees to spend the night with an anonymous client, only to discover a disturbing tie to his past.
2025 Drama

Elemental

1 hr 41 mins
Set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together, Elemental introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they live in.
58   Metascore
2023 Animation, Action & Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Drama

Tombstone

2 hr 10 mins
In 1879, Wyatt Earp and his family arrive in the violent town of Tombstone with the intention of running a bar. But Earp is elected sheriff of the place and will have to face the Clantons, a gang that intends to dominate the town.
50   Metascore
1993 Documentary, Drama, Action & Adventure

Amish Stud: The Eli Weaver Story

1 hr 25 mins
While he's out fishing with his Mennonite friend Jeremiah Peters on the morning of 2 June, Amish Eli Weaver receives a message via a call to Jeremiah's cell phone that Eli's wife, 29-year-old Barbara Weaver, has been found shot dead in their bed. While the Amish elders want to deal with the issue solely within their community, the Wayne County Sheriff's Department is forced to investigate in the murder having taken place in their jurisdiction, the two investigators being Detectives Bruce London and Mike Maxwell. What is subsequently shown is the current investigation interspersed with flashbacks of Eli and Barbara's life, which Eli admits to the investigators was not always perfect. Those flashbacks show that prior to their marriage, Barbara wanted to marry for romantic love, which is not the Amish way. Eli seemingly wanted the same; he was the black sheep of his family in not always adhering to Amish strictures. London and Maxwell have their theories of who the murderer is; they suspect Eli, who isn't reacting like a typical grieving husband and father, but they know they'll have problems finding evidence because the Amish Eli will have no digital footprint; and the community's sole telephone is a public one for emergencies, usable by anyone. They hope that the unofficial traditional Amish communication network, rampant gossip, will provide some clues. They find that some talk emerges in the form of a collection of women not in the community who were a part of Eli's secret life as the Amish Stud.
2023 Documentary, Suspense, Drama

Suitcase Killer: The Melanie McGuire Story

1 hr 25 mins
The dramatized 'true' story of nurse Melanie McGuire, whose ire with husband Bill leads first to an affair, then to Bills' murder, and her heinous, macabre treatment of his remains are a shock to the community and her family, at her trial.
2022 Suspense, Drama