''Liar's Moon'' is a 1982 film directed by David Fisher and starring

Matt Dillon Matthew Raymond Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including an Oscar and Grammy nomination. Dillon made his feature film debut in '' Over the Edge'' (1979) and established himself as a te ...

, Cindy Fisher, Yvonne DeCarlo, and

Hoyt Axton Hoyt Wayne Axton (March 25, 1938 – October 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor. He became prominent in the early 1960s, establishing himself on the West Coast as a folk singer with an earthy style and powerful voic ...

. It tells the story of two star-crossed lovers in 1940s

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

—a working-class teen and the banker's daughter who elope to much strife. Texas band

Asleep At The Wheel Asleep at the Wheel is an American Western swing group that was formed in Paw Paw, West Virginia, and is based in Austin, Texas. The band has won nine Grammy Awards since their 1970 inception, released over twenty albums, and has charted more t ...

provided multiple songs for the film.

Synopsis

In 1940s east Texas, Jack Duncan, a high school graduate from a

blue-collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

family, falls in love with Ginny Peterson, who has just returned to town from four years of

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

. Ginny's father Alex is the town's wealthy banker and was formerly high school sweethearts with Jack's mother, Babs. However, Alex strenuously objects to Ginny's relationship with Jack. At the end of the summer, Jack and Ginny elope in Louisiana—where 17-year-olds can marry without their parents' permission. Jack gets a job in the oil fields while Ginny earns money for household work in the boarding house they now live in. Alex hires private eye Ray Logan to find the couple. Meanwhile, Ginny learns she is pregnant. Before she can tell Jack, her doctor contacts her previous physician in Texas and reveals that she and Jack share the same father. Upon hearing this upsetting news, Ginny asks Lora Mae Bouvier, a resident in the boarding house who works as a

prostitute Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...

, to direct her to a midwife who provides illegal abortions. While Ginny goes to find the provider, the doctor gets an update from Texas that the couple aren’t actually related as Jack’s mother had his birth records changed out of spite when Ginny’s dad dumped her. Ginny goes ahead with the back-alley procedure, which goes badly and results in complications. Jack manages to find Ginny and she is taken to a hospital. Jack enters the hospital room, where Ginny tells him, "I bet there's a liar's moon out tonight", and the film ends with her survival implied.

Alternate ending

Two different endings were filmed and distributed. In the original ending, Ginny dies from complications after the unsafe abortion. This ending was deemed too dark for test audiences, and the happier ending where Ginny lives was screened in some theaters.

Cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

airings have shown both the more positive ending or the original ending, depending on the television channel. VHS copies of the film also included both endings.

Cast

Production

According to the making-of featurette on the film's Blu-ray release, Billy Hanna wrote the screenplay with his daughter Janice, "drawing on his own experiences growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Illinois." The film was shot in and around

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. It was Broderick Crawford's last film after 45 years and one of

's earliest films. ''Liar's Moon'' was choreographed by

Patsy Swayze Yvonne Helen "Patsy" Swayze ( née Karnes; February 7, 1927 – September 16, 2013) was an American film choreographer, dancer, and dance instructor, and the mother of actor Patrick Swayze. Her credits include choreography for ''Urban Cowboy'' ...

Critical response

In retrospective reviews, critics said ''Liar's Moon'' is "highlighted by some fresh young performances", but "veers into an abyss of melodrama in the final reel."

Home media

On February 8, 2022, the

MVD Rewind Collection MVD Entertainment Group, (previously Music Video Distributors, Inc.) is an American production company and film distributor based in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, consisting of three main departments MVD Visual, MVD Audio, and MVD Distribution. ...

released the film in a high definition Blu-ray edition, which includes making-of featurettes and the alternate ending.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 0082656 *
Liar's Moon
' at

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1982 films 1982 romantic drama films American romantic drama films American teen romance films 1980s teen romance films 1980s teen drama films Films set in Houston Films shot in Houston Crown International Pictures films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films Teenage pregnancy in film Films set in the 1940s Films about abortion