“Say it’s only a paper moon,” singer Peggy Healy croons on Paul Whiteman’s 1933 recording of the once-popular song, “sailing over a cardboard sea/ But it wouldn’t be make-believe/ If you believed in me.” The song is both lighthearted and poignant, a testament—depending on your perspective—to the power of fantasy or belief.

Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich borrowed the central metaphor (and the title) for his 1973 film “Paper Moon.” Adapted by screenwriter Alvin Sargent from Joe David Brown’s novel Addie Pray, the film is, like the song, both wry and a little sad. With its throwback opening credits, Dust Bowl setting and black-and-white cinematography, the film blends Old Hollywood sweetness with New Hollywood cynicism. It’s a movie about con artists, a movie where nearly every word spoken by our protagonists is a lie. Even their relationship—father and daughter—may be a deception. But a paper moon can become deeply meaningful in the eyes of someone in love, despite its obvious artifice; and perhaps the feigned love between Moses (Ryan O’Neal) and Addie (Tatum O’Neal, his daughter, in her first role) is grounded by something real. It all depends on what you choose to believe.

Moses “Moze” Pray is a Bible salesman in Dust Bowl Kansas. That’s what he’d tell you, anyway: He’s actually a conman, selling overpriced Bibles to recent widows, claiming their departed husbands ordered it for them (but never made the final payment, of course). He combs the obituary pages looking for new marks, inscribes a widow’s name in a “deluxe edition,” and puts on a sad and pious face.

We meet him sidling up to the burial (swiping flowers from another grave as he goes) of the mother of Addie Loggins, a 9-year-old girl with a perpetual scowl. Moze claims he was a friend of Addie’s mother, although this is probably an exaggeration; it is implied that he would pay her for sex when he would pass through town. Learning that Addie has no other family except an aunt in Missouri, he offers to drive her there. In truth, he uses her to extort money from the brother of the man who accidentally killed Addie’s mother (claiming it is needed to care for the girl) and then plans to put her on a train.

But Addie is cannier than she seems, and quickly turns the tables on Moze. She reasons that the extortion money actually belongs to her: Either he pays her back (he has, of course, already spent the money) or she exposes him to the police. Begrudgingly, Moze agrees and brings her into his Bible-selling racket. 

Addie is a real asset, weaponizing her childish charm to get Moze out of tricky spots and to squeeze more money from wealthy widows. At the same time, she prevents him from fleecing people who can’t afford it, carrying a conscience for the two of them. With her world-weary expression and chain-smoking habit, she often reads as more adult than he does.

They are an unlikely pair. They might be father and daughter: Several people note a resemblance, although Moze denies it, maybe a bit too defensively. But they complement each other well, and together navigate many misadventures, including a detour with showgirl Trixie Delight (played with both hilarity and heartbreak by Madeline Kahn) and running afoul of a bootlegger and his twin brother, a deputy sheriff (John Hillerman). They insist their partnership is strictly business, but could there be genuine affection underneath?

Nearly everyone we meet in “Paper Moon” is running some sort of scam. With the truth so clouded in uncertainty, our protagonists (and the audience) have to choose who and what to believe. One can apply an existentialist read to this, certainly: There is no truth, except the personal meaning we impose on the world. People of faith draw a different conclusion, though it can look similar in practice: There is truth, but you need the eyes of faith to see it.

Either way, it’s a choice. What we believe transforms how we see the world. That’s exactly what the song is saying: not “let’s make-believe together” but “if we believe, this will be true.” Moze and Addie are jaded, but they also, in their own roundabout ways, crave love. Maybe their arrangement is strictly transactional, founded on self-interest and blackmail; or maybe it’s the family they’ve both secretly longed for. 

A paper moon in a canvas sky can become a romantic backdrop. Two grifters can become a family. It all depends on what you choose to believe.

“Paper Moon” is streaming on Kanopy.

John Dougherty is the director of mission and ministry at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia, Pa.