I have the "Final Revised Draft, Sept. 1, 1972" in front of me. I have the movie script open in another window, but the print is quadruply spaced and difficult to read and does not have the directions to the actors that are in the Sept. 1, 1972 draft. But the draft is also very different from the movie script, the opening scene is completely different. And I have opened in a third window, an ebay offering a bound "Paper Moon Reprint Full Screenplay Full Script 1973 Film". I will buy that but have asked the seller a question, "Is it the script that corresponds, with music lyrics and actors' directions, to the film?" before I buy.
The Draft describes Addie: "9 years-old. She stares with cold, sharp eyes...Dark, baggy overalls over a checkered flannel shirt [all true to the finished film]. Her face already shows hard times. [Hmm, don't know about her face showing hard times.] Tough. Protective. Observant. [That is amazing. Yes.]
The draft opens with Miss Ollie (mentioned only once, I believe, in the diner scene at the beginning of the movie) telling Addie that her mother is dead."Don't you wanta cry, child? Addie shakes her head." I mentioned in a prior post that when Moze, beat up, tells Addie "Now, don't you cry", that Addie never cried in the movie except one time when she could use tears to effect.
"Graveyard
"A hillside. Addie dressed in her one, shabby dress with a loose hem."
Exactly as in movie.
"...She stares into the hole, her eyes as cold as ever. ..."
Already the draft is overemphasizing "cold", as if that was "ever" her eyes. Tatum O'Neal would not have won an Academy Award if her eyes were ever cold. In fact, it is the different expressive eyes and face that make her performance so accomplished.
Rock of Ages is so key to the movie but it is not sung in the draft. "Adieu, adieu, a long farewell" is sung "in a flat soprano" by the minister's wife.
No offer of water, also key. No blood and water. The draft was greatly improved upon.
Here is a tiny, but interesting change. When Moze goes to the granary of the brother, Mr. Thompson in the draft, Mr. Robertson in the movie, who was the drunk driver who killed Addie's mother to extract money from the man, Moze says in the draft, "I'm gonna go to Mr. J.T. Deeds." In the movie it's Mr. J.T. Faraday. Deeds-deeds; Faraday~Fair.
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