Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir film, directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston. The film features many elements of the film noir genre, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama. It was released by Paramount Pictures. The story, set in Los Angeles in 1937, was inspired by the California Water Wars, the historical disputes over land and water rights that had raged in southern California during the 1910s and 1920s, in which William Mulholland acted on behalf of Los Angeles interests to secure water rights in the Owens Valley. Chinatown was the last film Roman Polanski made in the United States before fleeing to Europe.

Chinatown has been called one of the greatest films ever made.^[3][4][5] It holds second position on the American Film Institute list of Best Mystery Films of all time. Chinatown was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne. It also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. In 1991, Chinatown was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

A sequel, called The Two Jakes, was released in 1990, starring Jack Nicholson, who also directed it, with a screenplay by Robert Towne. The film, however, failed to generate as much acclaim as its predecessor.

Plot [link]

A woman named Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) to perform matrimonial surveillance on her husband Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Mr. Mulwray is in the public eye due to his opposition to the proposed construction of a new dam, citing grounds of safety. Gittes tails him and photographs Mulwray with a young woman, Katherine Cross (Belinda Palmer). The photos hit the front page of the paper the next day, and Gittes is confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). Gittes realizes he had been duped by a phony Mrs. Mulwray, and to repair his reputation, he must figure out who was behind the hiring, and why.

Gittes goes looking for Mr. Mulwray. Eventually, he finds former colleague Lt. Lou Escobar (Perry Lopez) recovering Mulwray's drowned body. He suspects he was murdered and investigates further. He learns that huge quantities of water are being released from the reservoir every night. Breaking into the reservoir, he is confronted by water department security chief Claude Mulvihill (Roy Jenson) with a henchman (a cameo by director Roman Polanski) who slashes Gittes's nose. Back at his office, Gittes receives a call from one Ida Sessions, the bogus Mrs. Mulwray. She does not identify her employer, but provides a clue: the name of one of "those people" is in that day's obituaries.

Gittes learns that Mrs. Mulwray's maiden name was Cross and that her husband was once her father's business partner. Visiting the Department of Water and Power, Gittes learns his name: Noah Cross (John Huston). Gittes joins Noah Cross at his estate for lunch and Cross offers to hire Gittes to find Katherine, who has been missing since Mulwray's death. Gittes visits the hall of records, where he learns that one of the deceased persons in the obituary column had just bought a huge land tract in the orange grove of the northwest San Fernando Valley. He goes there but is caught and beaten by angry landowners. They explain that agents of the water department have been demolishing their water tanks and poisoning their wells.

Gittes reviews the obituary column, noticing that a resident of the Mar Vista Inn, a retirement home, died two weeks ago, but "bought" acreage in the Valley only one week ago. He deduces that it is a ploy designed not to conserve water for city taxpayers, but to irrigate the rural valley after buying it. Mulwray had presumably realized this, leading to his murder. Evelyn and Gittes bluff their way into the inn and confirm that the real estate deals are done in the name of its residents without their knowledge. After fleeing from Mulvihill and his thugs, they hide at Evelyn's house, where they give in to their mutual attraction and make love. This sours somewhat when Gittes discovers that she has been keeping Katherine hidden from Cross.

Gittes gets a mysterious call from Escobar using Ida Sessions's phone and arriving there, finds Sessions has been murdered. Escobar reveals that the coroner found salt water in Mulwray's lungs, indicating that the body was moved to the freshwater reservoir where it was found. Gittes returns to Evelyn's mansion, where he discovers a pair of men's eyeglasses in her salt water garden pond. Presuming that Evelyn killed Mulwray and that the glasses had been his, Gittes confronts Evelyn about her relationship with Katherine. Gittes slaps her repeatedly until she cries out "She's my sister and my daughter!" and falteringly tells of sexual abuse by her father at age 15. She adds that the eyeglasses are not her husband's: he did not wear bifocals. Gittes decides to help Evelyn and Katherine escape from Escobar, who now suspects Evelyn of Mulwray's murder, with Gittes as accessory after the fact.

Gittes plans for the two women to flee to Mexico through a fisherman client of his, Curly (Burt Young), and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's home in Chinatown. Gittes arranges for Cross to meet him at Mulwray's home. Cross admits he intends to incorporate the Northwest Valley into the City of Los Angeles, then irrigate and develop it. When Gittes produces Cross's bifocals, physical evidence linking him to Mulwray's murder, Mulvihill appears and forces him to surrender the glasses, and to take them to Katherine. When the three reach the hiding place in Chinatown, the police are already there and arrest Gittes for withholding evidence and extortion.

Cross approaches Katherine, saying that he is her "grandfather". Evelyn brandishes a small pistol at Cross, and when he is undeterred she shoots him in the arm. As Evelyn speeds away with Katherine, the police open fire, killing Evelyn. Cross clutches Katherine and takes her away, while Escobar orders Gittes released, along with his associates. One of them urges, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown!" Jake and his associates walk away as Escobar directs the crowd away from the crime scene.

Cast [link]

• Jack Nicholson as J.J. "Jake" Gittes
• Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Cross Mulwray
• John Huston as Noah Cross
• Perry Lopez as Lieutenant Lou Escobar
• John Hillerman as Russ Yelburton
• Darrell Zwerling as Hollis I. Mulwray
• Diane Ladd as Ida Sessions
• Roy Jenson as Claude Mulvihill
• Roman Polanski as Man with Knife
• Richard Bakalyan as Detective Loach
• Joe Mantell as Lawrence Walsh
• Bruce Glover as Duffy
• James Hong as Kahn
• Roy Roberts as Mayor Bagby
• Noble Willingham as Councilman
• Burt Young as Curly

Production [link]

Background [link]

In 1971, producer Robert Evans originally offered Towne $175,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but Towne felt he could not better the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Instead, Towne asked for $25,000 from Evans to write his own story, Chinatown, to which Evans agreed.^[6][7]

Chinatown is set in 1937 and portrays the manipulation of a critical municipal resource — water — by a cadre of shadowy oligarchs. It was the first part of Towne's planned trilogy about the character J.J. Gittes, the foibles of the Los Angeles power structure, and the subjugation of public good by private greed.^[8] The second part, The Two Jakes, was about another grab for a natural resource — oil — with a thicker-torsoed Gittes in the 1940s. It was directed by Jack Nicholson and released in 1990, but the second film's commercial and critical failure scuttled plans to make Gittes vs. Gittes,^[9] about the third finite resource — land — in Los Angeles, circa 1968.^[8]

Origins [link]

The characters Hollis Mulwray and Noah Cross are both references to the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland (1855–1935)—the name Hollis Mulwray is partially an anagram for Mulholland. The name Noah is a reference to a flood—to suggest the conflict between good and evil in Mulholland. Mulholland was the designer and engineer for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which brought water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. For reasons of engineering and safety, Mulwray opposes the dam that Cross and the city want to build. Mulwray says he will not make the same mistake as when he built a previous dam, which broke, resulting in the deaths of hundreds. This is a direct reference to the St. Francis Dam disaster. The dam was personally inspected by Mulholland before it catastrophically failed the next morning on March 12, 1928. More than 450 people, 42 of them schoolchildren, died that day and the town of Santa Paula was inundated with flood water.^[10] The incident effectively ended Mulholland's career and he died in 1935. Margaret Leslie Davis, in her 1993 book Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles, says the sexually charged film is a metaphor for the "rape" of the Owens Valley. She notes that it fictionalizes Mulholland into a corrupt and sinister character while underplaying the strong public support for Southern California's controversial water projects.

Development [link]

Robert Towne says he took the title, and the famous exchange, "What did you do in Chinatown?" / "As little as possible", from a Hungarian vice cop who had worked in Chinatown. The cop explained to Towne that the complicated array of dialects and gangs in Los Angeles's Chinatown made it impossible for the police to know whether their interventions in Chinatown were helping victims or furthering their exploitation. As a consequence, the police decided the best course of action was to do as little as possible.^[7]

Polanski found out about the script through Nicholson, with whom he had been planning to make a film once they found the right property. Producer Robert Evans wanted Polanski to direct as well, because he wanted a European vision of the United States, which he thought would be darker and more cynical. Polanski, just a few years removed from the murder of his wife in Los Angeles, was initially reluctant to return, but was persuaded to accept the project based on the strength of the script.^[7]

Towne wrote the screenplay with Nicholson in mind.^[7] Evans, the producer, intended the screenplay to have a happy ending with Cross dying and Evelyn Mulwray surviving. Evans and Polanski argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic end. The two parted ways due to the dispute and Polanski wrote the final scene just a few days before it was shot.^[7]

The original script was over 180 pages. Polanski eliminated Gittes' voiceover narration, which was written in the script, and structured the movie so the audience discovered the clues at the same time Gittes did.

Polanski originally offered the cinematographer position to William A. Fraker, Paramount agreed and Fraker accepted. Paramount had previously hired Fraker to shoot for Polanski on Rosemary's Baby. When Robert Evans became aware of the hiring he insisted the offer be rescinded. Evans, who had also produced Rosemary's Baby, felt pairing Polanski and Fraker created a team with too much power on one side, and would thus complicate the production.

Characters and casting [link]

• "J.J. Gittes" was named after Nicholson's friend, producer Harry Gittes.
• "Evelyn Mulwray" is, according to Towne, intended to initially seem to be the classic "black widow" character typical of lead female characters in film noir, yet is eventually revealed to be the only selfless character in the film. Jane Fonda was strongly considered for the role, but Polanski pushed for Dunaway.^[7]
• "Noah Cross": Towne said that Huston was, after Nicholson, the second-best-cast actor in the film, and that he made the Cross character evil through his charming and courtly performance.^[7]

Filming [link]

Polanski appears in a cameo as the gangster who cuts Gittes' nose. The effect was accomplished with a special knife which indeed could have cut Nicholson's nose if Polanski had not held it correctly. In keeping with the tradition Polanski credits to Raymond Chandler, all of the events of the film are seen subjectively through Gittes's eyes; for example, when Gittes is knocked unconscious, the film fades to black and then fades back in when he awakens. Gittes appears in every scene of the film.^[7]

Soundtrack [link]

Phillip Lambro was originally hired to write the film's music score, but it was rejected at the last minute by producer Robert Evans, leaving Jerry Goldsmith only ten days to write and record a new one. Parts of the original Lambro score can be heard in the original trailer for the movie. The haunting trumpet solos were performed by Hollywood studio musician and MGM first trumpet Uan Rasey. The soundtrack was released through Varèse Sarabande on 7 November 1995 and features twelve tracks of score at a running time just over thirty minutes.

1. "Love Theme from Chinatown (Main Title)"
2. "Noah Cross"
3. "Easy Living"
4. "Jake and Evelyn"
5. "I Can't Get Started"
6. "The Last of Ida"
7. "The Captive"
8. "The Boy on a Horse"
9. "The Way You Look Tonight"
10. "The Wrong Clue"
11. "J.J. Gittes"
12. "Love Theme From Chinatown (End Title)"

Goldsmith received an Academy Award nomination for his efforts though he lost to Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola for The Godfather Part II. Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal^[11] published an article on July 11, 2009 praising Jerry Goldsmith's music for the film, crediting its success to the revised score. The soundtrack to Chinatown is often regarded as one of the greatest scores of all time and ranks in ninth place on the American Film Institute's top 25 American film scores.^[12] Filmmaker David Lynch cites Chinatown as his favorite film score of all time.^[13]

Legacy [link]

Evans says that the film cemented Jack Nicholson, then a rising star, as one of Hollywood's top leading men.^[7]

Robert Towne's screenplay for the film has become legendary among critics and filmmakers, often celebrated as one of the best ever written.^[8][14][15] However, it was Roman Polanski who decided about filming the fatal final scene, changing Towne's idea of a happy ending.

Chinatown brought more public awareness to the land dealings and disputes over water rights which arose while drawing Los Angeles' water supply from the Owens Valley in the 1930s.^[16]

The film holds a 100% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 50 reviews.^[17]

Awards and honors [link]

Academy Awards – 1974 [link]

The film won one Academy Award and was nominated in a further ten categories:^[18][19]

Wins

• Best Original Screenplay – Robert Towne

Nominations

• Best Picture – Robert Evans
• Best Director – Roman Polanski
• Best Actor – Jack Nicholson
• Best Actress – Faye Dunaway
• Best Film Editing – Sam O'Steen
• Best Art Direction – Richard Sylbert, W. Stewart Campbell, Ruby Levitt
• Best Costume Design – Anthea Sylbert
• Best Cinematography – John A. Alonzo
• Best Sound Mixing – Bud Grenzbach, Larry Jost
• Best Music Score – Jerry Goldsmith

Golden Globes – 1974 [link]

Wins

• Best Motion Picture – Drama – Robert Evans
• Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama – Jack Nicholson
• Best Director – Roman Polanski
• Best Screenplay – Robert Towne

Nominations

• Best Actor in a Supporting Role – John Huston
• Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama – Faye Dunaway
• Best Original Score – Jerry Goldsmith

Other awards [link]

• 1975 – BAFTA, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Direction, Best Screenplay (male)
• 1975 – Edgar Award, Best Motion Picture Screenplay – Robert Towne
• 1991 – National Film Registry
• 2010 – Best film of all time, The Guardian^[3]

American Film Institute recognition

• 1998 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #19
• 2001 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #16
• 2003 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Noah Cross – #16 Villain
  • J.J. "Jake" Gittes – Nominated Hero
• 2005 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." – #74
  • "She's my sister! She's my daughter!" – Nominated
• 2005 – AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – #9
• 2007 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #21
• 2008 – AFI's 10 Top 10 – #2 mystery film

References [link]

Bibliography [link]

• Easton, Michael (1998) Chinatown (B.F.I. Film Classics series). Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-85170-532-4.
• Towne, Robert (1997). Chinatown and the Last Detail: 2 Screenplays. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3401-7.
• Tuska, Jon (1978). The Detective in Hollywood. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12093-1.
• Thomson, David (2004). The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40016-8.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Chinatown

• Chinatown at the Internet Movie Database
• Chinatown at the TCM Movie Database
• Chinatown at AllRovi
• Chinatown at Rotten Tomatoes
• Tim Dirks' analysis of Chinatown, one of "The Greatest Films"
• Roger Ebert's complete review of Chinatown
• – conversation with sceenwriter Robert Towne
• Film Noir of the Week commentary
• Literature
• San Francisco Chronicle interview with Towne
• Chinatown Third Draft