Chinatown (1974)

A private detective investigating an adultery case stumbles on to a scheme of murder that has something to do with water.

Director:

Roman Polanski

Writer:

Robert Towne

Stars:

Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

Top 250 #85 | Won 1 Oscar. Another 20 wins & 22 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Nicholson	...	J.J. Gittes
Faye Dunaway	...	Evelyn Mulwray
John Huston	...	Noah Cross
Perry Lopez	...	Escobar
John Hillerman	...	Yelburton
Darrell Zwerling	...	Hollis Mulwray
Diane Ladd	...	Ida Sessions
Roy Jenson	...	Mulvihill
Roman Polanski	...	Man with Knife
Richard Bakalyan	...	Loach (as Dick Bakalyan)
Joe Mantell	...	Walsh
Bruce Glover	...	Duffy
Nandu Hinds	...	Sophie
James O'Rear	...	Lawyer (as James O'Reare)
James Hong	...	Evelyn's Butler

Storyline

JJ 'Jake' Gittes is a private detective who seems to specialize in matrimonial cases. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city's water supply system, of having an affair. Gittes does what he does best and photographs him with a young girl but in the ensuing scandal, it seems he was hired by an impersonator and not the real Mrs. Mulwray. When Mr. Mulwray is found dead, Jake is plunged into a complex web of deceit involving murder, incest and municipal corruption all related to the city's water supply.

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Plot Keywords:

water | detective | murder | corruption | private detective | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Cantonese Spanish

Release Date:

20 June 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Barrio Chino

Filming Locations:

1315 South El Molino Drive, South Pasadena, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Penthouse

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Roman Polanski said that in staying true to the tradition of Raymond Chandler's detective stories, he shot the whole movie from the perspective of the main character.

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Goofs

Police cars use the higher-pitched style of siren commonly heard from the 1960s onward, not the lower-pitched style characteristic of the 1930s.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Jake Gittes: All right, Curly. Enough's enough. You can't eat the Venetian blinds. I just had them installed on Wednesday.

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Connections

Referenced in Saturday Night Live: Raquel Welch/Phoebe Snow, John Sebastian (1976)

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Soundtracks

"I Can't Get Started"
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Music by Vernon Duke
As recorded by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra
Courtesy of RCA Records.

User Reviews

One of the top 100 films of all time

The year 1974 was very memorable. That year several films were successes which consisted of Francis Coppula's "The Godfather:Part II",Alan Pakula's political thriller "The Parallex View",Robert Aldrich's "The Longest Yard",and not to mention the disaster epics of the day;Irwin Allen's "The Towering Inferno",and Mark Robson's "Earthquake" not to mention the films "The Conversation",and "The Great Gatsby","Lenny",and "Blazing Saddles" to name a few. But one film in particular stood out from all the rest and it shows why that was one of AFI's 100 top films of all time.

The year was 1974. The motion picture is "Chinatown". This was the movie that cemented Jack Nicholson as a bonafide superstar throughout the entire decade of the 1970's. This was the movie that started it all.

Jack Nicholson graduated from star to superstar playing a gumshoe in this marvelously intricate film noir of the 70's directed by Roman Polanski,who has a memorable cameo as a sadistic hood,gives Nicholson the most famous nose job in motion picture history. Robert Towne's Oscar winning script(whom they used in some acting and writing classes as a learning tool in some colleges)brilliantly depicts 1940's Los Angeles as a glittering cesspool of murder,incest,and corrupt land deals. Faye Dunaway steals the picture with a haunting performance as the film's alluring female fatale,and John Huston,as her creepy millionaire father,will make your skin crawl. The stunning finale still packs an emotional wallop. "Chinatown" was the apex of what the cinema of the 1970's was about to become,and this was the prime factor of that as well.

The film was nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture and won three for Best Original Score(Jerry Goldsmith),Best Screenplay(Robert Towne),and Best Supporting Actor(John Huston).