‘Chinatown’ at 50: A celebration of this Jack Nicholson classic
Even if you have never seen “Chinatown” you are probably familiar with the celebrated final line “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” But did you know that the line almost didn’t make it to the screen?
Set in a drought-ridden 1937 Los Angeles, “Chinatown” stars Jack Nicholson as a J.J. Gittes, a former-cop-turned private-detective with a lot of demons, who works as a successful private eye specializing in a divorce cases. One day, a woman (Diane Ladd) shows up in his office proclaiming she’s Evelyn Mulwray and wants to hire him because she suspects that her husband, the Los Angeles Water Commissioner, is having an affair. When he’s murdered, Gittes finds himself embroiled in a wide-ranging conspiracy involving control of L.A.’s water lead by John Huston’s ruthless businessman Noah Cross, who happens to be Evelyn’s father. Entering the picture is the real Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) with whom Gittes becomes romantically involved. But he’s too good of a detective discovering why she is so fearful of her father.
The ending-and that line- is dark, ominous and perfect. Still, writer Robert Towne and director Roman Polanski disagreed on the ending of the neo noir which opened on June 21 in New York and L.A. 50 years ago. According to Polanski, Towne wanted a happy ending where Evelyn lived, and Cross died. “All would turn out okay for her, after a short spell in jail,” Polanski would later say. “I knew if ‘Chinatown’ was to be special, not just another thriller where the good guys triumph in the final reel, Evelyn had to die.”
Do you know what “Chinatown” and Orson Welles’ 1942 “The Magnificent Ambersons” have in common? Stanley Cortez. The veteran cinematographer earned Oscar nominations for “Ambersons” and 1944’s “Since You Went Away” and is probably best known for his evocative black-and-white cinematography for Charles Laughton’s 1955 “Night of the Hunter.” Polanski chose him to shoot “Chinatown’’ but Cortez didn’t last very long on the production. According to TCM.com, the reason for his firing was because the “rushes of the film were too dark and deemed unusable.”
Tensions did run high on the set. TCM.com’s trivia on the film noted that Nicholson and Polanski had such a row in Nicholson’s dressing room that the filmmaker threw the actor’s portable TV — the TV on which he watched Lakers games –out the window. Things were no better for Dunaway whom the filmmaker privately called “the dreaded Dunaway.” She noted in her autobiography “Looking for Gatsby” that problems began early in the production. “During the make-up test, Lee Harman, who was my makeup man, had finished, and Roman came to check it. He wasn’t happy; he wanted me paler than I was…He grabbed the powder and began covering my face with it. The effect was awful, but his methods were worse. I came away from the encounter thinking he was a bully.
Though “Chinatown” received strong reviews, the New York Times’ Vincent Canby wasn’t very impressed. “Robert Towne…is good but I’m not sure he’s good enough to compete with the big boys. When Robert Alman set out to make Chandler’s ‘The Long Goodbye,’ he had the good sense to turn it into a contemporary film that was as much a comment on the form as an evocation of it. Mr. Polanski and Mr. Towne have attempted nothing so witty and entertaining.”
Jerry Goldsmith’s extraordinary score was written in just ten days; he was hired to replace an earlier score penned by Phillip Lambro. According to Jerry Goldsmith Online “although relatively modest in duration Goldsmith’s task was to climb a mountain and provide the movie with an identity….’Chinatown’ features quite an unusual ensemble; made up of strings, four pianos, four harps, guiro and solo trumpet which the composer revealed he saw in his head while watching the movie for the first time. The latter instrument went on to define the film noir aspect perfectly.”
“Chinatown” earned 11 Oscar nominations including best picture, director, screenplay, actor, actress, score and cinematography winning only for Towne’s script. “The Godfather Part II” was the big winner at the 1975 ceremony. Nicholson and Polanski both won BAFTAS, earned Golden Globes for best film drama, director and actor and the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle named Nicholson best actor.
The masterpiece was the second and final film Polanski would make in the U.S. Polanski has lived in exile in France since he fled L.A. after pleading guilty to one count of unlawful intercourse with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977 at Nicholson’s house. There is a rape trial set for 2025 in Santa Monica. A woman has accused him of raping her in 1973 when she was underaged at his Benedict Canyon home.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?