Chinatown

Chinatown

1974 film directed by Roman PolaƄski
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Chinatown
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Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.

—Anonymous

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - In 1937 Los Angeles, private investigator Jake 'J.J.' Gittes specializes in cheating-spouse cases. His current target is Hollis Mulwray, high-profile chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whose wife suspects him of infidelity. In following Mulwray, Gittes witnesses some usual business dealings, such as a public meeting for construction of a new dam to create additional water supply for Los Angeles, as fresh water is vital to the growing community during the chronic drought; Mulwray opposes the dam. Eventually Gittes sees Mulwray meeting with an unknown young woman who isn't his wife. Once news of the supposed tryst between Mulwray and this woman hits the media, additional information comes to light that makes Gittes believe that Mulwray is being framed for something and that he himself is being set up. In his investigation of the issue behind Mulwray's framing and his own setup, Gittes is assisted by Mulwray's wife Evelyn, but he thinks she isn't being forthright with him. The further he gets into the investigation, the more secrets he uncovers about the Mulwrays' professional and personal dealings, including Mulwray's former business-partnership with Evelyn's father, Noah Cross. The identity of the unknown woman may be the key to uncovering the whole story.

—Huggo

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - It is the Great Depression era, September 1937, the period of the historic Los Angeles - Owens Valley Waters Wars. J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a brash private investigator. His methods yield results: because his small firm depends on publicity, he is not shy with the media. Hollis Mulwray is the Commissioner and Chief Engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; given the circumstances and the issues of the times, Mulwray is one of the city's most powerful and influential politicians. Jake is hired to follow Mulwray; he goes to a commission meeting and to various reservoirs, aqueducts, dams, and waterways. Jake also tails him to a cozy apartment, where he snaps a photo of Mulwray in the clinches of a young blonde. The photo and juicy story make front-page headlines. At his office, Jake is confronted by the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), an angry beauty, and her attorney, who hands Jake a lawsuit. With his reputation at stake, Jake is anxious to talk to Hollis Mulwray, but he is unable to locate him at his office or apartment or other haunts. At the Mulwray home, Evelyn Mulwray receives Jake, but she is evasive and uneven, then she offers to dismiss the law suit. When Jake persists, she suggests Jake try Oak Pass at Stone Canyon Reservoir, as her husband likes to walk there every day at lunch. Jake reaches Oak Pass and Hollis Mulwray is indeed at the reservoir, but so are the police: Mulwray fell and drowned, and his body washed up in a runoff channel. When Evelyn arrives at Oak Pass she lies to the police, and Jake does not expose her lies. Evelyn piques Jake's interest and he makes further investigation. After an attack, Jake informs Evelyn that her husband was murdered, and Jake soon becomes embroiled in the mystery of Mulwray's death and other questions: Who was the impostor and who hired her? Why was she hired? Who is Evelyn Mulwray and who's her daddy? Jake learns "gold" is really a five-letter word, more valuable than oil or diamonds, in this 1974 classic.

—LA-Lawyer

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - In 1937 Los Angeles, private detective J.J. Gittes is hired by a woman to investigate whether her husband is having an affair. The husband, Hollis Mulwray, is the chief water engineer for the city of Los Angeles. Soon after Gittes delivers the photos that seem to confirm her suspicions, he meets the man's real wife and, intrigued, investigates further. Then Hollis Mulwray turns up dead.

—grantss

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes is hired by a "Mrs. Mulwray" to spy on her husband. Shortly after Gittes is hired, the real Mrs. Mulwray appears in his office threatening to sue if he doesn't drop the case immediately. Gittes pursues the case anyway, slowly uncovering a vast conspiracy centering on water management, state and municipal corruption, land use, and real estate; and involving at least one murder.

—filmfactsman

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) starts nosing around Cross's water diversion scheme. That proves to be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's critically lauded 1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, "matrimonial work" specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her husband, Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling). Gittes photographs him in the company of a young blonde and figures the case is closed, only to discover that the real Mrs. Mulwray had nothing to do with hiring Gittes in the first place. When Hollis turns up dead, Gittes decides to investigate further, encountering a shady old-age home, corrupt bureaucrats, angry orange farmers, and a nostril-slicing thug (Polanski) along the way. By the time he confronts Cross, Evelyn's father and Mulwray's former business partner, Jake thinks he knows everything, but an even more sordid truth awaits him. When circumstances force Jake to return to his old beat in Chinatown, he realizes just how impotent he is against the wealthy, depraved Cross. "Forget it, Jake," his old partner tells him. "It's Chinatown." Reworking the somber underpinnings of detective noir along more pessimistic lines, Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne convey a '70s-inflected critique of capitalist and bureaucratic malevolence in a carefully detailed period piece harkening back to the genre's roots in the 1930s and '40s. Gittes always has a smart comeback like Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, but the corruption Gittes finds is too deep for one man to stop. Other noir revisions, such as Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) and Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975), also centered on the detective's inefficacy in an uncertain '70s world, but Chinatown's period sheen renders this dilemma at once contemporary and timeless, pointing to larger implications about the effects of corporate rapaciousness on individuals. Polanski and Towne clashed over Chinatown's ending; Polanski won the fight, but Towne won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Chinatown was nominated for ten other Oscars, including Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes, and Score.

Synopsis by Lucia Bozzola

http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v9362

Chinatown R | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 20 June 1974 (USA) - Set in 1937 Los Angeles, a private investigator named Jake "J.J." Gittes (Nicholson) is hired to spy on Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer for the city's water department. The woman hiring Gittes claims to be Evelyn Mulwray, Hollis' wife. For unknown reasons, Mulwray spends considerable time looking at dry riverbeds and water outlets. Mulwray is photographed while having a heated argument with an elderly man on the street. Gittes photographs Mulwray from a roof top when he kisses a young blonde, and the photo is published in the newspaper the next day, causing a scandal. After the story is published, Gittes is visited by the real Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray, who threatens to sue him for defamation.

Gittes uncovers information that despite a serious drought and an expensive proposal to build a new dam, the Water and Power Department is dumping fresh water into the ocean at night. The dam project is opposed by Mulwray himself, who cites a potential disaster because of weak geological formations in the rock where the dam is to be constructed -- Mulwray had previously supported the building of another dam that had failed due to similar geological conditions. When he addresses a public hearing on the project, which Gittes attends, Mulwray is ridiculed by several farmers, one of whom leads a flock of sheep into the room, who want the reservoir and water the dam will provide.

Jake goes to Mulwray's mansion to speak to him but is only able to talk to Evelyn Mulwray. While he waits for her, Mulwray's Japanese gardener cleans a small decorative pond. He casually says "bad for the glass" in broken English, a comment that Jake dismisses. Jake notices a shiny object in the pool and tries to retrieve it, stopping when Evelyn appears. She tells him that Mulwray usually takes afternoon walks at a reservoir and that he should look for him there.

Gittes goes to find Mulwray at the reservoir but instead finds the police haul Mulwray's body out of the reservoir. They believe Mulwray died from drowning. Gittes used to work with the lead investigator, Lt. Lou Escobar. When the police interview Evelyn Mulwray about her husband's death, they assume she hired Gittes, and Gittes corroborates the lie for her. She thanks him and hires him to investigate what happened to her husband. Later, at the county coroner's department, Gittes learns from the coroner that Mulwray's lungs were filled with salt water, although he had been found in a freshwater reservoir. Gittes also learns that a local drunk was found dead from drowning in a dry riverbed that Mulwray had been inspecting.

Later that night Gittes climbs the secure fence around the reservoir and, after he is shot at by an unseen shooter, is nearly drowned when the culvert he is hiding in is suddenly filled with running water. Two water department security thugs detain him; a large man named Claude Mulvihill and a short thug (a cameo by Roman Polanski), who slashes Jake's nose for being a "very nosy fella." Gittes, forced to wear a large and ridiculous bandage, receives a call from Ida Sessions, the woman who originally impersonated Evelyn Mulwray. She admits she was hired to trick Gittes, but refuses to come to his office. She tells him to read that day's obituaries, saying he'll find "one of those people". At the water department, Gittes sees photographs of the elderly man Mulwray quarreled with a few days before his death; the man is Noah Cross (John Huston), Evelyn Mulwray's father. He used to own the water utility in partnership with Mulwray, but Cross ended his association with the department when the partners sold it to the city, as Mulwray had long desired.

Cross invites Jake to lunch at his home and hires Jake to find the blond girl Mulwray had been seeing, saying that she might know what happened to him and that he'd like to comfort her if he can. Gittes goes to the Hall of Records and looks in a large plat book of the valley. He learns that a considerable portion of the valley has been bought up in the past few months by a few new land owners who have purchased large tracts of land. When the attendant in the room refuses to let Jake borrow the book, Jake surreptitiously tears the column out of the book and pockets it.

Acting on another tip from Sessions, Gittes begins to unravel an intricate scandal involving LA's fresh water supply. Gittes first travels to an orange farm to talk with the owner about how his land is being irrigated. As he drives around he is shot at by the farmer and a few of his farmhands and crashes his car into a tree. Jake is dragged from his car, beaten and searched. The farmer explains that the Department of Water & Power has been harassing him by sending agents to run him off his land and poison the water in his wells. While he tries to show the farmer documentation of his investigation, the farmhands claim that Mulwray is responsible for harassment of late and attack Jake. When Jake tries to fight back, he's knocked unconscious. He wakes up to find that the farmer and his wife have called Evelyn, who has come to the farm.

While they drive back to LA, Jake explains the scandal to her: her father and his partners have been forcing farmers in the rural areas surrounding the city off of their land so they can buy it cheap, after which a newly-built (and controversial) dam and water system would start redirecting much of L.A.'s water supply to that land, dramatically increasing its real estate potential and value.

Since Cross wants no record of such transactions, he has partnered with a retirement home community, using the identities of the eldest residents within (one of whom is mentioned in the obituary column): they would legally, but unknowingly, own the land. Jake, having matched one of the obituary names to one of the names in the list he stole from the plat book, has Evelyn drive him to the retirement home and pose as a married couple trying to find a place for Jake's father to live. The host tells them they can tour the facility. They come across an activities board with the names of the people from the plat book. Jake talks to a group of women working on a quilt. One of the pieces of fabric they've sewn into the quilt bears the emblem of the Albacore Club, the yacht club owned by Noah Cross. Jake is confronted by the host who has figured out Jake's ruse. The man takes him out to the lobby where Mulvihill is waiting. Jake tells Evelyn to bring the car around and then severely beats Mulvihill and barely escapes when the short thug who slashed his nose shows up.

Back at Evelyn's house, Gittes and Evelyn share a romantic interlude. As they lie on the bed afterward, Evelyn asks Jake about his past as a cop. He tells her he worked in Chinatown and was responsible for a woman "being hurt", possibly killed because of his actions. The phone rings and Evelyn has a cryptic conversation with someone, then informs Jake that she has to leave for a little while. She gravely asks him to trust her and wait for her to return.

Gittes takes Mulwray's car and follows Evelyn to a middle-class house and sees Mulwray's girlfriend crying. Evelyn claims the young woman is her sister, who was crying because she had just learned about Mulwray's death in the newspaper. Later that night, Jake receives a call at home from a detective named Loach, Escobar's partner, telling him to meet him at a specific address. When he gets there he finds that Ida Sessions is murdered and Escobar and Loach are waiting for him. When Jake asks how they knew to call him Escobar shows Jake his phone number written near the phone. Escobar also points out that he knows the coroner's report proves that salt water was found in Mulwray's lungs even though the body was found in a freshwater reservoir, a fact that Jake had discovered earlier but withheld. He demands that Jake turn over any incriminating photos that may reveal Mulwray's murderer's identity. Escobar's chief suspect is Evelyn herself.

Under pressure from Escobar threatening to revoke his PI's license, Jake returns to Evelyn's mansion looking for her. Evelyn's Japanese gardener is working in the backyard and drops a minor comment about "salt water being bad for the *grass*". The man's accent had masked over the actual word he was using to describe the problem. Jake has the man fish out the shiny object he'd noticed in the pool before: it's a pair of eyeglasses.

Gittes confronts Evelyn at the small house where she'd been keeping the young girl. Evelyn reveals that the blond girl, Katherine, is both her sister and her daughter, born from an incestuous relationship she had with her father years before. Gittes asks Evelyn if her father raped her and she shakes her head no. It remains unclear whether the act was consensual or not. It is apparent also that Evelyn resents her father for taking advantage of her in a relationship considered unnatural. Gittes then chooses to help Evelyn escape. Evelyn also states that the eyeglasses Jake found in her back yard pond could not have been her husband's because they are bifocals. Gittes arranges for the two women to flee to Mexico on a fishing boat owned by another of Jake's clients and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's address in Chinatown.

Evelyn leaves, and Cross arrives with Mulvihill under the pretext that Gittes has found the girl; however, Gittes confronts Cross with the accusation of murder and the glasses. Cross had Mulwray drowned in the saltwater pond at his own house and lost his own glasses in the pond during the act. Jake asks Cross about the water scandal; Cross blithely tells him that he plans to create a community in the desert with an abundant fresh water supply. The real estate revenues from the sales of the land will generate many millions of dollars for him. Cross considers the plan a way of buying the future, essentially insuring that his family will reap the benefits from such a deal for many years. When Jake pointedly asks Cross about the relationship with his daughter, Cross confidently says "Most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything". Cross then orders Mulvihill to seize the glasses, the only physical evidence Jake has and forces Gittes to take him to Evelyn's butler's address in Chinatown. When Gittes arrives at Evelyn's hiding place in Chinatown, the police are already there and arrest Gittes on conspiracy and withholding evidence. Jake vainly tries to explain Cross' plan to Escobar, who won't listen.

Evelyn appears with her daughter, trying to drive away in her car. When Cross approaches Katherine, demanding custody of her, Evelyn pushes him back, shoots him in the arm with a small pistol and starts her car. As Evelyn is driving away, the police open fire and Evelyn is shot and killed. Cross clutches the hysterical Katherine, taking her out of the car, as a devastated Gittes is comforted by his associates, who urge him to walk away: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

The plot is based in part on real events that formed the California Water Wars, in which William Mulholland acted on behalf of Los Angeles interests to secure water rights in the Owens Valley.

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131 minutes
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Mulwray's Gardener: (in heavy Japanese accent, referring to the grass) Bad for glass.
Jake Gittes: Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass.

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