Jack Nicholson was too young for the first wave of noir, but luck would have it that he was in his prime for Seventies neo-noir. “Chinatown” (1974) suggests he could’ve had Humphrey Bogart’s career, and while it’s probably a good thing that Nicholson went on to a wide variety of memorable roles, it’s hard to say any are more purely enjoyable to watch that private investigator J.J. “Jake” Gittes.
Writer Robert Towne and director Roman Polanski deliver a classic that’s on the short list of best Seventies noir. When you narrow that category to 1970s-made noir that’s set in the 1930s, few films can compete.
“Chinatown’s” winningest trait is the Sam Spadean pleasure of watching Gittes do his job, often with a cigarette in his mouth or being prepared for his mouth. He’s good at it, and charges a fair price. But he also pays a price, as visually evidence by the famous nose bandage he wears through much of the movie.
“Chinatown” (1974)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Robert Towne
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
The price of progress
The picture is a throwback to classic noir in its setting, bringing us to early development of Los Angeles as a city with a reliable water supply. But “Chinatown” couldn’t be made in the 1930s; it needs the perspective that comes from time. This is where its Seventies nature comes in: Coming out around the time of Watergate, “Chinatown” explores political wheelings and dealings secretly driven by the corruption endemic to a big-money project.
The throwback nature comes from our sense that Gittes is marginally safer than he’d be if corrupt officials went after him in the 1970s, like for instance what Warren Beatty’s character faces in “The Parallax View” (1974). Gittes has a good sense for who is truly corrupt and who is merely caught up in a scheme. He honestly tells the head of the water department, Yelburton (John Hillerman), that he’s not going after him personally. He needs to expose the people above Hillerman, then Hillerman can continue to do his job.
And Gittes gets along relatively well (by hardboiled detective genre standards) with the police investigator, Lt. Escobar (Perry Lopez), in the sense that Escobar will eventually listen to reason. That’s not to say that there aren’t zingers tossed back and forth:
Escobar: “You must really think I’m stupid, don’t you, Gittes?”
Gittes: “I don’t think about it that much, but gimme a day or two and I’ll get back to you. Now I’d like to go home.”
And after the frustrated Escobar threatens to charge the private eye with extortion:
Gittes: “I don’t think I need a day or two; you’re dumber than you think I think you are.”
The casting is top-shelf, rounded out by John Huston as weighty utility-baron Cross; the understatement of Cross’ conflict with Gittes as they eat lunch on the magnate’s ranch house’s porch is delicious. And there’s also Faye Dunnaway as Cross’ daughter Evelyn Mulwray, a femme fatale with a secret.
‘Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.’
Towne’s plot — inspired by 1930s literary potboilers and real California history (although it’s important to note that the details are fictional) – is followable enough to be compelling, but not to grasp every detail. It seems the bad guys are purposely devaluing farmers’ land, then buying it cheap. It seems they are using the names of deceased people to make purchases. It seems they are simply diverting the water already, even before the vote. Maybe all are true?
I would’ve liked to learn the villain’s political fate in the conclusion, which was written by an uncredited Polanski. I wonder if “Chinatown” is saying that with Cross’ personal closeted skeletons being exposed, his political/utility scheme also will collapse. That maybe plays OK in the 1930s, but I suspect some 1974 viewers would not take it for granted that Cross is kissing his scheme goodbye. Indeed, someone yells that Cross “owns the cops” not long before the end.
In a movie that hints at violence more often than it shows it (compared to modern standards), it’s to “Chinatown’s” credit that it saves a gory killing for an ending that certainly impacts the lives of Gittes and Cross. And while the action ends in Chinatown, the movie could’ve used just a smidgen more of a tie-in with Gittes’ previous traumatizing experience when he was a cop in the neighborhood. (Although we don’t get a prequel, we do get one more go-around with Gittes, in 1990’s “The Two Jakes.”)
The idea of Chinatown as a place where people’s lips are sealed – partly due to the language barrier, but it’s more than that – is well taken. While the concept certainly draws from early hardboiled fiction (notably Dashiell Hammett’s 1925 short story “Dead Yellow Women,” it has remained a trope through the years. Off the top of my head, “The X-Files” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” have tapped into the concept of a secret, inexplicable “foreign” city within an American metropolis.
Polanski’s classic is a big reason for the trope, even though Chinatown and Chinese-American characters don’t rise above peripheral status. “Chinatown” as a film, though – even if it might not have the most perfect title – rises with the tide of Seventies neo-noir.
IMDb Top 250 trivia
- “Chinatown” ranks No. 162 on the list with an 8.1 rating.
- Although 1974 was a strong year for movies, it only has two entries on the list, the other being “The Godfather Part II” (No. 4, 9.0).
- Polanski’s one other film in the top 250 is 2002’s “The Pianist” (No. 32, 8.5).