- From a practical standpoint, the least essential scene in Chinatown is probably the one in which private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) visits the hall of records to discover who has been buying up parcels of parched Southern California farmland. A lesser film might simply have had Mr. Gittes retrieve that information by phone, or perhaps one of his assistants would have tracked it down offscreen. Chinatown not only shows the scene, but also takes several minutes to do so, permitting the audience to inspect the handwritten records, reveling in the arrogant quirkiness of the "weasel" librarian (Allan Warnick), and providing Mr. Gittes with the opportunity to enhance his air of disrespectability by ripping a page out of a record book. When a film spends so much time and care getting little details right in minor scenes, one suspects that its big details are really going to be something.
- Incidentally, Gittes' curiosity about land sales actually stems from his interest in water and, more specifically, the Water Department's chief engineer, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling). You see, Gittes was hired by one Mrs. Mulwray (Diane Ladd) to track her husband's infidelity, but the private eye is surprised to discover that Mulwray primarily has "water on the brain," spending his nights alone strolling through oceanfront tidepools. Finally, he catches Mr. Mulwray on a gondola with a young woman (Belinda Palmer), and the pictures end up in the tabloids the next day. Gittes is upset enough to discover his handiwork splashed across the front page, but he's even more dismayed when the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) pays him a visit with a lawsuit in hand. Who besides Mulwray's wife would have hired Gittes to take incriminating photos of Mr. Mulwray with another woman?
- In attempting to track down Mr. Mulwray, Gittes visits his business partner (John Hillerman) and the lavish Mulwray estate before finally ending up at one of Los Angeles' famous dams. Strangely enough, the police are already there, led by Lieutenant Escobar (Perry Lopez) who used to be Gittes' partner back in Chinatown. They exchange pleasantries, and Gittes lets drop that he would like to talk to Mulwray. In one of cinema's great reveals, Escobar points to the waterlogged body being dredged up out of the water and replies "You're welcome to try. There he is." Now it's a murder case, and Gittes has little to go on. It has to be about the mysterious water diversion that's been taking place at night, right? Gittes' violent encounter at the dam with a mismatched pair of thugs (Roy Jenson and Roman Polanski) convinces the detective that he must be on the right track. As Mrs. Mulwray's father, Noah Cross (John Huston), points out, "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but, believe me, you don't."
- It's at this point that I need to devote some space to Mrs. Mulwray herself. Simply put, Faye Dunaway's work in Chinatown is both one of the greatest performances ever put on film and one that practically demands a second viewing immediately after the first. I say that because her character's evasiveness and reticence are completely baffling until you know the entire story. She delivers a lawsuit to Mr. Gittes and promptly withdraws it the next day. She pays Mr. Gittes for his work but doesn't seem to want him to find anything. Most strangely of all, she has a pointed disinterest in locating "the other woman" with whom her husband was having an affair. And is it just me, or does she develop a slight stutter every time her father is mentioned? Gittes is perceptive enough to notice the "flaw" in Mrs. Mulwray's iris, but, like his days working in Chinatown, he never really figures out what's happening until it's too late.
- While I've tried to avoid going into the details of the film's lurid surprises, it should suffice to say that, in true film noir tradition, Chinatown's is a tragic ending. Moreover, it is a tragedy brought about by the father of film noir himself, John Huston, whose booming voice requires very little modification to become utterly villainous. As his character puts it, "Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything," which I suppose also applies to the life of director Roman Polanski. The director's offscreen problems aside, however, one must admit that he crafted a true masterpiece in Chinatown. The script by Robert Towne ranks among the sharpest ever written, the amazing cinematography by John A. Alonzo captures the outskirts of Los Angeles as a vast desiccated desert, and the music by Jerry Goldsmith is a perfect homage to the crime films of the 1940's and 50's. If I ever ask you which film is the greatest neo-noir, please provide the only acceptable answer: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
- Also featuring Rance Howard, Burt Young, and James Hong.
