They don't make 'em like this one anymore, do they? The closest Hollywood has come to mimicking the hard-boiled gumshoe antics of CHINATOWN was with L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, and either it's a real pity, because those are the only two great detective films set int he 1940s, or it's a boon, because it makes them really stand out. Raymond Chandler definitely would be proud of the legacy he left behind, and no one has come close to touching Jack Nicholson as J.J. "Jake" Gittes, the ultimate private dick.
At any rate, CHINATOWN is the 1974 film that was inspired by the
California Water Wars. You can check out that Wikipedia entry for the full skinny, but it boils down to the bullying City of Los Angeles shoving around little Owens Valley for rights to their water, which L.A. desperately needed. Through a smoke and mirrors deal and some political flim-flammery, they rip the valley off and start bleeding them dry, literally. Before long, Owens Valley doesn't have enough water to support their livestock and agriculture, and they come calling on Los Angeles and they aren't too happy about it. It's a true story, and Southern California is still feeling the effects of it.
In the movie, Jake gets hired in what seems like a basic "I think my husband is cheating on me" case, and the husband in question is Hollis Mulwray, a play on words for William Mulholland who was an actual figure in the real water scandal. Gittes tails Mulwray and finds out that even though the Los Angeles is under drought conditions, the city is dumping fresh water into the ocean at night. He tires going to Mulwray for answers at his house, but finds him dead. He soon finds out that the Mrs. Mulwray who hired him was someone else posing as her, and whammo... we're deep into a mystery.
The real Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, turns up and hires Jake to find out what happened to her father. While he does some digging around, he finds out he's on the right trail when some thugs turn up and threaten him. Because he's such a "nosy guy," one of the thugs (played by Roman Polanski himself in a cameo appearance) slits Jake's left nostril open in a scene that still makes my stomach muscle clench and my nose wrinkle. It's a brutal scene, and a bold decision by both Polanski and Nicholson, because it means Jake wears a pretty obtrusive nose bandage throughout the rest of the film. You take a pretty bankable scar and cover half of his face up? Thank god they let them do it, because it just plain works, making Nicholson look human and vulnerable throughout the rest of the film.
Nicholson, of course, stays on the trail, and finds out that Mulwray's old partner Noah Cross (excellently played by director/actor John Huston) has some shady goings-on, and the surprise ending will seal Huston as extremely creepy in your mind forever. I can't think of a better example of a detective story on film, even to this day... some 33 years later. Jack Nicholson directed the sequel THE TWO JAKES in 1990, but it sadly didn't have anywhere near the impact that this movie did. It's not a horrible movie, and it is great to see Nicholson as Gittes again, but it really just makes you realize how great the original is.
The film has had previous releases on VHS, and then the DVD release in 1990, but this recent 2007 Special Edition version looks pretty damned amazing. It's in 16x9 for widescreen televisions, and while it doesn't look like it was filmed yesterday, it does look spectacular on the screen. They've created a newly remastered Dolby 5.1 mix for the film, which sounds great as well, and that haunting trumpet in the musical score will stay with you for days afterward. The only thing I found myself missing was a high-definition transfer.
The Special Features offer up three newly produced featurettes, each one focused on a different facet of the film: The Beginning and the End, Filming, and the Legacy. They add up to about an hour in length total, and feature brand-new interviews with Polanski, Nicholson, and screenwriter Robert Towne. It would have been better if they'd stuck it all together in one hour-long documentary with chapters, but it's great to hear them looking back on the film now. In fact, both Jack Nicholson and Roman Polanski tell their sides of the famous story where Polanski hurled Nicholson's television (which actually belonged to someone else) out of his trailer for watching Laker games. There's a bunch of great stories throughout the featurettes, and it's the perfect thing to follow the film up with.
This was Polanski's last film in the United States before he became a fugitive from justice, and it arguably remains his best. If you haven't seen it yet, drop what you're doing and head to Chinatown.