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Chinatown
United States, 1974
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
This Seventies classic begins as your everyday detective story. You know the sort of thing: Moody opening, cynical hero, sultry femme fatale. So far, so predictable. However, things soon take a sharp left turn in a plot development that will leave you hooked. Nicholson is LA private eye JJ Gittes, a 1930s detective who is hired by a wife who suspects her husband is cheating on her. Of course, in a genre renowned for its double dealing, nothing is as it appears. The wife, the affair and a suicide are about as legitimate as a six pound note leaving JJ (and the audience) determined to discover the full story. The movie was backed by The Godfather producer Robert Evans and written by Robert Towne, who went on to pen many of Tom Cruise's offerings, such as Days of Thunder and the upcoming Mission: Impossible 2. His dialogue is so good in practically jumps off the page such as the scene where our hero (Nicholson) meets secondary character Claude Mulvihill (Roy Jenson): Gittes: "Mulvihill! What are you doing here?" Mulvihill: "They shut my water off. What's it to you?" Gittes: "How'd you find out about it? You don't drink it. You don't take a bath in it. They wrote you a letter. But then you have to be able to read." Chinatown was filmed in the Autumn of 1973 and tensions were running high between director Roman Polanski and Towne, both of whom kept their distance from one another. On the first day, things did not look good when the diminutive film-maker arrived on set, walked over to Jack Nicholson and threw up. "That was the beginning of the movie," remarked production designer Richard Sylbert. "We went downhill from there." With most American actors used to a soft touch from their directors, Polanski got more than a few backs up with his approach. "Roman is Napoleon with actors," remarked producer Evans. Polanski's short temper was partly understandable. He was still mourning the loss of his wife Sharon Tate who had been murdered three years earlier by Charles Manson's psychopathic cult, 'the Family'. Roman was not some superstar film-maker who had been pampered and become used to the soft life in Tinseltown. Nicholson had to read his lines so many times with Polanski that Anthea Sylbert, the costume designer, half expected Jack to start speaking with a Polish accent. His meticulous approach may have alienated some but not Jack. Nicholson took it all in his stride and became good friends with Polanski, often engaged by the film-maker's eccentricities. Faye Dunaway, on the other hand, was less keen. She considered herself a star and did little to become friends with the rest of the cast and crew. The actors had tiny dressing rooms on set and Dunaway is reported to have used wastebaskets to relieve herself rather than walk back to her trailer. Although she remarked after the movie that she had no recall of such events, she did think it beneath her to flush the toilet in her own trailer, leaving it to the many lackeys who ran around after her. Little wonder many of them resigned. Faye was confused by her character and couldn't understand her motivation for the role. A situation soon remedied by a short-tempered Polanski. "Say the words!" he would yell. "Your salary is your motivation." Dunaway was so obsessed with the way she looked on camera that every time the director shouted cut she would have make up rush in and attend to her. She paid special attention to her mouth, aplying copious amounts of lip balm to stop them from cracking in the Californian sun. At the end of the shoot, the production crew gave her a giant tube as a leaving present. By the Spring of 1974, the movie was in the final stages of editing with Robert Evans over seeing the final cut while Polanski went off to direct an opera. Aspiring film-maker Robert Towne hated the result and begged the suits not to release it. He even thought of takling his name of the credits. The situation soon changed when he realised it was going to be a hit and he would have a cut of the profits. Was it worth all the trouble? Well, yes. Chinatown is a stylish period drama which won favour with both the critics and the public. A pity about the Nicholson-directed sequel, The Two Jakes in 1990, but why carp? This is one of the best looking movies of the Seventies with a cast to die for. 2000 Roger Crow
For more on the movie, read Peter Biskind's excellent Easy Riders, Raging Bulls which provided much of the background for this article. Available from: 
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