Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Robert Towne
Produced by Robert Evans
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston
Country: USA
Release Date: June 20, 1974
Why you should see it?
This is a Neo-noir film with a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama. This is consider the second best movie in history. This is a master piece that went in front of the cameras without a final script, and requires that the viewer pay attention, not because there are lost of twist but because the plot is complex and doesn’t stop.
This is the first noir film in color and proves that noir is not an image but a state of mind.
Plot
A woman calling herself Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J.J. “Jake” Gittes to perform matrimonial surveillance on her husband Hollis I. Mulwray, the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Mr. Mulwray is in the public eye due to his opposition to the proposed construction of a new dam, citing grounds of safety. Gittes tails him and photographs Mulwray with a young woman who is not his wife. The photos hit the front page of the following day’s paper, and Gittes is confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray. Gittes realizes he had been duped, and to repair his reputation decides to figure out who was behind the hiring, and why.
Gittes goes looking for Mr. Mulwray. Eventually, he finds former colleague Lt. Lou Escobar recovering Mulwray’s drowned body from the fresh water reservoir. He suspects he was murdered and investigates further. He learns that huge quantities of water are being released from the reservoir every night, yet the land is almost completely dry. He is confronted by water department security chief Claude Mulvihill with a henchman who slashes Gittes’s nose. Back at his office, Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, an actress whom he recognizes as the bogus Mrs. Mulwray. She is afraid to identify her employer, but provides a clue: the name of one of “those people” is in that day’s obituaries.
Gittes learns that Mrs. Mulwray’s husband was once the business partner of her father, Noah Cross, so he meets him for lunch at his palatial estate. Cross offers to double Gittes’s fee to search for Mulwray’s missing girlfriend, plus a bonus if he succeeds. Gittes visits the hall of records, where he discovers that many large orange groves have recently changed ownership in the northwest San Fernando Valley. He goes there but is caught and beaten by angry landowners; they think he’s one of the water department agents who have been demolishing their water tanks and poisoning their wells to force them out.
Gittes’s review of the obituaries uncovers a former resident of the Mar Vista Inn, a retirement home, who is one of the new landowners in the Valley. He infers that Mulwray was murdered when he learned that the new reservoir would be used to irrigate the newly-purchased properties. Evelyn and Gittes bluff their way into Mar Vista and confirm that the real estate deals are done in the name of its residents without their knowledge. After fleeing from Mulvihill and his thugs, they hide at Evelyn’s house, where they nurse each others’ wounds and make love.
In the morning, Evelyn has to leave suddenly, but she warns him that her father is dangerous and crazy. Gittes manages to follow her car to a house where he observes her with Mulwray’s girlfriend. He confronts Evelyn, who finally confesses that the woman is her sister.
An anonymous call draws Gittes to Ida Sessions’s apartment where he finds her murdered, with Escobar waiting for his arrival. Escobar pressures him because the coroner’s report found salt water in Mulwray’s lungs: the body was moved after death. Escobar suspects Evelyn of the murder, and he insists Gittes produce her quickly or he’ll face charges of his own.
Gittes returns to Evelyn’s mansion, where he discovers a pair of men’s eyeglasses in her salt water garden pond and her servants packing her bags. He summons Cross to the Mulwray home to collect his bonus. Convinced that she killed her husband, Gittes confronts Evelyn about the woman she said was her sister; Evelyn claims it is her daughter Katherine. Gittes slaps her repeatedly until she cries out “She’s my sister and my daughter!” and haltingly admits to a sexual relationship with her father that began after her mother died. He won’t face up to it and for that she hates him. Also, the eyeglasses are not her husband’s, she says, since he did not wear bifocals.
Gittes makes plans for the two women to flee to Mexico. He instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler’s home in Chinatown, but Cross intercepts him at Mulwray’s. Cross admits he intends to incorporate the Northwest Valley into the City of Los Angeles, then irrigate and develop it. Gittes produces the bifocals — they belong to Cross and link him to Mulwray’s murder; Mulvihill appears to confiscate the glasses and force Jake to take them to the women.
When the three reach the hiding place in Chinatown, the police are already there and arrest Gittes. Evelyn will not allow Cross to approach Katherine, and when he is undeterred she shoots him in the arm and drives away with Katherine. As the car speeds off, the police open fire, killing Evelyn. Cross clutches Katherine and leads her away, while Escobar orders Gittes released, along with his associates. One of them urges, “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown!”
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