Film: “Chinatown” starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway

What was it about Jack Nicholson that made so many guys want to be him back in the day? Quite possibly it was his performance in “Chinatown” (1974) which would go on to earn him a Golden Globe, BAFTA and mainstream industry respect. And candidly, who else looked so whippet-slim, attired in a tan suit and a perfectly creased Fedora, and wearing a mischievous grin that could get women like Faye Dunaway to give him anything he wanted.

Jack was only one of the reasons this America masterpiece is worth revisiting, which I had the opportunity to do today in the East Village. The “Chinatown” script by Robert Towne won the best original screenplay Oscar in 1974, after director Roman Polanski basically sliced the original 180-page script in half. (Fun fact: Polanski also played the gangster in the film who slices Jack’s nose in half.) The haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith was written in just 11 days after producer Robert Evans canned Philip Landro at the last minute.

Quick overview for those who’ve never seen “Chinatown:” Jack plays Jake Gittes, a snarky, rough-around-the-edges PI who used to work for the DA’s office in 1930s LA before he soured on it. “What’d you do in Chinatown?” he was asked. “As little as possible,” Jake replied.

Jake is hired to find Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), the water commissioner who’s suddenly gone missing. His disappearance couldn’t have happened at a worse time: the city is going through one of its worst droughts in years.

Jake’s investigations bring him into contact with a cadre of shady oligarchs who, he discovers, are acquiring property at depressed prices by manipulating the water supply.

In the investigation, Jake also connects with Hollis’s widow, Evelyn (Faye Dunaway, who, apropos of nothing, knows how to rock a cloche hat). Jake eventually finds himself falling for her, even though he smells a rat. “I like my nose,” he tells her, pointing to his bandaged schnozzola. “I like breathing through it. I think you’re lying to me, Mrs. Mullray.”

Jack also meets Evelyn’s father Noah Cross (John Huston), the menacing but courtly millionaire who senses Jake is onto the water-diverting scheme. To see Jack and Huston parry and thrust on screen is marvelous: it’s as if the elder actor is politely ceding his Hollywood spot in the limelight to a new generation of hot young actors.

This is a murder mystery of the noirest-noir—a direct descendant of 1940 classics like “The Blue Dahlia” and “Double Indemnity.” The breathtaking golden hues are the work of John A. Alonzo (“Farewell, My Lovely”), a cinematographer who was chosen just a few weeks into production for his fleetness and skill with natural light.

“Chinatown” represented a milestone of sorts back in 1974. Nicholson was arguably at the top of his game, Polanski never made another US film, and a few years later, “Jaws” and “Star Wars” initiated a new genre of super-action-adventure-movies that can be unapologetically labeled ick. Which of today’s American-made films will ever qualify for best-ever? Forget it, Jake, there’s only one—and that’s “Chinatown.”

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