Chinatown (1974 film)

Lore & Background

J. 'Jake' Gittes, hired by a woman posing as Evelyn Mulwray to trail her husband, Hollis, the chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power. After Hollis is found dead in a reservoir, Gittes uncovers a conspiracy involving water diversion, land grabs, and the wealthy patriarch Noah Cross. The plot draws on the real-life California water wars, with the character of Hollis Mulwray loosely based on Irish immigrant William Mulholland, the superintendent and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who oversaw the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Reader's Guide

Chinatown is significant for its intricate screenplay, which won Robert Towne the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and for its critical and commercial success. It led the 47th Academy Awards with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. At the 32nd Golden Globe Awards, it won four awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. The film also received 11 nominations at the 28th British Academy Film Awards, winning three: Best Direction, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor in a Leading Role. Its legacy endures as a landmark of neo-noir cinema and a cautionary tale about corruption and power.

Did You Know?

• Chinatown was Roman Polanski's final film made in the United States.
• The film's story is inspired by the California water wars, which resulted in Los Angeles securing water rights in the Owens Valley.
• The character of Hollis Mulwray was loosely based on Irish immigrant William Mulholland, according to Mulholland's granddaughter.

Release and Critical Acclaim

The film, helmed by Roman Polanski, earned what can only be described as worldwide critical acclaim upon its release. It brought together a remarkable trio of screen talent—Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston—under one directorial vision. The timing placed it squarely in the heart of a year that would produce some of the most significant films in cinema history. Rather than arriving as a quiet entry in the summer slate, Chinatown announced itself as a major event, the kind of picture that commands attention across international markets simultaneously. The critical reception it garnered positioned it as one of the defining releases of the year, a film whose reputation was established not through slow word-of-mouth but through the immediate, widespread praise it received upon its June debut.

Among the Year's Defining Films

It shared that distinction with The Godfather Part II, Blazing Saddles, The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and Young Frankenstein—a grouping that spans genres from epic crime drama to satirical western to spectacle-driven disaster cinema. The diversity of that list underscores how varied the year's output was, yet Chinatown's presence among them signals its standing as a work of genuine significance rather than mere commercial appeal. Its June release slot placed it before the autumn wave of big-budget productions, allowing it to establish its reputation on artistic merit in a year otherwise remembered for scale and ambition.

The Creative Assembly

The making of Chinatown represented a convergence of extraordinary individual talents under a single directorial hand. Roman Polanski, the filmmaker behind the project, brought his distinctive sensibility to a cast that included Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston. Polanski's role as director placed him in the creative driver's seat, shaping the work of three actors who each commanded their own considerable screen presence. The pairing of Nicholson and Dunaway as leads, with Huston anchoring the ensemble, created a dynamic that critics worldwide would recognize and celebrate. This was not a film assembled around a single marquee name; rather, it was a project in which the interplay between director and cast—and among the cast members themselves—became the defining feature of the finished work.

A Year of Industry Transition

That same year, both Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer marked their fiftieth anniversaries, with MGM celebrating in particular grand fashion through the retrospective documentary That's Entertainment!. Meanwhile, leadership churn swept through the studios: Joseph E. Levine resigned as president of Embassy Pictures in May, Barry Diller was named chairman and CEO of Paramount in September, Frank Yablans announced his departure from Paramount in November, and Gordon Stulberg stepped down as president of 20th Century Fox in December. Even the technology of filmmaking was shifting, as Technicolor ceased its legendary dye-transfer printing process that same November. Into this landscape of celebration, resignation, and technological change, Chinatown arrived as a work of critical distinction—a film whose acclaim seemed to transcend the institutional turbulence surrounding it.

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