Trivia for
Chinatown (1974)

photos

board

trailer

details

• Director Cameo: [Roman Polanski] the hood who slits Jake's nose.
  
  
• The scene where Roman Polanski slits Jack Nicholson's nose was extremely complex to film, and the two men involved got so tired of explaining how it was done that they began to claim Nicholson's nose was actually cut.
  
  
• Jake Gittes was named after Jack Nicholson's friend, producer Harry Gittes.
  
  

• The original script was over 300 pages.
  
  
• At one point, Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson got into such a heated argument that Polanski smashed Nicholson's portable TV with a mop. Nicholson used the TV to watch L.A. Lakers basketball games and kept stalling shooting.
  
  
• Because this film was the first of a planned trilogy, Jack Nicholson turned down all detective roles he was offered so that the only detective he played would be Jake Gittes.
  
  
• Roman Polanski eliminated Jake Gittes' voiceover narration, which was written in the script, and filmed the movie so that the audience discovered the clues at the same time Gittes did.
  
  
• The last movie Roman Polanski filmed in the US.
  
  
• According to Roman Polanski's autobiography, he was outraged when he got the first batch of dailies back from the lab; due to the success of The Godfather (1972), producer Robert Evans had ordered the lab to give this movie a reddish look. Polanski demanded that the film be corrected.
  
  
• Among the items in Ida Sessions' pocketbook, which Jake Gittes rummages through, are a $2 bill and a Screen Actors Guild membership card.
  
  
• The name of Water and Power engineer Hollis Mulwray is likely a play on the real-life head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland (1855-1935). A man obsessed with an engineering challenge of epic proportions, Mulholland brought the Owens River to Los Angeles--which turned the previously lush Owens Valley into a virtual desert--through a combination of determination and deceit.
  
  
• The movie's line "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." was voted as the #74 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #21 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• The movie's line "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown!" was voted as the #71 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• The first part of a planned trilogy written by Robert Towne about J.J. Gittes and L.A. The second part, The Two Jakes (1990), was directed by Jack Nicholson in 1990.
  
  
• Screenwriter Robert Towne based his famous exchange--Evelyn: "What did you do in Chinatown?" Jake:"As little as possible."--on a joke a LAPD officer friend told him. This was because there were so many different Chinese dialects floating around that an Anglo cop would only get himself into trouble by misinterpreting anything said by the Chinese residents.
  
  
• Faye Dunaway and Roman Polanski were notorious for their on-set arguments; during filming, Polanski pulled out some strands of Dunaway's hair.
  
  
• The role of Evelyn Mulwray was originally intended for the producer's wife, Ali MacGraw, but she lost the role when she divorced him for Steve McQueen.
  
  
• After several takes that never looked quite right, Faye Dunaway told Jack Nicholson to actually slap her. He did, and the scene made it into the movie.
  
  
• Writer Robert Towne was originally offered $125,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but Towne felt he couldn't better the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and accepted $25,000 to write his own story, "Chinatown," instead.
  
  
• The prop knife used to cut Jack Nicholson's nose had a special hinged blade that would only bend in one direction. If it were inserted the wrong way, it would have really cut Nicholson who was understandably nervous during the filming of that scene.
  
  
• Jack Nicholson had the name "Jake Gittes" written on the shirts he used in the movie. Though this is not shown, it was done so Nicholson could enter in character more easily.
  
  
• Phillip Lambro was originally hired to write the film's music score but it was rejected at the last minute by producer Robert Evans, leaving Jerry Goldsmith only ten days to write and record the new score.
  
  
• Roman Polanski forced Robert Towne to sit and re-write the script with him. Towne was so opposed to this idea that he would argue with Polanski non-stop.
  
  
• Faye Dunaway's distinctive look was inspired by Roman Polanski's memories of his mother, who in the pre-WWII era would fashionably wear penciled-on eyebrows, and have her lipstick shaped in the form of a Cupid's bow.
  
  
• After Ali MacGraw was discarded, producer Robert Evans wanted Jane Fonda for the part of Evelyn Mulwray while Roman Polanski insisted upon Julie Christie. When Christie passed on the script, they settled for Faye Dunaway.
  
  
• Was voted the 4th greatest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
  
  
• Peter Bogdanovich turned down the chance to direct. He later regretted his decision.
  
  
• The haunting trumpet solos are by respected Hollywood studio musician, Uan Rasey.
  
  
• Rance Howard, who plays the role of an angry farmer at the council meeting, is the father of famed actor and director Ron Howard.
  
  
• "El Macondo" Hotel is named after the imaginary city in Gabriel García Márquez's novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude".
  
  
• Cameo: [C.O. Erickson] the film's executive producer plays the banker in the barbershop who starts an argument with Jake.
  
  
• This was the first film of a planned trilogy about corruption in the development of Los Angeles. It was set in the 1930s and was about the water department. The second film, The Two Jakes (1990), was set in the 1940s and was about the gas company. The third film of the trilogy was about the building of the massive freeway system and was to be called "Cloverleaf", named after the famous interchange in downtown L.A., but it was never filmed. However, certain elements (like the building of a massive freeway by a corporation called called "Cloverleaf") were eventually incorporated into Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), also a hard-boiled detective story.
  
  

• SPOILER: Robert Towne originally intended to have a happy ending. However, during pre-production Roman Polanski and Towne argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic ending. Polanski won the argument and, when the picture was re-released in 1999, Towne admitted that he had been wrong.
  
  
• SPOILER: Roman Polanski has said that the dark ending to the film was a result of his own despair following the murder of his wife, actress Sharon Tate.
  
  
• SPOILER: Shortly after Hollis Mulwray's body is recovered, the original script included an omitted scene in which Lt. Escobar reveals to Gittes that he has limited sympathy for the victim, because a cousin of his was killed in the Van Der Lip dam disaster. From Faber and Faber script published UK 1998.
  
  

Related Links