Chinatown (the film)

I like detective films, Los Angeles, art deco and Jack Nicholson and I feel strongly nostalgic for the America of the thirties (through the fifties).

Roman Polanski's Chinatown provides all of these things and much, much more.

The art direction and cinematography make you wish you were there in that by-gone time and place.

It always aMAZEs me when any movie fan tells me he or she hasn't seen this movie!

Chinatown is my number one film recommendation.

Polanski directed a perfect film here and he is the ideal character to take a switchblade to private investigator Jake Gittes's nose.

Robert Towne's screenplay is flawless. It's used as an example in Syd Field's "How To Write A Screenplay".

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Jack Nicholson is priceless as private detective Jake Gittes and gives Phillip Marlowe a run for his money at the smart ass, "cops are slow and bad guys are dumb" approach to the P.I..

Faye Dunaway is Evelyn Cross Mulwray, the tragically flawed woman who knows more than she can say and is destined to break our hero's heart, as he futilely struggles to figure out how to save her.

John Huston is unforgettable as Evelyn's morally bankrupt father, Noah Cross, a man wealthy enough to do whatever he pleases because he has the power to.

Darell Zwerling could not have been better as Hollis Mulwray, the man who's murder turns out not to be the whole story.

Perry Lopez gives a great performance as LAPD Lt. Lou Escobar, who is torn between trusting Gittes, a former cop, and running him in.

Burt Young as Curly is a cuckolded husband in the beginning of the film, a handy guy to know later on and perhaps a more loveable character than we've seen him play elsewhere.

John Hillerman is John Hillerman playing Russ Yelburton, second in command to Hollis Mulwray at the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water, but somehow he's at least as good as everyone else in the film at providing no answers.

Diane Ladd is excellent in the opening scene as (Evelyn Mulwray imposter) Ida Sessions, who hires detective Jake Gittes to spy on her philandering husband.