![]() It certainly suits the character of a rich, evil man not to care whether he gets some dumb detective's name right. NOAH CROSS CONSISTENTLY MISPRONOUNCING GITTES' NAME WAS A MISTAKE, NOT A CHOICE. Finally he relented, but he got the haircut at the last possible minute, right there on the set before shooting the scene. But Polanski had long hair at the time, which was wrong for the character, and he was reluctant to cut it-reluctant almost to the point of backing out and casting someone else. The director cast himself in the role of the bow-tied thug who slices Gittes' nose. POLANSKI ALMOST DIDN'T DO HIS CAMEO BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT TO CUT HIS HAIR. When the film actually went into production, he got another $250,000, plus five percent of the gross.)ĥ. ![]() Towne declined for an understandable reason: "I didn't want to be the unknown Hollywood writer who f***** up a literary classic." (That honor eventually went to Francis Ford Coppola.) Instead, Towne said, he wanted to develop his Chinatown idea. Uber-producer and Hollywood playboy Robert Evans liked the (mostly uncredited) script doctoring Towne had done on Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather, and offered him what was then a very large sum of money to adapt F. ROBERT TOWNE TURNED DOWN $175,000 TO ADAPT THE GREAT GATSBY AND TOOK $25,000 TO WRITE CHINATOWN INSTEAD. He eventually acknowledged that Polanski's version was better. Towne thought that was too melodramatic but ultimately ceded the battle to Polanski. "Not a happy ending," Towne said, "but a more complex ending." Polanski wanted to go even darker: Evelyn takes a shot at Dad but only wounds him, while she herself ends up dead, leaving poor Katherine in the hands of the nasty old man. In the original version, Evelyn Mulwray fatally shoots her father, but since she refuses to explain her reasons, she's destined for life in prison. POLANSKI CONVINCED TOWNE TO CHANGE THE ENDING, TOO. Gittes never wanted to return to, literally as well as symbolically. Director Roman Polanski suggested it would be more satisfying if the film's climax took us to the very place J.J. And in his original screenplay, it was just a metaphor, with none of the action taking place there. THE SCREENPLAY DIDN'T HAVE ANY SCENES ACTUALLY SET IN CHINATOWN.Ĭhinatown is a symbol in Towne's screenplay, representing "the futility of good intentions" (as he said in a DVD interview). Towne has said repeatedly that he wrote the lead role specifically for Nicholson: "I could not have written that character without knowing Jack." Furthermore, it was while visiting Nicholson in Oregon, where he was directing Drive, He Said, that Towne started reading Raymond Chandler detective novels and a book about the history of California water rights, all of which led to Chinatown. The screenwriter and the actor were good friends, even roommates at one point, and they'd studied acting together. IT WOULDN'T EXIST IF ROBERT TOWNE HADN'T BEEN FRIENDS WITH JACK NICHOLSON. ![]() (Don't forget Rance Howard as Irate Farmer!) Here are a dozen facts about Chinatown, all as plain as the sliced nose on Jake's face. Regarded by nearly everyone-from the American Film Institute to IMDb users-as one of the best movies ever made, Roman Polanski's masterpiece is a modern film noir with a labyrinthine plot and deeply sinister undertones, with top-of-their-game performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, and, well, just about everyone in it. Despite the advice given in its last line of dialogue, the one thing you can't do with Chinatown is forget it.
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