Chinatown (1974)

Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Dick Bakalyan, Diane Ladd, Roy Jensen, Darrell Zwerling, Bruce Glover, Joe Mantell, Burt Young, James Hong. [R]

Spellbinding, serpentine noir mystery is brilliantly conceived and executed by writer Robert Towne, producer Robert Evans, and director Roman Polanski. During a drought in 1937 Los Angeles, private investigator Jake Gittes (Nicholson) is hired to follow the water department’s chief engineer (Zwerling), who turns up drowned; that’s just the beginning of the layered, intricate story, which appears to be heading toward the exposure of a shady water project and real estate corruption, but as the powerful and ominous Noah Cross (Huston) declares, “You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but, believe me, you don’t.” Stylish, intelligent, and exciting, it’s everything that a good private eye story should be (and more, thanks to its psychological complexities and evocative ending). Nicholson’s superb performance is even richer than the one that would win him an Oscar the following year (for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and he’s in fine company alongside Dunaway’s haunting femme fatale and creepy Huston. Towne’s script won an Academy Award. Followed more than fifteen years later by a sequel: The Two Jakes.

99/100