Chinatown

MPAA Rating

R

Theatrical Release Date

Jun 19, 1974

Genre(s)

• Suspense
• Thrillers
• Mystery
• Detectives
• Neo-Noir
• Haunted by the Past
• Femme Fatales
• Private Eyes
• Drama
• Mystery & Suspense

Rating (Stars)

Description

Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. --Anne Hurley

Director

Roman Polanski

Stars

• Richard Bakalyan
• Faye Dunaway
• Jerry Fujikawa
• Bruce Glover
• John Hillerman

Running Time

130 minutes

Original Price

$12.98

Current Value

$6.99

DVD Features

• Anamorphic
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Dolby
• DVD-Video
• Widescreen
• NTSC
• 2.35:1