2/1/2024 0 Comments Chinatown showoffIt lives up to the bruited expectations.Previous Next The highest concentration of Chinese people living in the West can be found in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown - one of 9 Chinatowns to be found in New York City. There has been a lot of advance interest by the trade in this film. All of these relate to the tax shelter syndicate structure by which about 25% of the film’s $3,200,000 cost was sold to investors for about 10% of the profits. The small print in the credits indicates that the film’s copyright rests in an entity known as Long Road Productions that “production services (were) furnished by Freedom Service Co.,” and that it is a Paramount-Penthouse Presentation. The film opens with the old black & white Paramount trademark, and the titles are done in the old style script on a neutral background. Sam O’Steen was editor of the 130 minute film, a rare example of a picture that sustains interest throughout an above average duration. Alonzo’s Panivision-Technicolor cinematography is excellent. Since Raymond Chandler’s world is the world of this film, film buffs will likely conjure up memories of “The Big Sleep.” Goldsmith’s score is as evocative and dramatic in this film as Max Steiner’s was for “Sleep.” A handful of period poptunes also are interpolated with good discretion. Jerry Goldsmith, who is one of the best, and genuine, film composers currently active, contributed a fine score. Considering the enormous logistical effort involved, there must have been fleeting temptations to lingering shots of sporty cars and the like, but thankfully any such urges were resisted. There’s absolutely no offensive showoff of the nostalgia the clothes, cars, houses, etc. And the most gratifying aspect is that the audience is never insulted by overemphasis on period. Sylbert’s production design hasn’t missed a trick in recreating the period. Besides Polanski, associate producer C.O. Huston’s crotchety old character delineation works well, and among the very large, expertly selected cast, John Hillerman delivers a great performance of polite menace. Nicholson’s performance is excellent, and for Dunaway this is her best part in years. Marines when they say “semper FI”), and has meaning only after the film is over. The phrase “Chinatown” is thus used in a cynical context (not unlike U.S. The many plot angles including a very discreet development of incest, eventually converge in Chinatown for a climactic shootout which, at fadeout, will likely be papered over as a typical ghetto incident, the kind of event that respectable people never hear about. He is in disfavor with the local police (Perry Lopez and Dick Bakalyan), hounded by goons (Roy Jenson and Polanski, in a bit role) in the employ of John Huston, and partially conned by Dunaway despite a romantic vibration between the two. When Diane Ladd, posing as Dunaway, commissions a job on Darrell Zwerling, the city’s water commissioner (named Hollis Mulwray, for those who might recognize a similarity to the name Mulholland), Nicholson becomes involved in a series of interlocking schemes. Towne, director Roman Polanski and Nicholson have fashioned a sort of low-key Raymond Chandler hero who, with assistants Joe Mantell and Bruce Glover, specializes in matrimonial infidelities. It is easy to speak of Los Angeles admittedly prairie metropolis morality and behavior, but it must be remembered that the swindles and corruption and capers of the latterday pioneers rank with the worst in municipal rape. – may rattle a lot of civic skeletons in the closets of first families. The factual details – the procurement of water supplies for the Southern California area, profitable land acquisitions by knowledgeable insiders, etc. Towne, whose most recent credit was the sensational adaptation of “The Last Detail,” in which Nicholson’s performance also was superb, has mixed a lot of period L.A.
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