Let's be Chinatown (1974)

I'm a sister AND a daughter!

I'm Ida Sessions' groceries. Our lives were wasted.

I'm salt water.

Bad for "glass."

I'm the old lady in the nursing home Jake is looking for. Coincidentally she is the first person he stops to ask.

I was molested by Polanski.

I'm the fatal bullet

I'm the flaw in Evelyn's eye.

I'm the car chase in the orange grove.

I'm the Owens Valley. Mulholland's tactics will suck me dry to provide water for the LA basin.

I’m the haunting Jerry Goldsmith score, added at the last minute after the previous score, by Christopher Komeda, who wrote the music for “Rosemary’s Baby,” was junked.

I'm a nosy fella.

You know what happens to nosy fellas?

I'm the black eye on the adulterous wife.

I'm the China man.

I’m all of your relatives!

How’s that, sister-mum?

I don't get tough with anyone. My lawyer does.

I'm Roman Polanski's knife

I'm a broken pair of bifocals.

Hollis doesn't wear bifocals.

I'm a car horn that goes on and on.....

I'm the sequel, The Two Jakes, directed by and starring Jack Nicholson in 1990.

I'm very disappointing.

I'm foreshadowing. I'm everywhere.

I’m the plot. You probably won’t fully know me until the second or third viewing.

I'm the strands of Faye's hand that Roman will pull out.

^ hair!

I'm Phillip Lambro, who wrote the rejected score. I'm a bitter a cunt.

ps, Krzysztof Komeda died on 23 April 1969.

*a bitter cunt

(also, dead since 2015)

I'm Faye's unprofessional conduct on set.

I'm the prissy Hall of Records clerk; don't ask me for a ruler.

I’m Mr. Mulwray’s secretary and I am wise to you Mr. Gittes!

I am the somewhat important plot point that might be missed if you can't read the headlines on the front page of the newspaper that Jake briefly waves in front of the camera.

I’m the creepy mood.

I'm 1930s slang:

"Hey there, kitty kat!"

I'm the venetian blinds he just had installed on Wednesday.

I AM rich.

I'm the sheep farmer who interrupts the meeting at city hall. If you ay attention to what I say, you'll hear me explain the plot of the movie.

I’m Hollis Mulwray and I’ve got water on the brain.

I'm the Albacore Club.

I’m kitty cat

I'm the Dixie cup filled with Dunaway's pee that will be hurled in Roman's mug!

I'm Belinda Palmer who seem to have left the industry.

I'm the woozy, mid-range Bb Lydian cluster that opens the film; played by two pianists silently depressing their keys with one hand, then strumming the strings of their pianos with the other, all while sustaining the pitches with the middle peddle. Muted violas (instructed to play without vibrato) prolong this effect, and two measures later, this is echoed in the lowest register by the same cluster, played by four harps (scraped with guitar plectrums), bass vibraphone, cellos and basses.

Overhanging this is a fragmented omen of the love theme articulated by the first and second violins, sounding artificial harmonics. All of this sets the stage for Uan Rasey's indelible trumpet solo, entering in at measure 8.

Incidentally, I also recur throughout the film as a leitmotif, a kind of musical mirage suggestive of heat and water.

I'm the band-aid on Jake Gittes' nose.

I'm the salted water in Hollis Mulwray's lungs.

I'm Faye's eyebrows... or am I even there at all?

I'm Robert Towne's script. Film schools will hold me up as an example of a "perfect screenplay" for decades to come.

R12 It took me multiple viewings to notice you. I laughed when I did.

I'm the "flaw" in Evelyn's left eye that'll be, um...fixed(?) in the climactic scene.

I am the trailer

I'm the Chinese gardener. In the future, I'll be singled out as a "racist" portrayal.

I'm the Animaniacs spoof "Brain Noir." I was one many spoofs on that show that introduced 90s kids to classic cinema.

I'm Chinatown.

Forget me, Jake.

I’m John Huston’s agent hoping that this will help him pay off his gambling debts incurred when he blew his salaries from [italic]Myra Breckinridge[/italic] and [italic]Candy[/italic] on the bars and baccarat tables in Monte Carlo.

I’m the happy ending that Roman Polanski threw out.

That was my ending.

I'm the purposeful mispronunciation of Jake Gittes name by Noah Cross.

I'm the dirty "Chinaman" joke Jake tells his associates while Evelyn Mulray stands behind him, watching with dignified contempt.

I'm Faye fee, considerably less than what they would have paid Jane Fonda.

*Faye's fee

I'm Evelyn's inexplicable desire to jump into bed with the sleazebag Jake Gittes.

^ and her need to let him know she rides her horse "bareback."

I'm The future, Mr. Gets!

I'm a big dumb Oakie working in an orange grove.

It’s ‘Okie’ r61

I'm "bad for glass"! Jake, in his racist way, thinks the Chinese gardener is saying "Bad for grass" and doesn't realize he's actually talking about the clue that solves the mystery!

^ But the gardener *is* talking about "grass."

Jake emphasizing his mis-pronunciation plants the seed in the viewer's mind about the glasses in the pond, which he will find later.

I’m Mr. Palmer who could also be a Datalounger.

I'm John Houston as Noah Cross, perfectly cast as a man who would impregnate his own daughter.

Chinatown??? Really? It should be Asiantown! Or Chinese People Village! Chinatown, like Chinaman, is RACIST!

Noah Cross is Trump.

I'm the clerk in the Bureau of Maps. I'm definitely a DL-er!

I’m FDR overlooking the townhall/court proceedings about Los Angles water.

I'm the underpants that Jake doesn't wear.

That’s scene coming up now! ^^

I’m the gorgeous trumpet solo played by the late, great Uan Rasey.

I'm a cheap watch placed behind a car's back tire, so the private dicks can go home to bed and come back the next morning to see what time the watch broke when the surveiled subject left the scene.

I'm Diane Ladd.

I am Polanski, Nicholson, and Dunaway. Swap one of us out and you have a completely different movie.

Swap out one of the lead actors or the director of any film and you have a completely different movie.

I'm the Mulwray's irritated Asian housekeeper.

"Mrs. Mulwray NO HOME!"

I’m a Tom Collins...with lime.

[quote]Mrs. Mulwray NO HOME!

This would be so funny to use on a telemarketer.

[quote] I'm the clerk in the Bureau of Maps. I'm definitely a DL-er!

"This is not a lending library, this is a RESEARCH library!"

HIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I'm the little stream of water from the car being washed up the hill, trickling down the gutter the very first time Jake rolls up the Mulwrays' driveway; or the persistent drip-drip-drip from the kitchen faucet as they're discovering Ida's dead body on the floor in her house...Water is everywhere in the movie, watching what is going on.

"You fuck just like a Chinaman!!"

The angry geese, guarding the oranges.

The mysterious kid on the swaybacked horse in the gulch, who tells Jake how the water comes only in the middle of the night. (I think he was played by Huston's grandson).

I’m the fish served with its head.

I am the 13-year-old girl that sick breeder freak Polanski raped.

She was very mature for her age.

I am the concentration camp where that sick breeder piece of shit Polanski should’ve died.

I'm a dry riverbed.

I'm the last vestiges of Jack Nicholson's youthful strength as he scales the chain link fence at the reservoir.

(I believe Jack was in his late 30s when this movie was made.)

I'm the SCTV parody, Polynesiantown, with the gorgeous Catherine O'Hara in the Faye Dunaway role.

Wow. That SCTV parody is deadly.

I'm the cringey questions Cross asks Jake about his daughter during lunch.

I'm the masochistic tendices awakened in the viewers after seeing the slapping scene.

I'm a neighborhood full of Craftsman homes.

I'm the Chinese gardener who is Chinese because Mikey Roney was unavailable to do another spot-on imitation of an Oriental.