Genre Grandeur – Chinatown (1974) – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Film Noir Movies, here’s a review of Chinatown (1974) by me.

Thanks again to Ghezal of Ghezal Plus Movies for choosing this month’s genre.

Next month’s Genre has been chosen by Gavin of Mini Media Reviews and he has chosen the genre of Revenge Movies.

Films in which a person or persons are wronged in some way and exact an, hopefully disproportionate, amount of revenge or retribution!

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Aug by sending them to Gavinsrevenge@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Gavin!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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“‘Course I’m respectable. I’m old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” – Noah Cross

Number of Times Seen – at least twice (Cable in the 90’s and 25 Jul 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A private detective is hired by the wife of a city official to find out is he is having an affair, but everything turns out to be a large cover up filled with lies that the detective wishes to uncover.

My Take on it – I saw this film years ago and enjoyed it, but was quite excited to rewatch it for this month’s Genre Grandeur.

This is such a great detective film because they keep the mystery constantly evolving and moving throughout.

The pacing is excellent and there is no point which gets boring as they slowly roll out the story for us to devour.

This story is filled with so many twists and turns that you never really know what will be happening just around the corner.

Loved the way that they slowly give us more and more information about some of the character’s pasts which helps give us insight into what may or may not be relevant later on in the story.

The cast is amazing with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston all giving great performances.

Nicholson obviously stands out here as the best and this was truly a defining role for his career; he shows everyone what great an actor he could be.

Roman Polanski is an amazing director and this is clearly one of his very best films.

Bottom Line – Great detective film that does a great job of keeping things moving at a superb pace. The twists and turns throughout the story keep things so interesting the whole way through.  Loved how they slowly give us information about the past history of some of the characters which gives us insight into what may or may not be relevant later on. Nicholson, Dunaway and Huston are all excellent here but Nicholson stands out because he is able to show how great an actor he could be with this role.  One of Polanski’s best films! Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – At the time of filming, Jack Nicholson had just embarked on his longstanding relationship with Anjelica Huston. This made his scenes with her father, John Huston, rather uncomfortable, especially as the only time Anjelica was on set was the day they were filming the scene where Noah Cross interrogates Nicholson’s character with “Mr Gittes…do you sleep with my daughter?” (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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