Product Details

• Actors: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman
• Directors: Roman Polanski
• Writers: Roman Polanski, Robert Towne
• Producers: C.O. Erickson, Robert Evans
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Paramount Home Video
• DVD Release Date: November 23, 1999
• Run Time: 130 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (260 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000022TSF
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,870 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Chinatown" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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

Additional Features

This 25th anniversary edition has been remastered and contains a featurette with new interviews with director Roman Polanski, screenwriter Robert Towne, and producer Robert Evans.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much improved picture and extras for new edition of classic film, October 20, 2007

By 

WTDK "If at first the idea is not absurd, the... (My Little Blue Window, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) (DVD)

A remarkable film noir classic, "Chinatown" finally gets the deluxe treatment it deserves on DVD. While the previous edition looked quite good (and had some nice interviews), this edition features a sharper, more vivid transfer. Additionally, we get a three part documentary on the making of the movie focusing on the preproduction, filming and impact of the film with Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, Robert Evans and writer Robert Towne participating. Sadly, Faye Dunaway doesn't appear in any of the extras. I had hoped for a commentary track (even one cobbled together of various interviews from the entire surviving cast and production crew)and the discovery of any deleted scenes for this edition but neither is included.

The latest edition of "Chinatown" has much better contrast, a cleaner, richer looking transfer that more accurately captures a pristine theatrical presentation of the film. The anamorphic transfer has a bit more information on the sides than in the previous edition suggesting that it was cropped slightly differently (and I can't say which is truer to the original this edition or the previous one). Audio features the same 5.1 Dolby Digital mix that was a highlight of the first edition. We also get a cleaned up original mono soundtrack for purists. Both sound very good with the 5.1 featuring a nice dynamic mix.

This new edition is a marked improvement over the previous DVD version and highly recommended.

135 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A milestone in film noir history., January 20, 2002

By 

Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinatown (DVD)

"Water is the life blood of every community." With this statement, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's website begins its biography of William Mulholland, the real life model of two of this movie's characters, water department chief Hollis Mulwray (an obvious play on words) and water tycoon Noah Cross. And indeed water, the access to it and the wealth it provides, is what drives everything and everybody in this movie set in the ever-thirsty Los Angeles of the first decades of this century, a budding boom town on the brink of victory or decay ... and whether it will be one or th other depends on the city's ongoing access to drinking water.

"Chinatown"'s story is based on William Mulholland's greatest coup; the construction of the Owen Valley aqueduct which provided Los Angeles with a steady source of drinking water but also entailed a lot of controversy. Splitting Mulholland's complex real-life persona into two fictional characters (the noble Mulwray who thinks that water should belong to the people and who refuses to authorize an unsavory new dam construction project and the greedy, unscrupulous Cross who will use *any* means to advance his personal fortune) creates the movie's one necessary black and white conflict ... other than this, the predominant shades are those of gray.

Into the wars raging around L.A.'s water supply, private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is unwittingly thrown when a woman introducing herself as Hollis Mulwray's wife asks him to investigate her husband's alleged infidelity. Before he realizes what is going on he is drawn into a web of treachery and treason, and fatally attracted to the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), Noah Cross (John Huston)'s daughter. Soon reaching the conclusion that he has been used, he refuses to drop the investigation, and instead decides to dig his way to the source of the scheming he has witnessed - the classical film noir setup.

To say that this movie is one of the best examples of the genre ever made is stating the obvious ... actually, it borders on being superfluous. Few other films are as tightly acted, scripted and directed, from Jack Nicholson's dapper-dressed, dogged Jake Gittes, who like any good noir detective is not half as hard boiled as he would have us believe, to Faye Dunaway's seductive and sad Evelyn Mulray, John Huston's cold-blooded and corrupt Noah Cross, Roman Polanski's brooding direction and Robert Towne's award-winning screen play, so full of memorable lines and the classical noir gumshoe dialogue, yet far more than just a well-done copy. And throughout it all, there that idea of Chinatown - that place where you do as little as possible, and where if you try to help someone, you're likely going to make double sure they're getting hurt.

"Chinatown" was Roman Polanski's return to Hollywood, five years after his wife (Sharon Tate) had been one of the victims of the Manson gang. Polanski and Towne fought hard whether the movie should have a happy ending or not. Polanski won, studio politics were favorable at the time, and the version we all know was produced. Towne later admitted that Polanski had been right; and in fact, it is hard to imagine what kind of happy ending would have worked with the movie at all - too deep-rooted are the conflicts presented, none of which lends itself to an easy solution. Unfortunately, being released the same year as "The Godfather II" robbed "Chinatown" much of the Academy Award attention it would have deserved; of 11 nominations (best movie, best actor - Jack Nicholson -, best actress - Faye Dunaway -, best director Roman Polanski , best screenplay - Robert Towne -, best original score - Jerry Goldsmith -, best cinematography, and others), the movie only won the Oscar for Towne's screenplay. Generations of fans, however, have long since recognized that "Chinatown" is a milestone in the history of the film noir and in the professional history of its participants, and one of Hollywood's finest hours.

Also recommended:
William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles
Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window (Library of America)
Complete Novels: Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man (Library of America #110)
Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s: The Postman Always Rings Twice / They Shoot Horses, Don't They? / Thieves Like Us / The Big Clock / Nightmare ... / I Married a Dead Man (Library of America)
The Bogart Collection (Casablanca/The Maltese Falcon/To Have and Have Not/The Big Sleep/The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
The Postman Always Rings Twice
L.A. Confidential (Two-Disc Special Edition)

100 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Can't Ever Forget "Chinatown", July 27, 2002

By 

Mike Stone - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinatown (25th Anniversary Edition) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

About an hour into "Chinatown", Noah Cross (John Huston) says to Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't." Gittes, whose heard this rap before, just smiles. "Why is that funny?" asks Cross. "It's what the D.A. used to tell me about Chinatown." If any exchange defines "Chinatown" the movie then this is it. It's a film where the cliched metaphor of the onion is quite apt: the more layers you peel away, the more layers you find. And the less you're likely to understand. It begins life as a simple detective story, but eventually spins out of control into a web of intrigue (another cliched metaphor) that not only includes the murder of water commissioner Hollis Mulwray, but the entirety of 1930's Los Angeles.

Into this web is sprung Jake Gittes, a man who seems to be a typical film noir detective, but upon closer inspection is much more. Or, as we shall see, much less. I'd argue that Jake is an existential anti-hero, seemingly in control of every situation he enters in to, but ultimately just a pawn on an unfathomable chessboard. Minor notes in the movie confirm this hypothesis. A former client calls Jake on the phone, looking for his discretion. "Are you alone, Mr. Gittes?" she asks. "Isn't everybody?" Jake replies, clowning for his operatives, but saying more than he really intends to. It's not the last time he inadvertently comments on the futility of his existence. "That must really smart," says Yelburton, the deputy water commissioner, regarding Jake's newly bandaged nose. "Only when I breathe," he replies, pointing out the paradox. The bandaged nose also acts like a mask. Whereas Jake starts the movie as a handsome man in a slick suit (this is primetime Nicholson), he is slowly physically destroyed. The bandage is just the icing on the cake; it serves as a mask during the movie's middle third, hiding Jake's face and, at the same time, suppressing his identity. Identity, as an issue, is clouded by the fact that no one he meets can seem to get his name right. Cross, in what may be intentional, keeps calling him "Mr. Gitz" (correctly pronounced, 'Gittes' rhymes with 'kitties'). So not only is he a man with no face, he is a man with no name. Jake Gittes, as he gets deeper and deeper into the mysteries surrounding him, is ceasing to exist.

But that's not to say that he is a cipher of a character. How could he be when played by such a vibrant actor? Nicholson is subdued and cool here, in just the right amounts. He captures Jake's slow decent into near madness perfectly, while always allowing the man some sense of control. Nicholson is always watchable in whatever he does, but this may be his best performance because it asks him to tone down his manic energy, allowing it to bubble over in moments, while alluding to it as subtext in others.

Behind him, the acting is mostly superb. John Huston, in his few brief scenes, makes an indelible mark as the pure face of evil. Huston's deep, gravelly voice and imposing -- even at age 68 -- frame do a lot at conveying the man's power, while his twinkling eyes draw you to him, even though you know better. Although best known as a legendary director, Huston nearly steals the show here. Not faring as well is Faye Dunaway. She plays her femme fatale role with a bit too much iciness, and, in moments, melodrama. Although she holds her own, and portrays great anguish, in the film's climactic confessional scene, for the most part Dunaway isn't up to snuff.

Roman Polanski, who takes a brief but memorable role as the Man With Knife (that's how he's quite functionally billed), directs with his usual visual flare. Shots are composed as reflections in camera lenses or in a car's side mirror. The opening scene begins with a series of photographs detailing one wife's infidelity. Without saying anything, and without showing the audience the room around them, the scene is set perfectly. It's archetypal of how he shoots the rest of the film: with style and subtlety.

Maybe I put too much stock in what William Goldman has to say, but "Chinatown" has to be a frontrunner when tallying up the best screenplays of all time. A good screenplay will have two things going for it: a strong structure (of vital importance always), and interesting dialogue (useful in supporting the structure and in adding colour to the proceedings). Towne gets full marks on both counts. Structurally, it's a dream, a marvelous example of the micro turning into the macro as the web of intrigue broadens exponentially, while maintaining its power on the smaller scale all along. Add to this the crisp, precise dialogue, and you've got a screenplay that's as much fun to listen to as it is to follow. Jake is full of wisecracks and homespun wisdom. When asked about Mulwray's character, Yelburton denies ever hearing him talk about infidelity: "He never even kids about it." "Maybe he takes it very seriously," says Jake. When Cross asks if Lou Escobar, the investigating officer who's handling the Mulwray murder case, is an honest man, Jakes replies, "Far as it goes... of course he has to swim in the same water we all do." On its own this would be a great line, but in "Chinatown", where the water of L.A. plays a major role in the plot, its damn well genius.

"Chinatown" is much more than your average detective story. It's a narrative dripping in character, intrigue, and history. I'd sure like to see just what it was that happened in Chinatown, back in Jake's days on the police force, which made him the cynical sleuth he's become. It'd make a great prequel. As it stands, the movie we've got is a crackerjack yarn, rich enough to demand multiple viewings.