MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Chinatown (1974, 139 minutes)
A roughly dressed man thumbs through a stack of 8×10 glossies depicting a woman and a man having sex. He’s finally seen enough, tosses the photos up in the air and begins to pound on the office walls of J.J. Gittes, Private Investigator. “All right, Curley, enough’s enough. You can’t eat the venetian blinds,” says Gittes (Jack Nicholson). “She’s no good,” moans Curley. “What can I tellya, you’re right,” says Gittes. Curley complains about how much the serveillance will cost. “I don’t want to take your last dime,” says the impeccably dressed detective.
A woman in her late 40s enters the office. “What seems to be the problem, Mrs.Mulwray?” asks Gittes with his cultivated bedside manner. “It’s my husband. I believe he’s seeing anoher woman,” she answers. “Mrs. Mulwray, do you love your husband?” he asks. “Go home and forget everything. You’re better off not knowing.” “I have to know,” she says. “Very well. What is your husband’s first name?” asks Gittes. “Hollis, Hollis Mulwray,” she states. “Water And Power?” asks a dumbfounded Gittes. “He’s chief engineer,” she replies.
Tailing Mulwray, Gittes is present next morning for a meeting to decide how to tackle Los Angeles’ water probems. A portrait of F.D.R. overlooks the proceedings. “Gentlemen, you can walk out that door, and within 25 minutes you’ll end up smack in the Pacific Ocean,” says a board member.”You can swim and fish in it, but you can’t drink it, and you can’t irrigate an orange grove with it. Los Angeles is a desert community. Without water, the dust will rise up as though we never existed. The only answer,” he concludes, “is to build the Alto Vallejo dam.”
Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) strides to the podium. “In case you have forgotten, over 500 lives were lost when the Van Der Lip dam gave way,” he warns. “And now you propose another dirt-bank terminus dam. I won’t make the same mistake twice. It won’t hold, and I won’t build it!”
A week after the press has a field day with Gittes’ sex-scandal dossier on Mulwray, the private eye is telling a joke to his operatives: “This guy gets tired of screwing his wife. His friend tells him, ‘Why don’t you do what the Chinese do?’ So he screws his wife a little while, then stops and reads a magazine. Then he screws her a little more and stops again. Exasperated, his wife bellows, ‘Hey, you’re screwing lika a Chinaman!’”
Unbeknownst to Gittes, a sharply attired woman has been standing directly behind him. “Mr. Gittes, I’m Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray,” says the woman (played by Faye Dunaway). “We’ve never met. I’ve never hired you to spy on my husband. I see you like publicity. Well, you’re going to get it.” Her lawyer hands Gittes a thick wad of legal documents.
