Set in 1937, Chinatown <\/em>sees successful private investigator Jake Gittes (Nicholson) stumble upon a conspiracy whereby a cabal of wealthy big shots plan to steal water from the area surrounding Los Angeles in a bid to expand the city (and their ownership of it). This leads to further revelations, including murder, rape, and incest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although designed as a throwback homage to classic noirs of Hollywood\u2019s Golden Age\u2014in particular, the hard boiled mysteries adapted from the novels of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler\u2014Chinatown<\/em> has since become as foundational a noir text as its predecessors, and the films that have taken inspiration from or even outright aped it are as numerous as they diverse: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?<\/em>, L.A. Confidential<\/em>, Rango<\/em>, Poolman<\/em>, just to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also embedded itself in the larger image of the city it\u2019s set in, with many believing that the central water siphoning scheme is historically accurate. This is not the case; as anyone who’s read Cadillac Desert<\/em> or seen Los Angeles Plays Itself<\/em> knows, the real story, although similar to what plays out in the film, was far more banal and public, even if it was no less corrupt. But that hardly matters\u2014to quote a different film, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of the intervening decades, Chinatown <\/em>maintained its legendary status, despite the best efforts of those behind it, and I\u2019m not just talking about the criminal scandals that nearly destroyed Polanski and (to a lesser, but still serious extent) Evans\u2019s careers and lives. After Polanski fled to France in the wake of his impending prosecution for rape, Evans, Towne and Nicholson decided to return to the well of Chinatown <\/em>with a sequel\u2013the second in a proposed trilogy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It took them nearly a decade to make<\/a> The Two Jakes<\/em>, and by the time it opened to middling (at best) reviews and terrible box office in 1990, the three men\u2014once the best of friends\u2014were no longer on speaking terms. But as the villain of the first film, reptilian industrialist Noah Cross (John Huston), remarks to Jake Gittes, \u201cPoliticians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same might be said of certain films, because with the golden anniversary of the original now upon us, Paramount is set to release a deluxe set that includes a 4K UHD of Chinatown <\/em>along with a new Blu-Ray of The Two Jakes<\/em>. This follows on the heels of a steady reclamation of the latter by critics and cinephiles over the past several years, with some even claiming<\/a> it’s the better of the two films. This is obviously ridiculous, but the going consensus does place it alongside another long-awaited Paramount sequel from 1990 once considered a travesty but now regarded as underrated: The Godfather III<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is this accurate? Yes and no. Like The Godfather III<\/em>, The Two Jakes<\/em>\u2014which is set 11 years after the first film and follows an older, richer, heavier and more haunted Gittes as he becomes entangled in another land theft scheme, this time revolving around oil and mineral rights, that reunites him with Katherine Mulwray, the long-lost daughter of his murdered love Evelyn\u2014mostly suffers by comparison to what came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under Nicholson\u2019s direction (with a huge assist from DOP Vilmos Zigmond), The Two Jakes<\/em> is a handsomely made period mystery with a couple memorable scenes and some fine performances from both returning faces (James Hong, Perry Lopez, Joe Mantell, and in a voiceover cameo, Faye Dunaway) and a murderer\u2019s row of newcomers (Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, David Keith, Ruben Blades, Eli Wallach, Richard Farnsworth and Tom Waits). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it lacks the shadowy menace of Polanski\u2019s work, tipping over into wackiness on a couple of occasions (a dizzying explosion that sends Nicholson spinning ass over teakettle in the air plays like something out of a Coens\u2019 farce) as well as the understated, lived-in quality of the original’s cinematography and production design. Chinatown <\/em>transports you to old L.A.; The Two Jakes<\/em> gives you a very impressive diorama of it. Story-wise, The Two Jakes <\/em>is appropriately convoluted, as all P.I. mysteries should be, but the last act is unintentionally muddled and despite climaxing with a literal explosion (one of several throughout the film), it ends not with a bang but a whimper. Compare that to Chinatown<\/em>, which boasts one of, if not the most devastating final scenes and lines in all of moviedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s not merely comparison that hurts The Two Jakes<\/em>. The power of the original\u2019s ending comes from its utter hopelessness, its resignation to horror, to the void. This is all due to the one man missing from the sequel: Roman Polanski, who changed Towne\u2019s original somber, but more traditionally cathartic ending\u2014which had Evelyn go to prison after successfully killing her monstrous father\u2014in the wake of wife Sharon Tate and their unborn child\u2019s slaughter at the hands of the Manson Family. Chinatown<\/em>, like Los Angeles, is forever linked to that moment of evil, so it has <\/em>to end with evil triumphant. Returning to the characters over a decade later and giving them a measure of solace undermines that. There\u2019s just no way around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The genesis <\/a>of The Two Jakes<\/em> and it\u2019s never-to-be-made follow up, Gittes vs. Gittes<\/em>\u2014which would have plunked Nicholson\u2019s P.I. in 1968, his livelihood under threat in the wake of California\u2019s newly enacted no-fault divorce laws\u2014is as convoluted as its plot. According to Nicholson, Towne had conceived of the trilogy (or \u201ctriptych,\u201d as he was fond of calling it) before he even wrote the script for Chinatown<\/em>. Towne has said this isn\u2019t true, although his timeline of when exactly he came up with the ideas for the sequels varies depending on who he\u2019s talking to (Evans, for his part, says the sequel was his and Jack\u2019s idea). Nicholson also claims the would-be trilogy was meant to take place in real time, not unlike Richard Linklater\u2019s Before <\/em>series: \u201cWe wanted to do a project whereby you waited the real amount of time that passed between the stories before going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, this claim has been refuted by Towne, although he does echo Nicholson\u2019s remarks about the unifying theme of the trilogy being the elements, with the first centering around water, the second around earth and fire, with the third to concern air pollution. The focus on water rights in Chinatown <\/em>helps ground it in real-life history and imbues it with a sense of verisimilitude. Plonking Gittes down in the exact same circumstances twice more, with only the element in question changed, undoes all of that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nicholson once described this grand vision as a \u201cliterary conceit.\u201d He\u2019s right, and therein lies the problem. It feels like a conceit, one that\u2019s too clever by half. The Godfather Part II<\/em> and, for whatever else you think about it, Part III<\/em>, were continuations of the same story. By contrast, The Two Jakes<\/em> and, we can imagine, Gittes vs. Gittes<\/em>, feel like retreads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While The Two Jakes<\/em> makes for an interesting curio, its very existence is inimical to the legacy of its predecessor, even as it does nothing to diminish the power of that film.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words: Forget it Chinatown<\/em>, it\u2019s Jakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paramount’s 4K “Chinatown” \/ Blu-ray “Two Jakes” set is out now<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/two-jakes-1024x663.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n