Chinatown Page #4

Synopsis: When Los Angeles private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband's activities, he believes it's a routine infidelity case. Jake's investigation soon becomes anything but routine when he meets the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) and realizes he was hired by an imposter. Mr. Mulwray's sudden death sets Gittes on a tangled trail of corruption, deceit and sinister family secrets as Evelyn's father (John Huston) becomes a suspect in the case.
Production: Paramount Pictures
  Won 1 Oscar. Another 20 wins & 24 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.2
Metacritic:
86
Rotten Tomatoes:
98%
R
Year:
1974
130 min
862,118 Views


(through above, to

Mulwray)

-- You steal the water from the

valley, ruin the grazing, starve my

livestock -- who's paying you to do

that, .Mr. Mulwray, that's what I

want to know!

L.A. RIVERBED - LONG SHOT

It's virtually empty. Sun blazes off it's ugly concrete banks.

Where the banks are earthen, they are parched and choked

with weeds.

After a moment, Mulwray's car pulls INTO VIEW on a flood

control road about fifteen feet above the riverbed. Mulwray

gets out of the car. Me looks around.

WITH GITTES:

holding a pair of binoculars, downstream and just above the

flood control road -- using some dried mustard weeds for

cover. he watches while Mulwray makes his way down to the

center of the riverbed. There Mulwray stops, tuns slowly,

appears to be looking at the bottom of the riverbed, or -at

nothing at all.

GITTES:

trains the binoculars on him. Sun glints off Mulwray's

glasses.

BELOW GITTES:

There's the SOUND of something like champagne corks popping.

Then a small Mexican boy atop a swayback horse rides it into

the riverbed, and into Gitte's view.

MULWRAY:

himself stops, stands still when he hears the sound. Power

lines and the sun are overhead, the trickle of brackish water

at his feet. He moves swiftly downstream in the direction

of the sound, toward Gittes.

10.

GITTES:

moves a little further back as Mulwray rounds the bend in

the river and comes face to face with the Mexican boy on the

muddy banks. Mulwray says something to the boy. The boy

doesn't answer at first. Mulwray points to the ground. The

boy gestures. Mulwray frowns. He kneels down in the mud and

stares at it. He seems to be concentrating on it. After a

moment, he rises, thanks the boy and heads swiftly back

upstream -- scrambling up the bank to his car. There he

reaches through the window and pulls out a roll of blueprints

or something like them - he spreads them on the hood of his

car and begins to scribble some notes, looking downstream

from time to time. The power lines overhead HUM. He stops,

listens to them -- then rolls up the plans and gets back in

the car. He drives off.

GITTES:

Hurries to get back to his car. He gets in and gets right

back out. The steamy leather burns him. He takes a towel

from the back seat and carefully places it on the front one.

He gets in and takes off.

POINT FERMIN PARK - DUSK

Street lights go on.

MULWRAY:

pulls up, parks. Hurries out of the car, across the park

lawn and into the shade of some trees and buildings.

GITTES:

pulls up, moves across the park at a different angle, but in

the direction Mulwray had gone. He makes it through the trees

in time to see Mulwray scramble adroitly down the side of

the cliff to the beach below. Be seems in a hurry. Gittes

moves after him - having a little more difficulty negotiating

the climb than Mulwray did.

Rate this script:3.3 / 9 votes

Robert Towne

Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. His most notable work was his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest movie screenplays ever written. He also wrote its sequel The Two Jakes in 1990, and wrote the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973), and Shampoo (1975), as well as the first two Mission Impossible films (1996, 2000). more…

All Robert Towne scripts | Robert Towne Scripts

0 fans

Submitted by acronimous on March 30, 2016

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

    Translation

    Translate and read this script in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Chinatown" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/chinatown_73>.

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

    Watch the movie trailer

    Chinatown

    Browse Scripts.com

    The Studio:

    ScreenWriting Tool

    Write your screenplay and focus on the story with many helpful features.