Forget it, Jake. It’s CHINATOWN at The Tivoli Wednesday Night – ‘Classics in the Loop’

“You’re a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses!”

CHINATOWN screens Wednesday May 17th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their  ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

CHINATOWN (1974) is a seminal classic of ’70s cinema, with Jack Nicholson excellent as Jake Gittes, a mostly-ethical former cop-turned-private detective in 1930s Los Angeles who believes he’s been hired by the wife of the chief engineer of the Water and Power Department. He thinks her husband’s cheating on her but, as it turns out, she’s not the real Mrs. at all, and so propels Gittes into a tug-of-war between powerful ex-partners, with carnality and family secrets the key to unraveling the mystery. The Oscar-winning screenplay by Robert Towne is filled with complicated story threads and characters with checkered pasts–lots of fun, though it is somewhat unfair the script is always two steps ahead of the audience. However, CHINATOWN is so deftly orchestrated by director Roman Polanski, one becomes engrossed in the proceedings even while being bombarded with both clues and extraneous matter. Faye Dunaway’s performance, as the breathy, mysterious daughter of water-czar John Huston, walks a fine line between melodramatic and campy–still, she’s entirely in the spirit of the piece, and an interesting screen-match for Nicholson.

CHINATOWN is assured and entertaining; it pulls the viewer in without giving out enough information, though this lack of knowledge for our sake doesn’t hurt the returns. A cannier, guessing-game approach to the plot may have made the film more commercial (it was a modest box-office hit); however, this presentation, messy though it may be, is still absorbing.

Experiencing older Hollywood films like CHINATOWN on the big screen is like visiting a fine art museum – masters at work creating a living work of art that time only enhances in respect. A big thanks and shout-out to the Tivoli for this wonderful ‘Classics on the Loop’ series which ends next week with BLOOD SIMPLE. Attendance has been good, so keep your fingers crossed that they announce a new line-up of classics for the Fall.

Here’s the rest of the line-up for the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series:
May 24th – BLOOD SIMPLE – 1984

Look for continued coverage of the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series here at We Are movie Geeks.