Flick of The Day: Chinatown

So here we are, my favourite film of all time. Perfection is a strong word but in terms of cinema, today's flick of the day is as close to  perfection as is possible in a full length feature in the modern era. A towering central performance, a director on top form and a legendary screenwriter, this film is the sum of its parts. A dark and disturbing journey into life and corruption in sun drenched 1930's Los Angeles. Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown.

Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)

Jake Gittes, a superb Jack Nicholson, is a private eye who specialises in catching out cheating spouses. A former cop, he has a sharp eye and a quick tongue. One day he is hired by Evelyn Mulwray to follow her husband Holles, whom she suspects of infidelity. Holles is Chief Engineer in the Water department. As Jake follows Holles around, he is intrigued to find him taking unexplained trips to various reservoirs and water tables. However, when he photographs Holles in the company of a young girl, he figures his job is done. However it quickly becomes apparent that Jake is in over his head when the real Mrs Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway turns up and had nothing to do with hiring Jake and Holles turns up dead. Going against his own gut, he decides he has to get to the bottom of a tangled web involving shady land deals, corrupt bureaucracy, orange farmers and Evelyn's father, an ageing land baron called Noah Cross, played by the incomparable John Huston. A dark and shocking finale ensues, in which Jake is forced to fight against forces he is powerless to stop and has to confront his own past in Chinatown.

A powerful film even today, the real crux of its success is to marry the kind of classic screen noir of the 1930's and 40's with a pessimistic critique of capitalist and bureaucratic structures that began to seep into American cinema in the post Watergate 70's. A great script from Robert Towne marries these grand themes with a story of corruption and family deceit that is as old as Oedipus. It is packed with great quotable lines.

Jake Gittes: Mulvihill! What are you doing here? 

Mulvihill: They shut my water off. What's it to you? 

Jake Gittes: How'd you find out about it? You don't drink it; you don't take a bath in it... They wrote you a letter. But then you have to be able to read.

It would be a shame if this script were wasted on ropy acting and lazy direction. Thankfully, then these elements are equally strong. Nicholson gives a strong performance in a role that cemented his place as a star. Hollywood legend John Huston is equally adept as the malevolent Noah Crosss and his scenes with Nicholson are a treat. Roman Polanksi's direction is even paced and draws the best out of the cast and the script. Almost flawless.

The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards on its release in 1974, winning just the one for Robert Towne's brilliant script having had the misfortune of being made in the same year as The Godfather Part II. It's reputation has only grown in the intervening years, becoming something of a mythic beast such is the reputation of the likes of Towne, Polanski and Nicholson in terms of the 70's New Hollywood movement. It even spawned a vastly inferior sequel in 1990, The Two Jakes.

Jake Gittes: In Chinatown. 

Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there? 

Jake Gittes: Working for the District Attorney. 

Evelyn Mulwray: Doing what? 

Jake Gittes: As little as possible. 

Evelyn Mulwray: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that? 

Jake Gittes: They do in Chinatown.

The film is relentlessly cynical in its outlook, something that is at the heart of film noir but in this case updated for a modern audience. This alone would have made the film memorable but the combination of this with a great story and the aforementioned talents of Nicholson et al raise this to another level.

Well, what else is there to say? This really is my favourite film of all time. It is as good as it gets on all fronts and really a must see for anyone with an interest in great cinema. Check it out.

Flick of The Day: The African Queen

We have looked at the work of Humphrey Bogart before in The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon which was the first collaboration between Bogart and director John Huston. Perhaps their most famous collaboration is today's flick of the day, The African Queen. A film as famous for its laborious location shoot as for the end result, it is a great technical achievement even today its arduous shoot earned Bogart and co-star Katharine Hepburn Academy Awards nominations.

The African Queen

Adapted from a novel by C.S Forester, the African Queen is set in East Africa during World War 1 and stars Bogart as Charlie Allnut, a gin swilling slob of who captains the steam boat of the title, delivering supplies up and down the river. Hepburn is her usual prim self as Rose Sayer, this time the sister of a missionary who dies when the Germans invade. Allnut offers to take Rose back to the civilisation and together the two begin an arduous journey down the river. Charlie mentions in passing that the Germans have a gunboat, the Louisa, that controls the lake into which the river drains. Rose becomes obsessed with sinking the gunboat, perhaps for retribution at the death of her brother or perhaps for a need to do something to help the war effort. In either case, Charlie believes navigating the river will be suicide enough without turning their small steam boat into a torpedo boat. The pair overcome a number of obstacles, from white water rapids to a German Fort, gradually revealing the softer sides of their characters to each other and falling in love. When they eventually make it to the lake, they are resolved to sink the Louisa.

As noted at the outset, this film is best remembered for the filming of it as much as anything else. The shoot was over 4 months on location in the Congo and Uganda. This was not your typical Hollywood shoot with Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall on set for the duration and in her own words acting as cook, nurse and clothes washer. To combat the threat of disease, both Bogart and Huston survived on a diet of canned food and Scotch whiskey, more of the latter than the former. It worked as almost everyone else in the cast came down with dysentery during filming. As Bogart explained:

"Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead"

Hepburn, who did not drink, fared much worse, losing weight and getting very ill at one point. Despite this, the cast and crew pulled through and overcame many other obstacles such as marauding hippos and a boat fire to put together a memorable film. The shoot was documented in Clint Eastwood's fictionalised White Hunter, Black Heart

The true strength of the film is the interplay between Bogart and Hepburn, for they are the only ones on camera for most of the film. If they don't gel, then you don't really have a film, thankfully they make great sparring partners.

Charlie: All this fool talk about The Louisa. Goin' down the river... 

Rose: What do you mean? 

Charlie: I mean we ain't goin' to do nothin' of the sort. 

Rose: Why, of course we're going! What an absurd idea! 

Charlie: What an absurd idea! What an absurd idea! Lady, I may be a born fool, but you got ten absurd ideas to my one, an' don't you forget it!

This apart, the film is a romantic melodrama with adventure elements, it is however a fun journey all the same, holding your interest as they go from A to B. The difficulties involved in filming are obvious throughout, from the leech invested waters where only for Bogart's objection, they would have used real leeches at John Huston's request. Even for a director as peerless as Huston, this stands out as an achievement.

All in all, a fine film which earned Bogart his only Oscar win, a crying shame for perhaps the greatest leading man in cinema history. A great script and an interesting tale are combined to great effect by John Huston. It is well worth seeking out for a viewing.