Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement:
Laemmle’s
Royal Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting the 45th anniversary
screening of Roman Polanski’s 1974 film Chinatown which itself takes place in the City of Angels. The film
will be screened on Thursday, June 27th, 2019 at 7:00 pm. Starring
Jack Nicholson in one of the many classics that he made during that phenomenal
decade, the film co-stars Faye Dunaway, John Houston, John Hillerman, Diane
Ladd, and Bruce Glover. The film runs 131 minutes.
PLEASE NOTE:
The following
cast/crew member(s) are scheduled at press time to appear in person, with the potential
for more to be added to the list, so please check the Royal website link at the
bottom for updates as the screening day draws closer:
Actor
Bruce Glover (Hard Times, Walking Tall, Diamonds Are
Forever, Ghost World)
Assistant
director Hawk Koch
Author
Sam Wasson
From the press
release:
CHINATOWN
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
CHINATOWN (1974)
45th Anniversary Screening
Cast and Crew Q&A
Thursday, June 27 at 7 PM
Royal Theatre
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of one
of the most memorable films of the 70s, the neo-noir mystery thriller, Chinatown.
Nominated for 11 Academy Awards in 1974 (including Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Actor Jack Nicholson and Best Actress Faye Dunaway), the film won the
Oscar for the original screenplay by Robert Towne. Although it was set in a
beautifully recreated 1930s universe, the film reflected the bitter cynicism
and disillusionment of the Vietnam and Watergate era.
Towne was a Los Angeles native, and he had long been fascinated by the history
of the city, where the sun-dappled beauty belied the underlying greed and
corruption. The inspiration for the story were the water wars that had shaped
the modern life of the place. These struggles over the city’s natural resources
had taken place in the first decade of the 20th century; Towne moved the
setting up to the 1930s, partly in order to combine this scorching social
commentary with the spirit of classic detective novels penned by authors like
Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Nicholson plays J.J. Gittes, a private eye who specializes in sordid cases of
marital infidelity. But he gets himself into deeper territory when an
investigation into a civic leader’s extramarital affair leads to the discovery
of a massive conspiracy by big business interests to seize control of the
city’s oveted water supply. Gittes’s sleuthing also leads him to uncover
shocking cases of sexual abuse among the city’s elite. Dunaway plays a
variation on the classic femme fatale of noir cinema, a beautiful heiress who
is commanding on the surface but is secretly and tragically damaged by events
in her past. John Huston plays her corrupt father, and the supporting cast
includes John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Diane Ladd, Burt Young, Bruce Glover, and
James Hong.
Robert Evans, the successful head of Paramount Studios at the time, backed
Towne’s screenplay and decided to make the film his first venture as a
producer. When Evans took over as head of the studio in the 60s, one of his
early successes was an adaptation of Ira Levin’s best-selling novel, Rosemary’s
Baby, which became the first American movie of European director Roman
Polanski. That film was a smash hit, and Evans hired Polanski again to
direct Chinatown. Polanski had been reluctant to work in Hollywood
since the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, by the infamous Manson
family in 1969. But Evans persisted and Polanski brought his knowledge of the
underside of Hollywood to his depiction of the city’s past, even changing the
ending of Towne’s screenplay to reflect his own deep pessimism.
The film’s technical team—including cinematographer John Alonzo, production
designer Richard Sylbert, and costume designer Anthea Sylbert—helped to realize
the writer and director’s vision of decay beneath the elegant surfaces of
Southern California. Jerry Goldsmith’s sultry score, highlighted by a
melancholy trumpet solo, clinched the mournful mood.
Variety praised the achievement: “Roman Polanski’s American-made
film, his first since Rosemary’s Baby, shows him again in total
command of talent and physical filmmaking elements.†Derek Malcolm of the London
Evening Standard wrote, “Polanski’s telling of his tale of corruption
in L.A. is masterly—thrilling, humorous and disturbing at the same time—and
brilliantly played by John Huston and Faye Dunaway as well as Nicholson.†The
film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in
1991.
Our panel to discuss the film will include actor Bruce Glover (Hard Times, Walking
Tall, Diamonds Are Forever); assistant director Hawk Koch (who
went on to produce such films as Heaven Can Wait, The
Idolmaker, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Wayne’s World,
and Primal Fear and later served as president of the Motion
Picture Academy); and author Sam Wasson (who wrote the biography of Bob Fosse
that served as the basis of the highly acclaimed miniseries, Fosse/Verdon,
and is writing a new book on the seminal films of the 70s).
Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Towne
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez,
Burt Young, Bruce Glover, James Hong, Diane Ladd
The 45th anniversary screening of Chinatown will take
place at the Royal Theatre, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los
Angeles, CA 90025 on Thursday,
June 27th, 2019 at 7:00 pm.
Click
here
for tickets.