The day the dam broke

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2008)

(There are Spoilers) It's Los Angeles 1937 where there's a major controversy over a dam being built outside of city limits. The dam is to divert precious water from the valley that will in effect drive the farmers there into bankruptcy and foreclosure of their homes and farmland.
Private Eye J.J Jake Gittes, Jack Nicholson, unknowingly gets involved with this water scheme by being contacted by this woman, Diane Ladd, claiming to be the wife of L.A's Power & Water Commissioner Hollis I. Mulwary, Darrell Zwerling. Claiming that her husband is cheating on her "Mrs. Evelyn Mulwary" has Gittes get the goods on him by photographing Mr. Mulwary with this young woman,Belinda Palmer, with the photos ending up in the local papers. It's later when Gittes is contacted by the real Mrs. Evelyn Mulwary, Faye Dunnaway, that he realizes that he's been taken for a sucker by whoever this woman the fake Mrs. Mulwary, who turned out to be a Mrs. Ida Sessions, is and the person who hired her!
"Chinatown" then has a number of surprises hit both PI Gittes and its audience in that Mrs. Mulwary is the estranged daughter of L.A power broker Noah Cross, John Huston. Cross made his millions in real estate and land development with the help of Hollis Mulwary his son-in-law. It's not long after that Mr. Mulwary ends up dead in the L.A reservoir with the L.A coroner concluding that his death was either an accident or suicide!
Gittes knowing that Mr. Mulwary was actually murdered in that he opposed Cross' plan to build a dam that will in fact threaten the people, mostly farmers, who live around it goes out of his way to find out who in fact did murder Mr. Mulwary. Gittes suspicions are confirmed in the fact that Mr. Mulwary's lungs were filled with salt water making it impossible that he drowned in the fresh water L.A reservoir.
the kicker to this whole shady project, the building of the dam, is soon discovered, with the help of Mrs. Sessions, by PI Gittes in that Cross and his stooges in the L.A City government are buying up the land that's to be irrigated by the dam dirt cheap from the hard pressed farmers. With a bill later in the year to be voted on by the people of L.A, that's sure to pass, the valley will become part of Los Angeles proper and be worth some 30 million dollars! A fraction of what Cross & Co. bought it for!
The crooked land deal angle of "Chinatown" is really secondary to what the real deal in the movie is and that has to do with the mysterious young woman whom the late Mr. Hollis Mulwary was involved with. It's that young woman that's been kept secret by both Mr. Cross and his daughter Evelyn Mulwary from PI Gittes. In the end she's the reason for both Cross & Evelyn's strange and unnatural actions in the film. That's until her true identity is revealed at the conclusion of the movie which just about blew Gittes mind!
Dark and suspenseful film noir with Jack Nicholson at his best as PI Gittes finding out that he bit off far more the he can chew in taking on the powerful and at the same time degenerate Noah Cross. Gittes should have known better that he just can't win in his fight with Cross and the people that he controlled,that included the entire LAPD. It was Gittes' cockiness in that he could derail Cross' plan that lead to the tragedy at the end of the movie that took place in the Chinatown section of L.A.
Director Roman Polaski beside making one of the classic film noir films of the post WWII Hollywood era also had a cameo appearance in the movie paying one of Cross' knife wielding hoods. Polanski was the person who sliced open Gittes nose having him go through almost the entire movie with a massive bandage on his face. That bandage, covering almost half his face, was a tempting target for anyone who got psychically involved, like the farmers in the valley, with him in the movie.