While a motion picture screenplay is by nature imperfectible — and time, tide, and taste will have their say — the Oscar-winning script written for 1974’s “ Chinatown “ by Robert Towne , who passed away Tuesday at age 89 according to his publicist (via THR ), makes its own case to be cited as perfect an example of the form as we may ever see. That it was the first original (as opposed to an adaptation) that Towne ever authored, coming along at the age of 40, is itself remarkable. It’s no coincidence that his great friend Jack Nicholson, an artistic comrade in arms since they met as neophytes in a Hollywood acting class, was the center of “Chinatown ’s” dark beauty and also of the ribald, corrosive and mordantly funny Towne script for 1973’s “The Last Detail.
” Another friend, Warren Beatty, was the centerpiece of 1975’s “Shampoo,” which joined the previous two to notch Towne’s third best screenplay Oscar nom in a row. Those three films alone would have guaranteed his stature as one of the great screenwriters. Witness “Chinatown’s” ranking as one of the top three in the Writers’ Guild members voting to select the Top 101 screenplays ever written.
“Casablanca,” ranked first, is a not-so-distant cousin to it; and “The Godfather,” ranked second, boasts as a crucial scene Marlon Brando’s title character Vito Corleone passing the torch to Al Pacino’s Michael (“I never wanted this for you...
”). Towne wrote that hastily inserted .
