Now 50 years old, Chinatown is one of the all-time great crime films – and that's partly because of a potent story based on the real history of California's so-called "water wars". "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown..
." is one of the most famous lines in film history. The dialogue closes a lynchpin of post-war US cinema: Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974).
The 1930s-set neo-noir, which turned 50 this week, is still a regular talking point in popular culture, for everything from its celebrated screenplay by Robert Towne (for which it won its sole Oscar) to its phenomenal score by Jerry Goldsmith, its astonishing lead performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston, to the subsequent disgrace of its criminally convicted, fugitive director. Polanski and Towne's story was part of a particular trend in crime cinema of the period. While Watergate-inflected thrillers like Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Alan J Pakula's The Parallax View (1972), and hyper-aggressive cop flicks like Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971) and William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971), were all caught up in present day issues, a new alternative to gritty procedurals and paranoid political thrillers was becoming popular – namely the lavish period crime film.
Arguably peaking with Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), the movement was really kickstarted by the success of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) , and also resulted in the likes of Dick.
