After several takes that never looked quite right, Faye Dunaway got annoyed and told Jack Nicholson to actually slap her. He did and felt very guilty for it, despite it being Dunaway's decision. The shot made it into the movie.
At the time of filming, Jack Nicholson had just embarked on his longstanding relationship with Anjelica Huston. This made his scenes with her father, John Huston, rather uncomfortable, especially as the only time Anjelica was on set was the day they were filming the scene where Noah Cross interrogates Nicholson's character with "Mr. Gittes...do you sleep with my daughter?"
Roman Polanski said that in staying true to the tradition of Raymond Chandler's detective stories, he shot the whole movie from the perspective of the main character.
Screenwriter Robert Towne was originally offered $125,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but Towne felt he couldn't do better than the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and accepted $25,000 to write his own story, "Chinatown," instead.
C.O. Erickson: The film's executive producer plays the banker in the barbershop who starts an argument with Jake.
Roman Polanski: Although he liked the idea of doing a cameo in the film as the hood who slits Jack Nicholson's nose, he was less thrilled about having to have his long hair cut off for his brief appearance in the film.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
