Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown

Seal Beach and Los Alamitos only have one movie theater, but it’s one of a kind. Each week the historic Bay Theatre offers a new release paired with a cinematic classic. Each week, Patch will tell you what classic is playing at the classic theatre.

Before Roman Polanski was a fugitive, before Jack Nicholson ever shouted, “You can’t handle the truth,” there was Chinatown in all its multi-layered drama.

The 1974 classic staring Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. In the film noire tradition, the film’s anti-hero private investigator J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Nicholson) is drawn into the messy, dangerous and secretive lives of the powerful yet broken family that manipulates water rights in 1930s Los Angeles.

Chinatown is a psychological drama that uses sex and power as metaphors for the politics of water rights that shaped large swaths of California. But even for those who never heard of William Mulholland and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Chinatown storyline makes it a top thriller among movie buffs everywhere.

While Polanski’s films are often about usual people in unusual situations, Polanski’s life itself became the story of unusual people in even more unusual situations. Chinatown was filmed after the murder of his famous wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family and not long before he was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at Nicholson’s home.

As for Nicholson, his performance in Chinatown ranks among his best in a decade that earned him four Best-Actor Academy Award nominations for performances in The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Five Easy Pieces and Chinatown.

Showtimes

• Today at 6 p.m.
• Monday at 8 p.m.
• Wednesday at 8 p.m.