Time to Reconsider “Chinatown”?

In a fine essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Michael Rubenstein, an associate professor of English at Stony Brook University and author of the forthcoming book, “Chinatown” at 50 or, Seeing Oil Through Cinema, chews over that 1974 private-eye film’s legacy, its newly shaky place in cinematic history, and efforts to restore it to public prominence. The article begins:

Released on June 20, 1974, Chinatown has been part of the cultural record for 50 years. In 1991, it was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. In 2010, when Chinatown was 36 years old—the same age as Jack Nicholson when he starred in the movie, when he was, by broad critical consensus, at the peak of his star power—a poll of The Guardian’s top critics proclaimed it “the best film of all time.” So, we might take the occasion of its 50th birthday in 2024 to celebrate a consecrated classic. Or we might notice instead that today, 14 years on from its coronation as best of all time—a ridiculous piece of clickbait anyway—Chinatown seems to have dropped off of a lot of best-of lists altogether. Well into middle age, the film seems now to have passed its prime. Much like a 50-year-old man. Much like me.

If it’s all downhill from here, one can always look back. Even when it was new, Chinatown was a nostalgia machine, generating cinematic pleasure from Hollywood’s 1974 recreation of 1937 Los Angeles. Over the last few years, a couple of fiftysomething Hollywood gentlemen have been conspiring to do the time warp again. David Fincher is rumored to be behind a Netflix series based on Jake Gittes’s backstory as a rookie beat cop in the eponymous district of Chinatown. And Ben Affleck has optioned Sam Wasson’s best-selling 2020 book about the making of Chinatown, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood; if the film gets made, I imagine we’ll see the next generation of Hollywood royalty claim its inheritance by pretending to be the last one. And if I sound like I’m sneering, rest assured that I will be watching all of it, mouth agape in enraptured abandon.

Because I also love Chinatown. I’m fascinated by both the world it depicts and the world that made it. There is no shortage of writing on these subjects; Chinatown needs no recovering from obscurity. So, what else needs to be said? One thing that does need saying before proceeding is this: the reason for Chinatown’s declining critical reputation is probably not its age. At least part of the reason is certainly because the #MeToo movement has since rumbled the film’s reputation by reminding us that its director is a confessed statutory rapist and a fugitive from the law. That might even be the whole reason, and it might even be a just reason.

Click here to enjoy the remainder of Rubenstein’s piece.

Rapid-Fire Crime Hits

Today’s collection of crime-fiction-related news items that don’t justify posts of their own, but may be of interest to readers:

• The British TV crime drama Grace, starring John Simm and Richie Campbell, and based on Peter James’ popular series about Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, has been renewed for a fifth season. Meanwhile, a second ITV show, Professor T, featuring Ben Miller, has won a fourth season, even before its third is broadcast.

• And did I mention previously that the HBO-TV anthology drama True Detective, having recently completed the airing of its fourth series, Night Country (starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis), has been re-upped for a fifth run? The Hollywood Reporter adds that “Night Country showrunner Issa López has signed an overall deal with the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned cabler and will return to steer the fifth season after taking over the franchise from creator Nic Pizzolatto.”

• We’re nearing the March 4 premiere of Dark City: The Cleaner, a TV thriller set in Christchurch, New Zealand, and based on a 2006 novel by Paul Cleave. Sadly, it isn’t yet available to U.S. viewers.

• Meryl Streep will reprise her role as actress Loretta Durkin in Season 4 of the Hulu mystery-comedy streaming series Only Murders in the Building. Eva Longoria has joined the cast as well.

• Entries are now being accepted in Great Britain’s 2025 Crime Writers’ Association Dagger awards competition. Submission guidelines can be found here.

• R.I.P., Anne Whitefield. She portrayed Dean Jagger’s daughter in the 1954 film White Christmas, and later went on to appear in The Thin Man, Peter Gunn, Hawaiian Eye, Ironside, Adam-12, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and numerous other TV shows before leaving Hollywood to become “a steward for Clean Water at the State of Washington’s Department of Ecology.” Whitefield died on February 15 at age 85.

• Also recently deceased, according to The Hollywood Reporter: “Charles Dierkop, the busy character actor who played tough guys in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and the 1970s Angie Dickinson series Police Woman …” He was 87 years old when he perished on February 25.

• Author, critic, and blogger Michael Hadley looks back at legendary TV producer Quinn Martin (Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, Barnaby Jones, etc.) in this video interview hosted by Dan Schneider.

• Mike Ripley’s latest “Ripster Revivals” column for Shots focuses on “the influence of World War II on British thriller writers.”

• Finally, congratulations to indie crime publisher Crippen & Landru on its 30th anniversary in business. B.V. Lawson, Martin Edwards, and Lesa Holstine all celebrate this milestone in their blogs.