What is it with screenplays? Why do they differ so much from the moviescript? I got the third draft of Chinatown. I wanted to read the screenplay because I couldn’t clearly hear the words in the movie and the captions were all fucked up at 123.movies. I don’t know how many more draft screenplays there were. The third seemed like it should be near the end to me. But there were whole scenes missing in the movie, one involving a sea plane trip. Cross’ name in the third draft was not Noah as it was in the movie. I forget what it was in the screenplay but since the entire project involved California’s water wars in the first half of the 20th century, Noah was a great substitute.
It has been called the greatest screenplay ever written. Really? Because it confused viewers is one reason. Really, because it confused viewers? Like with the two Mrs. Mulwrays. Okay, but what if it seemed to confuse the actors, as the two Mrs. Mulwrays seemed to confuse Jack Nicholson? Really, he didn’t notice the difference between Faye Dunaway and the older woman who played Ida Fisher, the imposter? The third draft screenplay has Jake Gittes and his associates immediately realizing they had been had. In the film, neither Nicholson nor his associates betrayed any realization.
What if the screenplay was just confusing? “Bad for glass”, the Chinese gardener first says of the water in the decorative pond and Gittes repeats it as the gardener pulls out a clump of grass. Gittes notices a shiny object in the water but is interrupted in satisfying his curiosity by the appearance of Faye Dunaway. The shiny object turns out to be a pair of men's eye glasses. Why would Gittes think the gardener said water is bad for glass? In the first scene by the pond the shiny object does not look like men's eyeglasses. It looks like a woman's piece of jewelry. In the later Eureka scene the gardener says “Bad for grass”, "Salt water very bad for grass", and Nicholson stops in his tracks (saltwater was found in Hollis' lungs at autopsy). He then notices the shiny object again and the Chinese gardener retrieves it. Gittes concludes that the eyeglasses are Hollis Mulwray's; they turn out to be Noah Cross'. I'm sorry, that's too much legerdemain.
Both screenplay and moviescript have Faye Dunaway stumbling when Gittes asks what her middle initial stands for. “K-Cross.” It is a quite obvious, telling, stumble. Gittes, a private eye, doesn’t notice? He doesn’t.
What was the deal between Hollis Mulwray and young Elizabeth? The photos Gittes took of them were clearly romantic in nature, not the loving reaction of a man married to her mother and sister. Elizabeth and Hollis can be heard speaking candidly in Spanish to one another when Gittes catches them. She is Spanish like I'm Spanish. She is Spanish like Faye Dunaway is Spanish. Were Hollis and Elizabeth having an affair or not? The question is never answered. That’s not clever screenwriting, it’s just confusing for confusion's sake.
