A pretty dull sequel to
Chinatown, unless, I suppose, you're into the L.A. scenery as we are. Aside from Jack Nicholson, Eli Wallach and maybe Harvey Keitel, the acting is atrocious. Meg Tilly and Madeleine Stowe couldn't act their ways out of shoeboxes--aside from neither being anywhere near the actor or having anywhere near the beauty or charisma of Faye Dunaway in her heyday, they give truly terrible performances... (or was Nicholson's direction not so hot?) Anyway, the storyline itself is pretty good, with ties to the Mulwrays... and there are some visual treats. One is Jake Gittes's office, part of the well-known streamline Winne & Sutch complex on South Soto Street:
The lobby of the Gittes Investigations building appears to be the actual original lobby of 5608 S Soto...the camera
tracks right behind Nicholson as he enters.
Google Street View
The "G.I. Building" today at left, with the main Winne & Sutch building to the right.
Google Street View
Looking north on Soto: The oil derrick in the first screenshot may have been real, or may have been a prop....anyway,
it's gone now. Note the border between Huntington Park and Vernon, as indicated in paint at the change in surface of
the street.
Easy: Dinner on me at Leon & Freddie's if you can identify this floor.
Google Street View
A good exterior of Max Factor, and excellent shots of the interior. Has the Hollywood Museum now there preserved the individual Blonde,
Brunette, and Redhead treatment rooms?
Actor Allan Warnick reprises his roll as dyspeptic city beaureaucrat Mulford P. Rippey.... (The IMDB has his character as
Manfred P.
Rippey, but his desk plaque clearly says
Mulford...as you can see, I'm going for the anality award today....)
Pics beside Google Street Views from
Paramount Pictures
Edit... it's written everywhere as "Winnie & Sutch"-- I've discovered that it's WINNE & Sutch, which was a wholesale dry-goods concern.