Flashback, August 1990: ‘Chinatown’ Sequel ‘The Two Jakes’ in Disappointing Release

The Two Jakes, the long-awaited but troubled follow-up to the detective film Chinatown, premiered 35 years ago this month. Unlike its Oscar-winning predecessor, it did not enjoy widespread critical acclaim, nor has it achieved cult-classic status since then. 

Worse, it committed a crime worse than murder in Hollywood: it lost money ($10 million in its theatrical run, even on a not-exorbitant $25 million budget).

What went wrong with the sequel to perhaps the greatest example of neo-noir, and by any standard one of the seminal movies of the Seventies?

To some extent, critics were poised to slam a production that had short-circuited five years before—and, though several actors were carried over from Chinatown, it was missing one crucial creative contributor: Roman Polanski. 

The director, who had fled to France to avoid a statutory-rape sentence, was in no position to take a firm hand, as he’d done before in editing screenwriter Robert Towne’s vivid, sprawling dissection of L.A. corruption in the 1930s from 180 pages (enough for a three-hour movie that would have tested audiences’ patience) into a form that won its eventual Best Original Screenplay Academy Award—and in insisting on its tragic denouement.

This time, Towne, hoping to avoid similar interference with his script, planned to fill the director’s chair himself. Though it was a given that Jack Nicholson would be back as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, Towne made the mistake of casting producer Robert Evans as the “other Jake,” charming mobster Jake Berman.

Then, days before production began, Towne—feeling jittery already, courtesy of his growing cocaine problem and lack of a finished script—got a look at Evans’ thinning hairline and awful plastic surgery. 

The director should have realized that Evans, not a good actor to begin with 30 years before, would not improve with no opportunity to practice the craft and time now working its inevitable ravages.

Evans, terrified that he would never regain his exalted Hollywood position after his recent Cotton Club disaster, refused Towne’s request that he withdraw from the project. The picture collapsed in a blizzard of threats and lawsuits.

By 1988, Nicholson was ready to revive the corpse of The Two Jakes, with conditions meant to forestall another catastrophe: Towne was obligated to submit a completed screenplay to Paramount Pictures, yielding effective control of the project, and Nicholson agreed to direct “for scale”—i.e., using techniques to make the film appear bigger than its financial resources would typically allow.

The new arrangements only solved some problems that had aborted the project before. Nicholson didn’t possess Polanski’s skill at tightening Towne’s vision, took on the additional responsibilities of producing while leaving Evans (after so many years, shorn of his self-confidence) the nominal title—and still had to act himself. 

Moreover, he had to find several actors to replace those who had accepted other roles in the interim, including Kelly McGillis, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, and Dennis Hopper.

Nicholson’s attempt to impose coherence on Towne’s first draft, through voice-over narration (a device suggested by Billy Wilder, who had used it effectively in one of the key early examples of film noir, Double Indemnity), only clarified the complicated plot to a limited extent.

The four-year delay in filming had one advantage, in a small way: it made more realistic the passage of time between Chinatown and The Two Jakes. The sequel was supposed to occur in the early postwar period, a decade after the original.  

The joke in Hollywood was that this would be the first sequel not requiring aging makeup, as the actors had done so naturally. (I was stunned, for instance, when I saw Perry Lopez reprising his role as Lou Escobar, but this time walking with a cane.)

Upon its release, The Two Jakes received criticism as convoluted and confusing. That is hardly a disqualification for film noir or neo-noir—when Howard Hawks, adapting The Big Sleep in the 1940s, asked Raymond Chandler who had killed one of the victims, the novelist replied that he didn’t know! But there were few memorable scenes, and no compelling villains like John Huston’s Noah Cross in Chinatown.

Nevertheless, though not as great as Chinatown, The Two Jakes is far from a terrible or even subpar movie. It is well-acted and stylishly filmed—well worth viewing again, if you can ever find it on TV or on DVDs in libraries.

(My blog post from 16 years ago lays out the case for the greatness of Chinatown. But if you want to read an eloquent defense of the sequel, read Jim Hemphill’s contention in Indiewire last year that it’s not only “better than its reputation, it’s better than the classic that inspired it — broader in its tonal range, subtler in its observations, and more adventurous in its narrative structure.” For a two-thumbs-up from its time of release, see this Siskel and Ebert segment.)

The Two Jakes would not be the only sequel that found it impossible to measure up to the expectations aroused by its 1974 predecessor. The Godfather Part III would suffer a similar fate by the end of 1990.

In both cases, negative pre-release reports of on-set difficulties (in the case of Godfather III, Winona Ryder’s exhaustion-induced departure led Francis Ford Coppola to replace her with his untested daughter Sofia) predisposed many to review and judge it by its turbulent backstory as much as its admittedly problematic product.

Nicholson would move on to other projects that kept him in the Hollywood stratosphere, even if he has never directed another film. But the damage to his personal life because of his involvement with The Two Jakes was more lasting.

His admission that he had impregnated Rebecca Broussard, the actress who played his secretary Gladys, led to the painful breakup of his 16-year relationship with Anjelica Huston, who had at last run out of patience with his constant infidelity.

(Nicholson gained so much weight for his role that my late friend Ann chuckled to me when we saw the film, “Looks to me like he’s the one who’s pregnant!”)

BTW: for the entire astonishing production history of Chinatown and The Two Jakes, I recommend that you read The Big Goodbye, by Sam Wasson—who makes this a very worthy successor to his prior accounts of Breakfast at Tiffany's and the lives of Bob Fosse, Paul Mazursky, and Blake Edwards.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Godfather,’ on Family)

Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino): “When Johnny [Fontane] was first starting out, he was signed to a personal services contract with this big-band leader. And as his career got better and better, he wanted to get out of it. But the band leader wouldn't let him. Now, Johnny is my father's godson. So my father went to see this bandleader and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, my father went back, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, he had a signed release for a certified check of $1000.”

Kay Adams (played by Diane Keaton): “How did he do that?” 

Michael:  “My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.” 

Kay: “What was that?” 

Michael:  “Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract....That's a true story.” [Cut to Johnny singing again for about 10 more seconds before going back to Michael] "That's my family, Kay, that's not me.”—The Godfather (1972), adapted from the novel by Mario Puzo, screenplay by Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, directed by Coppola

For an adaptation of a shameless potboiler, The Godfather—which premiered on this date 40 years ago—yielded a screenplay as notable for its memorable lines as for its sturdy structure. Today’s quote illustrates both. 

I didn’t select these lines because of the line in the middle about “an offer he couldn’t refuse,” nor because of the thinly veiled anecdote about how the Mafia induced recalcitrant jazzman Tommy Dorsey to release lead singer Frank Sinatra from his contract so he could pursue a solo career. No, it’s the last line, about family, that intrigued me.

In 1972, a protracted, dishonest foreign war that had lost any real purpose was winding toward a conclusion in keeping with the way it was conducted, and the reelection campaign of an American President was authorizing dirty tricks in a race he was unlikely to lose. In that atmosphere, the Puzo-Coppola screenplay would resonate with its insights into business, crime, power, and even the American Dream. (Kay: "Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed." Michael: "Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?")

But it might have been in its perception of the American Family that the film cut most deeply.

In a post for the Koldcast blog, “How The Godfather Trilogy Changed the Face of the Crime Family,” Dan Berry took a now-standard view that the saga paid “homage to the traditional romanticized idea of the noble gangster as a ‘man of honor’ – one who acts outside the law but with an exemplary devotion to both the biological family as well as the crime family.” Some of this longstanding belief was propagated by Puzo himself, who once said he had presented "a highly romanticized myth" about the Mafia, as he had never met a gangster before he wrote his novel.

On the contrary, I don’t think that Coppola and Puzo romanticized the story of Vito Corleone anymore than the sagas of King David and King Lear were. In all three cases, the sins of a powerful man were visited upon him multiple times over in the divisions and deaths among his children.

If parents bask in the good fortune of their children, then Vito Corleone could only groan about how his turned out:

·        *  Connie is abused by her husband, who will pay for his sins—not merely physical mistreatment but betrayal of a family member to enemies—with his life;

·      *   Sonny’s hair-trigger temper makes him so unwary that he steps into a trap that leads to his blood-splattered end;

·        *  Fredo is a weakling chafing at his sidelined status within the family; and

·        *  Michael—the smart one that everyone hoped would lead the family to respectability—becomes a coldly calculating capo who orchestrates multiple hits that occur as he stands at the baptism of his wife’s child, where he hears the traditional Catholic ritual language about renouncing Satan and his works. 


     The film is, in fact, an ironic reversal of the opening scene of Connie's wedding to Carlo. Michael will eventually not only order Carlo's murder in retaliation for betraying Sonny, but also will advise the older, weakling Fredo, working for Vegas casino owner Moe Greene, never to side with outsiders against the family.


     The full import of Michael's transformation--in theological terms, his fall from grace--becomes underscored in a brilliant scene commissioned from screenwriter (and ace script "doctor") Robert Towne when Coppola sensed there was still something missing from the film. What Towne supplied works perfectly, not only in providing a plot hinge but also in yielding character insights and underscoring a principal theme of the film. Vito, increasingly relinquishing control of family operations following the attempt on his life that thrust Michael into the family business, now sits with his youngest son in the family patio, warning him about another crime family. 


     Vito: "So Barzini will move against you first. He'll set up a meeting with someone that you absolutely trust... guaranteeing your safety. And at that meeting, you'll be assassinated." (as the Don drinks from a glass of wine as Michael watches him) "... I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more..."

Michael: "It's good for you, Pop."

Vito: "I dunno. Your wife and children. Are you happy with them?"

Michael: "Very happy..."

Vito:  "That's good. I hope you don't mind the way I...I keep going over this Barzini business..."

Michael: "No, not at all..."

Vito:  "It's an old habit. I spent my life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men. How's your boy?"

Michael: "He's good."

Vito: "You know he looks more like you every day."

Michael: "He's smarter than I am. Three years old, he can read the funny papers."

Vito: (laughs) "Read the funny papers. Oh...well... eh, I want you to arrange to have a telephone man check all the calls that go in and out of here because..."

Michael: "I did it already, Pop."

Vito: "Ya know, cuz it could be anyone..."

Michael: "Pop, I took care of that."

Vito: "Oh, that's right. I forgot."

Michael: (reaching over, touching his father) "What's the matter? What's bothering you?" (after the Don doesn't answer) "I'll handle it. I told you I can handle it, I'll handle it."

Vito: (as he stands) "I knew that Santino was going to have to go through all this. And Fredo...well... Fredo was...well…. But I never...I never wanted this for you. I work my whole life - I don't apologize, to take care of my family. And I refused to be a fool dancing on a string held by all those - big shots. I don't apologize; that's my life. But I thought that...when it was your time that - that you would be the one to hold the strings. Senator Corleone. Governor Corleone, or something...This wasn't enough time, Michael, it wasn't enough time."

Michael: "We'll get there, Pop. We’ll get there."

Vito: (after kissing Michael on the cheek) "Now listen. Whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting – he's the traitor. Don't forget that."

The admonition that begins and ends this long scene can be seen in another way besides the running of Murder Inc.: an aging, weakened parent's attempt to pass along the secrets of the family business--or, more benignly, the wisdom accumulated from a lifetime.

But sandwiched in the middle of this is Vito's half-strangled cry of pain. "What's bothering" Vito? A life of suspicion and violence is not what he had hoped for this son with the most impeccable credentials: a college education, an enviable war record, a beautiful fiancee. This son could have ascended to heights that the father, fighting to make his way forward in a country that maligned his ethnic group, could never achieve. Its lack of fulfillment leaves a regret that won't go away, any more than the loss of Sonny will.

You could imagine Joe Kennedy nodding his head in agreement with Vito's sentiments--just as you can imagine the political patriarch's similar anguish over the dark fates coming to his children.