I was thinking of mentioning that one. It’s worth watching just for the LA location filming.
The Naked City (1948) is another one like that—filmed on real locations all over NYC (at a time when urban location filming was considered wildly impractical) and has a spectacular finale on the Williamsburg Bridge.
I love the movie—as a story, for the characters, for the dialog, and for transporting me to 1937 Southern California.
I never perceived the questions posed to the Mexican boy in the river as anything deep or meaningful; it’s just the way a poor kid at the time, perhaps with uncertain English skills, would have acted around a white guy dressed the way Gittes was. In fact, typing this out suddenly reminded me of an extremely similar interaction I had with a 14-year-old boy in 1985—a conversation that took place very close to that location.