I don’t think Cross was planning to murder Mulwray originally. I think he’d heard Mulwray had a girl on the side, hired Gittes to “investigate” and used the pictures to ruin Mulwray. Mulwray confronts him, and tells him, “That’s not my mistress, that’s my stepdaughter, and I know about what you did with your daughter.” Cross panics and kills Mulwray in the salt pond, then dumps the corpse in the reservoir.
" … suicidal drownings reportedly account for 2.8 to 8.9% of all suicides in regions with easy access to water."
I’ll trust your memory more than mine. That does sound right though.
FWIW, that’s mostly conjecture and interpretation, not stuff that’s explicitly shown. For example, I’m pretty sure murdering Mulwray was not premeditated, because if Cross had planned to kill him, he wouldn’t have done it himself, in his own home. Likewise, Cross can’t have known who Katerine was when he hired Gittes, because the last thing he’d want is a picture of his incest baby on the front page of every newspaper in LA. So, most likely, the original plan was just exposing what Cross thought was genuine adultery, and that turned into a spiraling attempt to cover up an impulsive act of violence.
Just as an added kick in the teeth to the absolutely bleak end of the film:
Mulwray finds out his wife has an illegitimate daughter, which in that time and place would absolutely be considered grounds for divorce, and he not only does not scorn her, he takes care of her daughter and tries to build a relationship with her. And he ends up going down as a guy who was cheating on his wife with his stepdaughter before killing himself out of shame. Mulwray was such a good person, and Cross just utterly destroyed him in every possible way.
(Edit: changed “Evelyn” to “Katherine”)
I was under the impression, from what Evelyn said, that Mulwray married her knowing about the incest and the daughter. Are you saying that Cross didn’t know he knew this until he and Mulwray spoke a few days before Cross killed Mulwray?
BTW, it seems a bit silly to spoiler a movie released almost 50 years ago. Or is there some rule about spoilers for old movies that I’m unaware of? Do I have to spoiler that the Wizard of Oz is actually not a wizard at all?
There’s no rule. People do it out of courtesy for those who may not be familiar with the film, perhaps from being too young to have noticed it.
Thanks. Maybe i should have put SPOILERS in the title? Though the title kinda gives away that there’s gonna be a spoiler or two here.
I’m saying Cross didn’t know Katherine was Evelyn’s daughter until after he had Gittes take the pictures of Mulwray and Katherine together. He hired Gittes, thinking Mulwray was just engaging in a bit of standard adultery. Once they’re published, and Mulwray’s reputation is endangered, he goes to Cross and says, “That’s not my mistress, that’s your granddaughter, and since you’ve gone public with this, I’m going to have to go public with what you did to your own daughter to protect myself.” Cross panics and murders Mulwray on the spot, then has his goons dump the corpse in the reservoir to try to cover it up, hoping that the cops will assume it’s a suicide.
You’re a nosey fella. You know what happens to nosey fellas, don’t you, Slice?
Really? He impregnated his own 15-year-old daughter, and what? Lost track of the child she bore? That’s a theory I would need to look into: what exactly transpired with Katherine’s birth and upbringing? Evelyn tells Gittes she “ran away” to Mexico, and that her father’s business partner married her, presumably a good while after she returned from Mexico. So where was Katherine from Evelyn’s age 15 to age 20 or so? And who brought her up? With whose money was she cared for, fed, educated, clothed, housed? If not Cross’s, then Mulwray’s? What exactly was the “hell of an argument in front of the Pig ‘n’ Whistle” between Cross and Mulwray really over? Presumably Katherine, but how so? Mulwray told Cross he wouldn’t let him see his daughter whom he hadn’t seen in 15 years? Did Cross with all his power and resources just get interested in finding out Katherine’s whereabouts?
Maybe Towne’s novelization of the film answers some of these questions. I’ve got it on Inter Library Loan.
Folks may have gotten the impression, btw, that I’m critical of Towne and the script generally, which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s my favorite movie, seen it maybe a dozen times. Towne is brilliant at creating a script that doesn’t add up in any number of ways but which works brilliantly in cinematic terms. It’s a masterpiece of jumbled logic that works on an emotional level perfectly.
The dialogue at the end of the film makes it clear that Cross has never met Katherine before. Maybe he knew she existed, and couldn’t find her, but that seems really unlikely for a guy with Cross’s power and connections. More likely, he assumed that Evelyn either aborted the pregnancy, or gave the kid up for adoption. Cross’s unmarried daughter turning up pregnant would be a scandal in ~1925, regardless of the rape/incest angle. Cross can’t have that, particularly since the next question people ask is, “Who’s the father?” So he ships her off to Mexico to “get rid of it,” one way or the other, either through an illegal abortion, or by putting her in a convent for nine months then letting the church put the kid up for adoption.
Fifteen years later, while trying to blackmail Mulwray, he finds out that Evelyn never got rid of the kid at all, and she’s grown up to be a hottie like mom. Now that she’s old enough to be sexually interesting to Cross, he’s suddenly interested in finding her, and hence everything in the movie after Mulwray turns up dead.
We don’t know, of course, and it doesn’t really matter for the plot. Evelyn might have money that’s independent from Cross, either from her mother’s side of the family, or through a trust fund set up by Cross when she was born. Maybe she just skimmed money off her allowance from Cross and used it to pay someone to raise the kid. Maybe none of that, and she just was able to work out who adopted her kid and managed to establish some sort of relationship with them later on.
Here is a link to that final scene in Chinatown. Chinatown (1974) Ending - “Forget it Jake, It’s Chinatown” - YouTube
I’m not sure I would call that off-scene "Clear the streets!’ bit a final line. It seems to be more background noise to me.
In fact, Robert Towne calls that part of “the crowd noises”. His final line is “Forget it, Jake…”
But the last words to appear on the subtitles are Perry Lopez’s clearly distinguishable words ordering the crowd to clear the streets.
I would consider that diagetic sound rather than dialog
Not familiar with the term “diegetic” but the words are clear and audible, and they’re spoken by a very specific actor in the film.
[E] lements of a film can be “diegetic” or “non-diegetic”. These terms are most commonly used in reference to sound in a film. Most soundtrack music in films is non-diegetic; heard by the audience, but not by the characters. Some films reverse this convention; for example, Baby Driver employs diegetic music, played by the characters on music devices, to which many of the film’s action scenes are set.[5] These terms can also apply to other elements. For example, an insert shot that depicts something that is neither taking place in the world of the film, nor is seen, imagined, or thought by a character, is a non-diegetic insert. Titles, subtitles, and voice-over narration (with some exceptions) are also non-diegetic.[citation needed]
Do you suppose it’s a coincidence that both Chinatown and The Parallax View prominently feature scenes of WATER flowing through a GATE?