The Two Jakes
Short description
Set in Los Angeles in 1948, The Two Jakes follows private investigator J.J. Gittes, who takes what looks like a routine infidelity case. A real estate developer also named Jake hires him to gather evidence about his wife, Kitty. A confrontation during a rendezvous ends in the death of the man she was seeing, who turns out to be her husband's business partner, and Gittes is pulled into a wider tangle of murder, oil money and interests tied to the land beneath the city. A voice from his past draws him back to a case in Chinatown. The film is a sequel to Chinatown, with Robert Towne again writing the screenplay.
Jack Nicholson directs and returns as Gittes. It is his third feature as director, after The Terror and Goin' South, and he also produces alongside Robert Evans and Harold Schneider. Harvey Keitel plays the other Jake, with Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Eli Wallach and Rubén Blades in supporting roles, among a credited cast of 58.
Released by Paramount in August 1990, the film runs 137 minutes. Made for about 19 million dollars, it took roughly 10 million worldwide. On IMDb and TMDB it sits at 6 out of 10, from 288 votes on TMDB, while the critics' rating of 5.9 from 30 reviews places it close to those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is set in 1948, eleven years after the events of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974).
- Jack Nicholson gained weight for the role of an older J.J. Gittes.
- The film features a wire recorder, i.e., a device using a magnet to record vibrations onto steel wire as it passes through the device. The recording quality was surprisingly good for its time. The film features a Webster-Chicago model 80 wire recorder, which was manufactured from 1948 to 1950.
- The film was conceived in the mid-1980s, and was originally planned to star Jack Nicholson alongside Kathy Moriarty, however, after numerous delays in starting filming and due to Moriarty's physical and emotional state, the role was given to another actress.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
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