‘Chinatown’ explained: Who killed Hollis Mulwray?
Chinatown is one of the darkest works in the history of the neo-noir film genre. It might not have the level of blood-and-guts, graphic violence later films like Blood Simple and Reservoir Dogs would display, but Roman Polanski’s 1974 movie has a twisted tale at its heart.
Written by famed Hollywood script doctor Robert Towne, the film’s story centres on detective JJ Gittes and his entanglement with a messed up family whose patriarch is a despicable sexual predator and corrupt businessman.
The man Gittes is hired by the patriarch’s daughter to tail, her husband Hollis Mulwray, winds up dead in a reservoir within the Northwestern Valley on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Ostensibly, Mulwray has drowned in the reservoir, but when his autopsy reveals saltwater in his lungs, it’s clear that foul play is afoot.
During his investigation into Mulwray’s death, Gittes visits the mansion the deceased had shared with his wife Evelyn, where he discovers a pair of glasses in a saltwater pond outside. He initially believes Evelyn had something to do with her husband’s murder.
But who do the glasses really belong to?
On confronting Mulwray’s wife, he finds that Evelyn was the victim of a horrific rape at the hands of her father, Noah Cross, played by John Huston. From this unspeakable crime, a child was conceived who is both Cross’ daughter and his granddaughter. She also explains that the glasses couldn’t have been her husband’s since they are bifocals, and his sight was the same in both eyes.
Gittes meets Cross at Mulwray’s mansion, where the businessman explains to the detective that he’s planning to drain the Northwestern Valley reservoir “by incorporating the valley into the city” of LA. It’s implied that this is through a corrupt deal with the city’s Water Department.
Cross then hints at his criminality by telling Gittes that “at the right time and the right place” people are “capable of anything”. He’s certainly talking about the rape of his daughter, but he could also be referencing the murder of her husband.
His implication in Mulwray’s murder is confirmed when he instructs his assistant, “Take those glasses from him, will ya?” gesturing to the bifocal glasses Gittes has in his hands. They belong to Cross, making him the man responsible for Mulwray’s drowning in the saltwater pound outside his house.
What makes this revelation even more disturbing is that Cross gets away with all of his crimes at the end of the movie, with his daughter Evelyn shot by police as he drags his granddaughter/daughter Katherine away against her will. But as a police officer tells Gittes, there’s nothing he could have done about it. After all, “It’s Chinatown”.
