Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.
Cinematography
Coppola's American Zoetrope does fog-drenched period San Francisco dirty.
Direction
Wenders' only Hollywood studio film, and he fought Coppola every frame.
Production
Sets built on Zoetrope's soundstage, Chinatown recreated in warehouse.
Director
Wim Wenders
Frederic Forrest
Hammett
Peter Boyle
Jimmy Ryan
Marilu Henner
Kit Conger / Sue Alabama
Roy Kinnear
English Eddie Hagedorn
Lydia Lei
Crystal Ling
Elisha Cook Jr.
Eli the Taxi Driver
David Patrick Kelly
The Punk
R.G. Armstrong
Lt. O'Mara
Richard Bradford
Detective Bradford
Jack Nance
Gary Salt
Michael Chow
Fong Wei Tau
Sylvia Sidney
Donaldina Cameron
Royal Dano
Pops
Samuel Fuller
Old Man in Pool Hall
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wenders was fired and Coppola shot new scenes; Wenders disowned the theatrical cut. The 'director's cut' barely exists.
Elisha Cook Jr. — the taxi driver here — played Wilmer in Huston's actual 1941 Maltese Falcon. That's not accidental casting, that's cinematic séance.
US
