CHINATOWN franchise (1974-1990)

I wish I could remember where I read it. It cracked me up at the time. Then again, truth is stranger than fiction so maybe there's something to it.

I found this -

www.google.com.au/search?rlz=1C1AVSX_enAU416&ei=dIcjWtm_GYTK0ASypKjoAg&q=Who+Framed+Roger+Rabbit%3F+and+chinatown&oq=Who+Framed+Roger+Rabbit%3F+and+chinatown&gs_l=psy-ab.12..0i22i30k1.2362.10533.0.12760.14.14.0.0.0.0.424.3502.0j4j6j3j1.14.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.14.3497...0j0i67k1.0.OeeHxuwaoL0

I'm afraid I haven't much more than just observation and opinion. There are certainly areas where WFRR and the third Gittes film (which I'll call 3GF for simplicity) intersect, most notably in corporate interests plotting to dismantle L.A.'s excellent streetcar system to promote suburban expansion, road building and automotive travel which was to have been the background story to 3GF, just as water was to Chinatown and oil and natural gas were to The Two Jakes. 

But I tend to suppose that it's more "ain't that weird" coincidence, with perhaps a bit of latching onto fairly well-known L.A. lore that's so characteristic of nostalgic SoCal pieces.

As of WFRR's 1987 production, TTJ was still in Development Hell, and itself finally went into production a full year after WFRR's 1988 release. It's possible some involved with WFRR were aware of the then-vague plans for 3GF, and simply employed aspects of its supposed premise as springboards for script elements of their own film. And I think a basis for the urban legend connecting WFRR and 3GF has to do with WFRR's fictional "Cloverleaf Industries."

Itself an urban legend, there's belief that 3GF was to have been titled "Cloverleaf" that's widespread enough for it to have come up in a 2009 interview with Chinatown/The Two Jakes screenwriter Robert Towne, in which he says, "I don’t know where the title 'Cloverleaf' came from. It was actually supposed to be 'Gittes vs. Gittes,' took place in 1968, and was about the era when no-fault divorce became legal in California." It also came up in a CNN interview with Towne the same year, and a part of the "Cloverleaf" legend is that it was to have taken place in 1959, placing each of the three stories 11 years apart.

So in the end, my guess it that it's all like a game of Telephone, with someone around the time of WFRR noting some similarities and saying "I wonder if..." to someone else, who then said to a third person, "I heard that..." and the third reports it to the fourth as fact, and so on and so on. Voilà: an urban legend is born. 

 





       

...but don't quote me!