Chinatown Water Rights Plot Explained

Chinatown is a 1974 movie set in 1930s Los Angeles where private detective J.J. Gittes uncovers a scheme to steal water and land from the public.https://vaguevisages.com/2025/12/07/chinatown-cast-paramount-the-criterion-channel-characters/ The story starts simple. Gittes gets hired by a woman pretending to be Evelyn Mulwray to follow her husband Hollis, the chief engineer of the city’s Department of Water and Power. He thinks Hollis is cheating.https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-notes/29443073

Things turn dark fast. Photos of Hollis with another woman get published, ruining his name. Then Hollis turns up dead, drowned in a dry riverbed during a drought.https://www.deviantart.com/bkno/art/Fixing-Chinatown-Movies-1277096116 Gittes digs deeper and finds the real plot. Powerful people are draining the city’s water on purpose. They dump it into the ocean to create a fake drought.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72UltMC22Es

Why? To buy dry farmland cheap in the San Fernando Valley. Once they own the land, they bring in the stolen water from afar and turn it green for big profits.https://miscelana.com/2025/12/29/chinatown-the-1974-noir-david-fincher-wants-to-revisit/ This mirrors real California water wars, where Los Angeles took water from the Owens Valley to grow the city, leaving farmers ruined.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/roman-polanski/chinatown-roman-polanski-responsibility-noir

At the center is Noah Cross, Evelyn’s rich and creepy father, played by John Huston. He leads the scheme with help from Yelburton, the deputy at Water and Power.https://vaguevisages.com/2025/12/07/chinatown-cast-paramount-the-criterion-channel-characters/ They use old people in retirement homes as fake owners to hide the land buys.https://www.deviantart.com/bkno/art/Fixing-Chinatown-Movies-1277096116 Hollis opposed the plan because a new dam would fail and kill people. Cross has him murdered to keep control.https://www.avclub.com/the-big-goodbye-asks-why-can-t-we-forget-about-chinat-1841291608

Gittes teams up with the real Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway. She tries to stop her father. The plot twists reveal dark family secrets tied to Cross’s hunger for power.https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/chinatown/a-flaw-in-the-eye-race-male-toxicity-and-the-endur Water stands for raw power in the film. It’s clear and needed, but bosses twist it for greed, just like city politics back then and now.https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-notes/29443073

Gittes learns he can’t fix the system. The bad guys win because power hides in plain sight, protected by lies and money.https://miscelana.com/2025/12/29/chinatown-the-1974-noir-david-fincher-wants-to-revisit/