'What did you do in Chinatown?'
'As little as possible.'

Robert Towne's script for Chinatown is, to this date, considered the gold standard in terms of screenwriting, and generations of modern day writers look to it as their Holy Grail -- the perfect script.

Speaking about the famous dialogue above, Towne said it -- and the film's name -- came from a Hungarian cop who worked in Los Angeles' Chinatown area, who told him that because the plethora of dialects and gang-slang was so diverse, the cops never knew which side they were on -- so they usually stayed out of trouble by not doing much.

Polanski and Jack Nicholson, on the other hand, did quite a bit to justify working on Towne's script, which pays homage to Dashiell Hamett and Raymond Chandler's classic film noirs while still remaining a modern thriller based loosely on a true LA scandal.

Playing hardboiled and significantly seamy private eye Jake Gittes, Jack wrote most of his own dialogue and performed with unerring precision. Polanski, doubling up as a hoodlum who slits the hero's nose, fought tooth and nail with Towne to retain a sad ending -- something Towne later admitted greatly helped the script.

Chinatown is a truly great neo-noir film, so the plot shouldn't be discussed in any sort of detail. Suffice it to say that the pacing is masterful and the story ticks along with a constant nervous tension, like a bagful of dynamite set for eventual, inevitable detonation. And it doesn't disappoint, the eventual revelation striking you like a slap in the face.

Speaking of slaps, here's the crackling scene just before that finale -- one where Jack is so powerful he even makes the lovely, ever-fatal Faye Dunaway stutter, whimper and sob. Wow.

Click here for the video

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