:54:01
He knew my weak link, ego,
and he sure pressed it...
:54:05
...knowing it far
overshadowed my greed.
:54:08
"Sidney, I want everybody to get rich,
but don't rape me. Don't rape me."
:54:13
The real love of Charlie's life was
not family, or sex, or even business.
:54:17
It was negotiating.
:54:18
Charlie would negotiate for anything,
from an airline to a potato.
:54:22
"I want Bob to make history.
:54:23
I'm gonna let him make a picture of his own
for five years, under his own banner...
:54:27
...and still run Paramount.
:54:29
The last person to have that was
Darryl Zanuck, 30 years ago.
:54:32
I want him to get rich.
I'm so proud of him, Sidney."
:54:36
Proud.
:54:38
I would stay on at Paramount
as head of the studio...
:54:40
...and I would get to produce a picture
a year for five years. But no raise.
:54:58
- You produced Chinatown.
- Right.
:55:00
But when we talk about that movie,
we call it Roman Polanski's Chinatown.
:55:03
That's a possessive credit from a Director's
Guild point of view, which is very unfair.
:55:08
It is Roman Polanski's Chinatown.
It's also Bob Towne's Chinatown.
:55:11
But, more so, and I don't say this from an
egotistical way, it's Bob Evans' Chinatown.
:55:15
I was on the picture for five years, four
years, and Roman was on it for nine months.
:55:20
But it says,
"Roman Polanski's Chinatown."
:55:24
My first independent production had its
origins over a steak dinner with Bob Towne.
:55:29
Towne unraveled
an original story he was writing.
:55:32
"It's about how Los Angeles
became a boomtown, Evans.
:55:35
Incest and water.
It's set in the '30s.
:55:38
Second-rate shamus gets eighty-sixed
by a mysterious socialite.
:55:43
I'm writing it for Nicholson."
:55:45
I had met Nicholson a few years back
and we'd become great pals.
:55:49
Sounds perfect for Irish.
What's it called?
:55:52
"Chinatown."
Chinatown?
:55:56
You mean it takes place in Chinatown?
:55:59
"No, no, no. Chinatown
is a state of mind."