Robert Towne Wins Best Original Screenplay for 'Chinatown' | 47th Oscars (1975)

Robert Towne wins the Oscar for Writing (Original Screenplay) for "Chinatown" at the 47th Academy Awards. James A. Michener presents the award; hosted by Frank Sinatra.
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Robert Towne Wins Best Original Screenplay for 'Chinatown' | 47th Oscars (1975)
#RobertTowne #Oscars #BestOriginalScreenplay #Chinatown #AcademyAwards #AcademyAward #Oscar #OscarWinner
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[@fan-madeguy4985]

RIP to Robert Towne, 1934-2024.

[@mateuscarvalho3870]

Chinatown's screenplay is the most perfect screenplay ever written.

[@ChrisWolff2013]

+Mateus Murozaki It's outstanding and so is the movie.

[@humancrew4503]

+Mateus Murozaki I like your profile picture.

[@1997residente]

Yes..it was realistic and sad as hell...none noir from the 40s or action packed crime film will be as realistic as Chinatown...a film about corruption and Nihilism.

[@pedrobakale7180]

yeah its beautiful

[@viralbuthow000]

@@pedrobakale7180 For me, it's a tie btwn this and the script that won the Oscar the year before -- The Sting written by David S. Ward.

[@FabinhoFlapp]

Robert Towne, Academy Award winner, the author of "Chinatown", one of the greatest screenplays in Film History. May God bless you and light your way. I wish you peace, love and light on your journey of progress and evolution. ✨🙏🏻✨

[@jimmyradosta]

Rest in peace, sir.

[@vengateshvegetio3370]

Chinatown would've won more oscars in any other year.....but you know there was The Godfather Part II.....what are the odds.

[@CoolBlue71]

That happens with some films. The 1974 nominees for original screenplay-“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “Chinatown,” “The Conversation,” “Day for Night,” and “Harry and Tonto”-were so fresh and unique that, had those films been produced in separate years, they each could have won. This was a rich category of nominations. (And I mention this with the fact that what did not make the cut was “Blazing Saddles.”)

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

What I can't believe is that both Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino lost best actor. Like two of the best actors ever giving their top performances of their career... and the both lose?

[@vengateshvegetio3370]

@@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747 yup..beats me too.

[@ruly8153]

That was the 70s lads!

[@ryancrawford3413]

Rest in Peace Robert Towne. One of the most underrated and talented screenwriters and filmmakers of that era. Chinatown will always be the best script ever written.

[@PierluigiPuccini]

He wasn't really the solo writer, but he was the originator. Kudos to him and everybody on that brilliant film.

[@LPJack02]

RIP Robert Towne (November 23, 1934 - July 1, 2024), aged 89 You will be remembered as a legend.

[@tmackie1694]

What a year of nominees! Dang!

[@eoinMB3949]

No one ever had a bad word to say about Jack Nicholson. George Miller said the only reason he didnt quit The witches of eastwick altogether was because of Jack's support and encouragement.

[@paulinayexannihtorres1709]

When George Miller Directing To Mad Max Happy Feet To Remake Chinatown

[@hunterolaughlin]

It’s a funny coincidence that a guy with the last name “Towne” won an Oscar for a film that ends with “town”.

[@evanward3964]

Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatowne

[@stevefowler5970]

it's a coincidence that someone with "Laugh" in their name isn't funny...

[@hunterolaughlin]

@@stevefowler5970 Seriously? 😒

[@jerseysurvivor5004]

Thanks for this one. I always remembered Frank's intro to Glenda and wanted to see it again. It was her only Oscar appearance to date. Would love to see her again despite the fact that she's long since retired.

[@joancarlestomas]

Ironicaly, just minutes before Sinatra suggested that the actresses who appear onscreen with her clothes off are less talented. Glenda showed a lot of her skin in her Oscar winning role in Women in love.

[@jerseysurvivor5004]

True but that was a CLASS picture. In those days it was a question of 'taste'.

[@ryancrawford3413]

Greatest screenplay ever written. Fact.

[@TheGoodfella95]

Read Sam Wasson's book 'The Big Goodbye' - I'm sure all of you here will love it.

[@styxcreek]

It’s brilliant

[@masonjustic3919]

Great read

[@orbison]

I remember Robert Towne told a story about how when he was beginning to write Chinatown, Paramount offered him a large sum of money to adapt their big-budget adaption of the Great Gatsby with Robert Redford. Between wanting to work on his own screenplay and not wanting to be known as the man that "ruined the Great Gatsby", he chose to stick with writing Chinatown, for which he would be offered considerably less then he would of made with Gatsby. Of course, Chinatown became a big hit, its Screenplay is considered (with or without it truly deserved Oscar) the great American Screenplay, and the 74' version of The Great Gatsby was a flop (It turns out it would not have been Towne who helped ruin it, but a certain actor who is now universally considered to have been mis-cast in the role.)

[@TannerBartko]

Interesting. I also found '74 Gatsby a miss.

[@Dommie222]

The funny thing is that Towne had rage quited on Chinatown at the 11th hour because he couldn't get along with Polanski, forcing Polanski to improvise with the last scenes, including the "forget it Jake; it's chinatown"-scene.

[@65g4]

Thats not true towne wrote that last line.

[@redadamearth]

​@@65g4 Yes, it is true. Towne HATED the ending they did. He says so on the commentary track. He basically quit the movie. It was never supposed to end in Chinatown - "Chinatown" was more of a state of mind - he never intended it to end there. Polanski came up with that ending. Towne's original ending was a happy one.

[@BLTKellys]

Glenda Jackson was indeed brilliant. When I saw her miniseries Elizabeth R, I knew she was one of the greatest talents of that time.

[@1997residente]

Give Lucas all the control,he ll direct attack of the clones,Give snyder total control,He ll direct Batman V superman. GIVE Polanski total control,he ll direct Chinatown,Macbeth and the pianist...Was he in the ceremony?

[@FrancoisDressler]

He was in Japan

[@Abdullah_Ma19]

Edward Taylor deserved at least a thank you, Robert

[@cc92103]

“Bad for glass.” “Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass.”

[@supermariofan03]

This list should have been: Chinatown The Conversation Day For Night Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore Blazing Saddles

[@nickcopeland6915]

He looks like Jim Henson.

[@edgarascensao1858]

"Chinatown originally had a happy ending. There was no "Forget it, it's Chinatown" line because they weren't even in Chinatown (as in, for the whole movie). So how did the writer come up with that change? He didn't: Polanski made it up at the last minute after the guy quit. He wrote the ending literally a couple of nights before shooting it, with some input from Jack Nicholson. The ending as intended by screenwriter Robert Towne was a lot more traditional: The bad guy dies, the love interest survives and you forget about the movie by the time you reach the parking lot. It would have been a completely different movie, and as Polanski points out, we wouldn't be talking about it today." ... So, do you still think Robert Towne deserved the Oscar?

[@FuzzyDlop]

+Edgar Ascensão Yes, he wrote the greatest script in the history of cinema, the meaningfulness, the themes and topics, the multi layers of reading and the methaporical brilliancy of that script made the entire film. Without it Chinatown would have been just another average film-noir below the levels of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. That does not mean that Polanski didn't give his contribution to make it a legendary film because there is so much of him in it.

[@TheFilm2001forall]

Absolutely. The scene with Marlon Brando and Al Pacino just before Don Corleone die in the film The Godfather was written by Robert Towne for Francis Ford Coppola. If I think Coppola and Puzo deserved to have won the Oscar even this scene was not written for them? Absolutely. And I doubt that the rest of the film and, of course, also the script, it was bad, and had only the final scene as good, we would be talking about it; perhaps we would talking about the scene, but not talking about the movie. Someone may even find that we are talking about the film because of the impact that a scene can give, which is not my case, but I can't see someone thinking that a Oscar for screenplay was given to a scene.

[@mariussiderkevicius2278]

No, originally script wasn't have good ending, but it still was not that ending, what Polanski made.

[@mariussiderkevicius2278]

No, "Chinatown" wasn't originally a happy ending. He was had a difference ending, but not happy. That "Chinatown" was have a happy ending, is just myth.

[@Danceeagle9725]

He didn’t win an award for best ending.

[@paulinayexannihtorres1709]

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[@paulinayexannihtorres1709]

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[@dangrifdhsbxjs8424]

I was expecting him to say, “the winner is Roberttown for China Town!”

[@robyrobyroxenfree8230]

I guess it was obvious for him not to do that. Hahaha.

[@thescorsese]

Pulp fiction and Chinatown has a complete screenplay

[@styxcreek]

Nice little bonus getting Glenda J at the end.

[@ironduke2000]

Didn't thank Edward Taylor, who, it could be argued, co-wrote the script.

[@13traaa]

Wtf?

[@moviesgalore9947]

Most overrated script in history. If you want to learn how to write a movie read Back to the Future or any other big hit movie in the genre you want to write in. Don't waste your time reading Chinatown.

[@redadamearth]

Pretty much every writer on the planet would disagree with you on the script for Chinatown, but you do you, sparky.