I Went to a Screening of This in 1975 -- The Cinematographer Was There and He Did Chinatown, Too

A little trivia:

I lived in Los Angeles in the 70's and if one watched for flyers and listened to word of mouth, one could see a lot of new movies for FREE and usually with somebody there who made the movie.

(In the alternative, one could also find OLD movies being shown at revival theaters and on college campuses...again, often accompanied by someone who worked on them. This is more of a "public thing" today with screenings advertised and announced at the Motion Picture Academy Theater.)

Anyway, through the usual channels, I got myself in to a pre-release of this Robert Mitchum Phillilp Marlowe film "Farewell My Lovely."

After the movie screened, out came the film's cinematographer, John Alonzo.

He was in the news at the time because he was also the cinematography the year before on Chinatown. While Farewell My Lovely was based on a classic Raymond Chandler novel, at the end of the day it was a pretty straightforward little mystery story. Chinatown had been a "bigger deal" -- "important," "prestigious," with a mystery plot that went in unexpected, powerful directions: big city Los Angeles politics, the history of California water wars and...something very shocking and perverse in sexual matters. A big screen breakthrough.

John Alonzo was aware of that discrepancy between the all-powerful Best Picture nominee and his gritty, sexual but rather inconsequential Robert Mitchum movie(by the 70's, Mitchum was very respected but also a bit "past it" and a bit lazy about his movies, almost Bs, some of them.)

There are two things I remember John Alonzo telling us:

ONE: With the director of "Farewell My Lovely," a guy with a small number of movies done named Dick Richards, Alonzo said he got "a lot of latitude to advise on the direction of the movie...camera angles and compositions, some of the drama. Richards rather relied on Alonzo as a "co-director of the film," Alonzo noted.

But with Roman Polanski as the director of Chinatown, Alonzo said, Polanski gave Alonzo NO latitude to "co-direct" the film. Polanski was strong-minded, unwilling to give up directorial power and -- well, he turned in a pretty great movie, yes?

TWO: Compared to Chinatown, Alonzo said , he wanted Farewell My Lovely to have a "popiscle look...or a Christmas tree." Fair enough...the movie uses rather "colorized" black and white footage for the opening credits but -- I can't say that I saw what Alonzo was trying to get. He was a noteable cinematographer but Farewell My Lovely -- perhaps because of a lower budget, shorter schedule -- seemed less visually perfect than Chinatown, a bit more "B and basic."

One more thing about John Alonzo. Before he was a cinematographer, he was an actor -- you can see him in 1960 as one of the farmers who hire Yul Brynner to form "The Magnificent Seven."