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murdered by Cross in a violent confrontation. (Mulwray, it seems, had discov-
ered and opposed the water conspiracy, and he had also tried to help shield his
wife s daughter from Cross.) The final moments of the movie bring all of the
characters together in the Chinatown section of Los Angeles. As Gittes tries
to help Mrs. Mulwray and her daughter flee to Mexico, they are discovered
by Cross and law enforcement officers. In a dramatic confrontation, Cross
interrupts the escape with the police nearby. Rather than let her father have
contact with her daughter, however, Mrs. Mulwray opens fire, wounding but
not killing Cross. Instantaneously, however, the police respond by firing into
her escaping car. One bullet finds its mark.
In the downbeat ending, Cross leaves with his newly found daughter,
leaving the audience to wonder if he will abuse her. From what is shown on
screen, it appears that the water scheme will go undiscovered and unpunished.
For his part, the police tell a dejected Gittes, Forget it, Jake. It s Chinatown.
The audacious conspiracy to manipulate water and land is central part
to the story in Chinatown. In the story, unknowing people are manipu-
lated and become involved in conspiratorial schemes that they know nothing
about. What is more, the city is tricked into paying for the conspiracy with
100 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
public funds. Indeed, the scale and scope of the water-and-land conspir-
acy in Chinatown is significant, and the potential victims of the scheme are
many.
In telling the story, then, Chinatown combines this grand conspiracy with
a more typical murder mystery story in the film noir tradition of murky
deeds and flawed protagonists.6 In this potent combination, the massive
conspiracy is easily taken as just another component. And so Chinatown
helped further the image of conspiracy as a relatively commonplace type
of wrongdoing. Many viewers may not have even regarded the conspiracy
element as a much of conspiracy, but rather just another Hollywood por-
trayal of crime. Yet, by intertwining a deeply intimate and personal story of
abuse and betrayal with the larger narrative about wide-ranging corruption
in the system, Chinatown brings the larger conspiracy to a more human
level.
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
Also released in 1975 was director Sydney Pollack s movie Three Days of the
Condor.7 It was a more traditional portrayal of the covert world of espionage
and intrigue, but its treatment of a conspiracy that infiltrated the Central
Intelligence Agency was certainly evidence of the more cynical attitude that
movie-goers brought with them to the theater in the mid-1970s.
Somewhat like The Conversation, the story focuses on an ordinary man,
in this case a low-level intelligence analyst named Joe Turner (played by
Robert Redford), who works in the CIA s New York office. The bookish and
office-bound Turner spends his time combing through books, magazines, and
other materials looking for information that can be used by the CIA. One
day, he comes across a seemingly ordinary novel that seems to have odd and
puzzling sections. Suspecting that the novel could be some sort of covertly
distributed message or sinister code, he sends a routine report to his superiors.
He expects a reply after his bosses wade through the piles of information that
they regularly receive.
Before he receives any feedback on his report, however, his ordinary life
takes a dramatic turn. While he takes a break, gunmen enter the office and
murder everyone there. When Turner sees what has happened, he realizes
that he is in danger and immediately goes into hiding. Following standard
procedures, he calls a supposedly secure phone number to report the incident
and asks what to do. At the other end of the phone line is an agent (played
by Cliff Robertson) who advises Turner about what he should do next. The
agent, who has given Turner the code name Condor, informs Turner that
he is to be brought in for his own safety. Turner complies and meets with
another agent who is to bring him to safety.
Turner is double-crossed, however, as the man sent to assure his safety
tries to kill him. After a struggle, Turner escapes, still not sure what he has
stumbled onto or what he should do. In the next sections of the movie,
Scandal and Skepticism 101
Turner tries to determine if his agency contact is or is not in on the plot. Not
trusting anyone, he sets out to investigate the office murders on his own.
Tracking clues that he finds while keeping the CIA at bay, events reach a
climax as Turner traces the conspiracy to a shadowy man. As he zeroes in on
the leader of the conspiracy, he is discovered by a man he recognizes as the
lead assassin (played by Max von Sydow) in the office murders. Surprisingly,
however, the assassin kills the conspirator, not Turner, adding more confusion
to the plot.
In one of many plot twists, it is revealed that the assassin now works for
the real CIA, rather than the conspiracy that had infiltrated part of it. Having
nothing against Turner, the assassin tries to persuade Turner to leave the
country. Turner, however, is determined not to leave.
In the final section of the film, Turner encounters his agency contact.
Although this man had once seemed benevolent, Turner recognizes that the
agent now cannot be trusted. But Turner has already discovered what the
conspirators had hoped to keep hidden the novel Turner had come across
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