The Two Jakes (1990)

Jack Nicholson: Jake Gittes

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jake Gittes : What I do for a living may not be very reputable... but I am. In this town I'm the leper with the most fingers.

• Jake Gittes : I wouldn't extort a nickel from my worst enemy. That's where I draw the line.

  Loach Jr. : Well, I'll tell you, Jake. I knew a whore once. For the right amount of money, she'd piss in a guy's face. But she wouldn't shit on his chest. You see, that's where she drew the line.

  Jake Gittes : Well, Junior, all I can say is: I hope she wasn't too much of a disappointment to you.

• Jake Gittes : I did my share of fighting in the war and even got a medal, but Lou lost a leg with the first Marines at Guadalcanal. He knows about regrets and how life doesn't give you a fair shake. You can't trust a guy who's never lost anything.

• Khan : You are very successful.

  Jake Gittes : Oh, I can't complain.

  Khan : Does that mean you are happy?

  Jake Gittes : Who can answer that question off the top of their head?

  Khan : Anyone who's happy.

• Jake Gittes : You can follow the action, which gets you good pictures. You can follow your instincts, which'll probably get you in trouble. Or, you can follow the money, which nine times out of ten will get you closer to the truth.

• Jake Berman : Where were we?

  Jake Gittes : Well, I was accusing you of murder, Mr. Berman.

  Jake Berman : Call me Jake.

• Jake Gittes : We're talkin' about oil here, right, Ty?

  Tyrone Otley : Obviously. Mr. Rawley believes there's oil under the subdivision. He's endangering hundreds of lives drilling under those homes, with all the seismic activity. He's whipstocking! Someone has got to stop him!

  Jake Gittes : Well, I can't do that, Ty. Nobody can. Guys like Rawley don't get arrested; they get streets named after them. In this type of situation, it's best just to leave it alone. Rawley's stealin' from Berman. It's a big thief stealin' from a little thief. Who are we to quarrel?

• Loach Jr. : Come on, Gittes. There you were, consorting with a known hoodlum under grand jury investigation... and known to be friendly with your client, Jake Berman.

  Jake Gittes : So, what?

  Loach Jr. : So, either you were doing business with Mickey, or, uh...

  Jake Gittes : Or what?

  Plainclothes Policeman : We got a vice officer who swears you approached him and fondled his privates in the men's room.

  [Loach breaks out laughing] 

  Jake Gittes : [to Policeman]  How was it for you?

• Jake Gittes : [narrating]  The city's different at night: the air smells better, it's harder to see that the oil rigs outnumber the palm tress; it's almost like the good old days, at least the way I'd like to remember them. But stay in this business long enough and every street leads to a place you'd like to forget, every case brings back memories of what you should have done & what might have been, and every skirt reminds you of another woman... or, if you've got it bad enough, the same woman.

• Jake Gittes : Maybe I didn't tell the whole truth at the preliminary hearing, but there's one thing I learned about the truth... a little bit goes a long way.

• [last lines] 

  Jake Gittes : Katherine?

  [she turns to look at him] 

  Jake Gittes : It never goes away.

• Jake Gittes : [looking at photos of mystery blonde]  Did you follow her?

  Ralph Tilton : What for? You told me to follow Berman.

  Jake Gittes : Berman had a 2 o'clock appointment at his lawyer's, Ralph. You don't follow somebody when you know where they're goin'!

  Ralph Tilton : But you said STAY WITH Berman!

  Jake Gittes : [disgusted]  Who the FUCK is this woman?

  Ralph Tilton : Who's THAT woman?

• Jake Gittes : Hell, everybody makes mistakes. But if you marry one, they expect you to pay for it for the rest of your life. I don't care whose fault it is, his, hers or the milkman's.

• Jake Gittes : I should have been wise to Berman's hand-wringing act from the very beginning. It was as plain as the shoes on his feet.

• Plainclothes Policeman : We got a vice officer who swears you approached him and fondled his privates in the men's room.

  Jake Gittes : How was it?

• Jake Gittes : Honestly, I'm trying to be a gentleman about this. Now just, get down on your knees. Get down on your knees. Stick your ass up in the air. And don't move until I telly you.

• Walsh : Does that mean he wants you to prove your own client is guilty of murder?

  Jake Gittes : Yeah.

  Walsh : Well, 's that ethical?

  Jake Gittes : Larry, he's a lawyer.

• Jake Gittes : That's your problem kid. You don't know who you're kiddin'.

• Jake Gittes : What business you got with Jake Berman?

  Michael 'Mickey Nice' Weisskopf : Jake Berman is 100% legitimate.

  Jake Gittes : What do you call legitimate?

  Michael 'Mickey Nice' Weisskopf : I can tell YOU what I DON'T consider legitimate.

  Jake Gittes : Must be a short list.

  Michael 'Mickey Nice' Weisskopf : Blackmail.

• Jake Gittes : I don't want to live in the past, Khan. I just don't want to lose it.

• Jake Gittes : I'm used to seein' the intimate details of people's lives, but lookin' at a guy's x-rays is as intimate as it gets. It's the kind of thing most guys don't even tell their wives about.

• [first lines] 

  Jake Gittes : I suppose it's fair to say infidelity made me what I am today.

• Jake Gittes : When husbands and wives lie to each other, one of them comes to my office and lies to me. Frankly, if I waited for an honest client, I'd be sitting around until Rocky Graziano played Rachmaninoff at the Hollywood Bowl.

• Jake Gittes : Cotton.

  Cotton Weinberger : What?

  Jake Gittes : Thank you. Fuck you.

  Cotton Weinberger : Thank you, Jake. Always a pleasure doing business.

• Jake Gittes : Memories are like that - as unpredictable as nitro, and you never know what's gonna set one off.

• Jake Berman : I got a wife to protect.

  Jake Gittes : Protect? You mean divorce, don't you?

  Jake Berman : Yeah. That too. Yeah.

• Jake Gittes : Old Cactus Earl probably hoodwinked quite a few city boys with his Will Rogers routine, but I knew he wasn't talking about two horses on their honeymoon. Whatever Rawley was mounting, it wasn't a mare. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me, either, pardner.

• Captain Lou Escobar : How do you know he didn't have the gun with him?

  Jake Gittes : Oh, I'd never frisk him before I let him walk in on his wife hanging on the headboard while some guy was slammin' her into the wall, Lou!

• Kitty Berman : Does it ever go away?

  Jake Gittes : What's that?

  Kitty Berman : The past.

  Jake Gittes : Well, I think you have to work real hard at that.

• Jake Gittes : I know how edgy you must be, Julius, but...

  Jake Berman : My friends call me Jake.

  Jake Gittes : Well, that makes two of us. That's what my friends call me.

  Jake Berman : Is that right? Is that right? He's a Jake and I'm a Jake.

  Jake Gittes : Yeah. How about that? Two Jakes.

• Captain Lou Escobar : Then what happened?

  Jake Gittes : What usually happens when somebody pulls a gun. Everybody ducks.

• Jake Gittes : Cotton was right. We should have turned up B & B Homes. Maybe Berman's partner would still be chasing his wife instead of cooling his dick at the County Morgue.

• Jake Gittes : Look. When you get her back there, take her in through the window or the side door. Stay till she sobers up. Papers'll be jumping all over the lawn like flies.

• Jake Gittes : Time changes things. Like the fruit stand that turns into a filling station. But the footprints and signs from the past are everywhere. They've been fighting over this land ever since the first Spanish missionaries showed the Indians the benefits of religion, horses, and a few years of forced labor. The Indians had it right all along. They respected ghosts. You can't forget the past any more than you can change it.

• Jake Gittes : The clues that keep you on track are never where you look for them. They fall out of the pocket of somebody else's suit you pick up at the cleaners. They're in the tune you can't stop humming, that you never heard in your life. They're at the other end of the wrong number you dial in the middle of the night. The signs are in those old familiar places you only think you've never been before. But you get used to seeing them out of the corner of your eye, and you end up tripping over the ones that are right in front of you.

• Jake Gittes : Lillian, ethically, I can't do that.

  Lillian Bodine : Ethically? Ha!

• Earl Rawley : Did you ever breed any horses?

  Jake Gittes : Can't say that I have, no.

  Earl Rawley : Well, it's sort of like helping a stallion mount a mare. Whipstocking is somethin' you do to coax the drilling bit in the right direction. After you've gone to all that time and trouble, you wouldn't want your big fella to miss what he was aimin' at. Now, would you?

• Earl Rawley : That's really none of my business.

  Jake Gittes : None of your business?

  Earl Rawley : Well, I suppose, in a sense, when you're in the oil business, you're in *everybody's* business.

• Lillian Bodine : Whips and stockings? God damn it. That son of a bitch was...

  Jake Gittes : Lillian, just calm down.

  Lillian Bodine : I always knew that Kitty was a perverted little snat!

• Jake Gittes : All I ever wanted all these years was just - to see that you hadn't been hurt - and that you wouldn't be hurt.

• Jake Gittes : I can try to tell myself I kept my promise. But that's the problem with the past. There's always plenty more where that came from.

• Jake Gittes : Most cops' ethics are like the car they drive... black and white.