Publisher's Synopsis
Collection of four films starring the Oscar-winning actor, Jack Nicholson. 'Chinatown' (1974), one of the key American films of the 1970s, is Roman Polanski's detective yarn which sees murder and scandal emerge from the drought of 1930s Southern California. Private eye Jake Gittes (Nicholson) is hired to follow water commissioner Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), only to see him turn up dead at the bottom of a reservoir. Realising he has been used, Gittes confronts Mulwray's widow Evelyn (Faye Dunaway), a woman who seems to have plenty of secrets of her own, not least her ambiguous relationship with her father Noah Cross (John Huston). In 'The Two Jakes' (1990), the belated sequel to 'Chinatown', Nicholson returns to his role as Jake Gittes. It is 1948 and Jake has been hired by Julius Berman (Harvey Kietel) to investigate the extra-marital affairs of his wife Kitty (Meg Tilly). But when Jake arranges for Berman to catch Kitty in the act, Berman draws a gun and shoots his wife's lover, thereby embroiling the unwitting Gittes in a very complex piece of Los Angeles chicanery involving oil deals, orange groves and an incident in the detective's own past. 'Terms of Endearment' (1983) revolves around the volatile relationship between the over-bearing Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Debra Winger), the daughter who cannot wait to escape her clutches. The story covers 30 years, and ranges from Emma's late-teens, her marriage to Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels), Aurora's difficulties facing her new role as a grandmother, and her relationship with Garrett Breedlove (Nicholson), an ex-astronaut who is constantly searching for excitement in his life. The story then moves toward a tragic, tear-jerking conclusion, as Emma discovers that she has cancer. Finally, in 'Heartburn' (1986), Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and Mark Forman (Nicholson) meet at a friend's wedding. They fall in love, get married and all is seemingly fine until she discovers that whilst she has been pregnant he has been having an affair.