SCTV's 'Polynesiantown'

 
In 1981, the sketch TV show SCTV dedicated the majority of one episode to a very loose parody of Chinatown, entitled 'Polynesiantown', following the noir-ish escapades of restaurateur Johnny La Rue (played by the late, great John Candy) who runs a tacky Polynesian-style bar/restaurant.

Review: Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye

For three decades, I have devoured every piece of information I could find about the film that set me upon a lifelong obsession with cinema. Much as I would have loved to finally see a dedicated print publication giving Chinatown its due - something along the lines of Peter Cowie's wonderful, very simply titled, The Godfather Book, which partly inspired me to start this blog - surely the story of the making of Chinatown had already been told time and time again in multiple biographies, articles and film histories.

When it was announced that an upcoming book entitled The Big Goodbye, by Sam Wasson (Fifth Avenue 5 A.M., Fosse), would tell the story of the making of Chinatown "for the first time", I was skeptical. My initial assumption was that this would just be a book collecting everything out there about the film and jamming it together in one place. The same old stuff that I'd read already, right?

Wrong.