 More from NPR's Netta Ulabi. Robert Towne created the characters and wrote their words. In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson played a hard-boiled detective trying to pin a crime on an uncooperative widow. He fell. He hit his head. It was an accident. But his girl is a witness. So you had to shut her up. You don't have the guts to harm her, but you've got the money to keep her mouth shut. Yes or no? No!