Russ Yelburton

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Evil-doer
Full Name	Russ Yelburton
Alias	No information
Origin	Chinatown
Occupation	Hollis Mulwray's chief deputy
Powers / Skills	No information
Hobby	Assisting Noah Cross in hoarding the town's water supply and making profits off it.
Goals	Ensure Noah Cross achieves his schemes.
Crimes	Aiding and abetting Pollution Conspiracy
Type of Villain	Right-Hand Traitor

Russ Yelburton is the secondary antagonist of the 1972 film noir classic Chinatown. He's the chief deputy of the water department who turns out to be in working with Noah Cross, supporting his plan to steal the city's water supply and profit off of it.

He was portrayed by the late John Hillerman.

Biography

Yelburton is first seen as he's summoned by Hollis Mulwray's secretary, is first seen in a flash of light through the glass of the door. With an icy but pleasant request, Russ greets J.J. Gittes, introduces himself and ushers him out of Mulwray's office, sending him to wait in his office. In his own office, Yelburton is convinced that the scandalous stories about colleague Mulwray are totally groundless as he claimed Hollis wasn't the kind to chase after women, or even joke about it. Unaware of the findings that he's made, Gittes offers a telling comment, and as he leaves Yelburton's office, Gittes requests a business card, but pockets a bunch of the deputy's cards with sleight-of-hand - to be opportunistically used later on.

In the hallway by the elevator, the arrogant Gittes insults to Claude Mulvihill, the city's water department enforcer, whose own personal water supply has been shut off. According to Yelburton, Mulvihill's main duty, now that he is employed by the Water and Power Company, is to protect against numerous threats of protesting farmers in the Valley to blow up the city's reservoirs. Gittes refers to a past time when Mulvihill was a dishonest, former Sheriff in Ventura County during Prohibition.

After an encounter with Hollis' wife Evelyn, Gittes begins to get suspicious that something deeper may be going on that he doesn't know about, and uses as an entry pass one of the business cards he lifted from Yelburton's office, so he's easily allowed admission by police guards through the gates into the Oak Pass Reservoir when mistaken as Yelburton. Before Gittes can speak to Hollis Mulwray, he discovers Hollis has unexpectedly and mysteriously drowned in the middle of LA's summer drought. His body is dragged up, in their view, from the remote, empty, fresh-water reservoir outside Los Angeles. At Hollenbeck Bridge, Gittes notices a trickle of water in the bottom of the "damp riverbed" and a bureau dresser on slightly higher, dry ground - evidence of a large quantity of water rapidly flowing through the area.

From there, Jake drives to the Oak Pass Reservoir where Mulwray's corpse was found. At dusk, after scaling the locked, chain-link fence with a 'No Trespassing' sign, Gittes hears two gunshots- a signal to open the water sluice. Ignorantly believing he is a shooting target, he jumps into the cement run-off channel for cover. The aqueduct storm drain immediately fills with a noisy, rushing torrent of water pouring into the opened sluice. It flushes him down the sluice and slams him into a fence-barrier and almost claims him as the next drowning victim, but he avoids death by scrambling up the metal fence in his soggy clothes, losing a shoe in the process.

Gittes is then caught by Claude Mulvihill -- who is known to be working for Yelburton -- and another man. Mulvihill punches Gittes in the stomach and then pins his arms back from behind. The intimidating, knife-wielding hoodlum wants to scare him off the case. Jake is scolded - he gets a warning to stop snooping (nosing) around just before his nostril is viciously cut with a knife.

After another encounter with Evelyn, Gittes suspects her of hiding something from him and revisits Hollis' office, which is now being taken over by Yelburton. While waiting in the outer room during this second visit, Gittes notices that the walls are covered with photographs, one of which is captioned "Noah Cross, 1929," and others dated in the 1920s picturing Hollis Mulwray and Noah Cross together. His secretary conforms that Noah had not only worked for the water department, he owned it. Mr. Mulwray, a co-owner/partner, "felt the public should own the water" and persuaded Cross to turn it over to the public.

When finally admitted to Yelburton's office, Gittes cuts the ice with a joke about his nose. Then, with disguised inferences regarding Yelburton's guilt, Gittes wonders if Yelburton hired Ida Sessions (who impersonated Evelyn earlier) to employ him as a detective, and then possibly eliminated Hollis because he opposed construction of a new dam and water diversion, and discovered illegalities. Although he appears insulted by the accusation, Yelburton backs off and lies about some secret diversions of irrigation water being made to orange groves in the San Fernando Valley (outside the city's limits) to help the farmers. When Yelburton denies knowing the "exact location" of the orange groves, Jake alludes to the fact that Yelburton does know other higher-ups who are manipulating the Los Angeles water supply.

Although Jake has lots of checking to do, he returns to his office where his secretary Sophie non-verbally signals that he has a client in his office. Mrs. Mulwray is waiting for him at the window when he arrives, asking why her husbandś murderer did all this. She offers him his regular salary ($35/day plus $20 for his associates, plus expenses, plus a bonus for results) plus $5,000 to "find out what happened to Hollis and who was involved." Gittes is now officially hired by Mrs. Mulwray to find her husband's murderer.

Jake also admits that he knows that her father is Noah Cross, Hollis' former business partner and father-in-law. For some unknown reason, his revelation causes her to nervously light two cigarettes simultaneously. According to her, Hollis and Cross had a "falling out" over the ownership of the water - the conflict was partially over her, although Evelyn can admit it. Jake decides to talk to Cross himself to see what he had to say. Cross bluntly asks about whether Gittes has slept with his daughter, presumably because he doesn't want her "taken advantage of." Cross wants to know what the Jack knows, and then asks Gittes to do find Hollis' girlfriend for him.

At the Hall of Records for the County of Los Angeles, Jake asks to see the plat books for the Northwest Valley, where diversions of water are being made. He is directed to some plat books that exist only for Los Angeles County. Numerous land sales are in escrow with new owners buying up the land, shown with their names pasted in the plat books. Most of the valley has been sold in the last few months. After deceptively asking to borrow a ruler from the clerk, he coughs loudly as he rips out a section of the record book.

A trip to the valley confirms farm land is rapidly being sold in the drought area. Cross and his land speculators created a plot to monopolize drought-stricken LA's water supply by water diversion. Gittes drives through NO TRESPASSING area, but then men on horseback fire on Gittes' car in the middle of an orange grove, and then pursue him through the narrow rows of trees. He is dragged from his crashed (and overheating) automobile, beaten (his nose bloodied), and his pockets emptied. The leader of the farmers wonders which of two hated groups Gittes represents and misdirects his anger at him. Gittes identifies himself as a private investigator, hired by a client to see if the water department was irrigating their land. According to an armed farmer, the opposite was happening. Gittes now understands the farmers are defending themselves since corrupt water officials havddiverted irrigation water to cause a drought in some parts of the valley to force farmers out of the arid areas. And then they buy up their parched land at cut-rate prices and irrigate selectively. When he hands over Mrs. Mulwray's contract, one of the farmers is antagonistic and knocks him out cold when he calls the man a "dumb Okie"

As Jake and Evelyn drive back to town in Mrs. Mulwray's car, Gittes describes the political scandal to Mrs. Mulwray, explaining how drought-stricken valley acreage, artificially-created, is being purchased cheaply by land-grab speculation pending the reservoir's construction. (Water will eventually be directed to the valley's worthless land, making it extremely valuable.) Hollis was killed because he opposed the construction of the reservoir. Gittes recalls a memorial service recently held at the Mar Vista Inn for Crabb who died two weeks earlier. A fraudulent land swindle is in progress with phony names turning up on deeds of sale. Dummy, unwitting investors, including some who are penniless, senile or deceased, are the new proprietors-owners who are buying up the valley land.

They join forces and drive into the Mar Vista Rest Home and then enter, with another of Gittes' skillfully untruthful deceptions or pretensions. They misrepresent themselves as a rich couple who need to find a convalescent home for Gittes' dad. On an activities board for the home, Gittes finds familiar names. Some of the elderly residents (including a landless Emma Dill) are sewing a flag with the fish symbol of the Albacore Club, since Mar Vista is an "unofficial charity of theirs." Turning wise to their scheme, Palmer requests that they follow him out, and Mulvihill greets them in the lobby. After first urging Mrs. Mulwray to her car, Gittes beats up Mulvihill. As he leaves, he is rescued just in time from the nose-cutting thug when Mrs. Mulwray wheels into the driveway with the car. In a quick getaway, Gittes leaps onto her car, as they both avoid bullets that hit the windshield.

In the Mulwray mansion, the duo get to know each other a bit more, as Jake reveals some of his past and they gain affectation towards the two of them. But then the phone rings, and Evelyn answers it with worry and concern in her voice after being told something troubling. Anguished, she replies to the person on the phone to not do anything until she got there. After hanging up the phone, Evelyn insists that the call has "nothing to do" with Gittes, but she has to leave immediately (dividing them irrevocably due to lack of trust) - she withholds her destination and her reasons for a hasty exit. When Gittes tells her that he saw her father, she calls Cross "dangerous" and "crazy".

Although strictly told not to follow her as she leaves, Gittes 'borrows' her husband's car and trails after her to an unfamiliar, modest house with the porch light on. While hiding outdoors, he watches through a side window with a half-drawn curtain as she first talks to her Chinese butler. In another room, he spies her late husband's visibly upset young blonde 'mistress' lying down on a bed. Evelyn forcibly administers drugs after they have conversed. Jake sits in Evelyn's front car seat when she returns to her car - she is startled and a bit angry to see him after his betrayal. Now in his investigative mode, he has concluded that she is involved in criminal activity, but what he has seen is inconclusive. She tells him that her "husband's girlfriend" is actually her sister, who is upset at having learned of her husband's death.

That night after Jake showers in his own home, and lies on his bed, he hesitates to pick up the incessantly-ringing phone. Two phone calls by an anonymous caller summon him to Ida Sessions' house. Early the next morning, Jake drives to the house's location and finds broken glass in the front door window. Inside on the kitchen floor, Ida's dead body is sprawled amidst spilled groceries. He flips through the contents of her wallet and finds a $2 dollar bill, an identification card, her Social Security Card and Screen Actor's Guild card. Ex-colleagues Escobar and Loach confront him - in the frame-up - with a flashlight beam from inside a darkened bathroom. They suspect that Gittes knows her or had something to do with her murder, because his phone number is written on her kitchen wall next to the phone. Gittes explains his theory of how Hollis' body was deliberately moved to the reservoir to divert attention from the ocean, although he was actually killed by the salt-water ocean where the water was being dumped. When Gittes can't prove his point, he takes the police to the isolated run-off location where water was being dumped nightly. Yelburton, now the new water commissioner, is reported to have confirmed Jake's contention with a twist: "There's irrigation in the valley, and there's always a little run-off after they do that. And he says Gittes knows this and he's been goin' around makin' irresponsible accusations all last week." To Jake's way of thinking, Escobar is implicated in the conspiracy with Yelburton and the lieutenant fears bucking the department's criminal activities. And he fears that Escobar may cause him to lose his own detective's license. Gittes is given two hours to present himself and his "client"-suspect Evelyn at Escobar's office.

He finds that Evelyn's house is being closed up in preparation for a road trip. In the garden patio area, the gardener repeats his frustration causing Gittes to realize that the water in the estate's fishpond is salt water. He asks the gardener to fish out the sparkling object he had seen earlier but didn't have time to fish out. The object is a pair of cracked spectacles, leading Gittes to assume that Hollis was drowned by Evelyn in their domestic salt-water fishpond, and then his body was dragged to the reservoir. And he fears that Evelyn is planning to flee the scene with the crime's only witness - the young girl, and ultimately, she will frame him as an accessory to the murder.

Racing to the house where the young girl is hidden, Gittes finds a breathless Evelyn rushing to pack in order to catch a train. He first demands to see "the girl" and then without explaining why, Gittes phones and summons Lieutenant Escobar to their location to turn her in. He is determined to force information from her about everything he believes she has been concealing about her husband's murder. Jake accuses Evelyn of drowned her husband out of jealousy for his affair, and forced the girl to stay quiet because she was a witness. He also suspects that Evelyn may be plotting to murder the girl, to which Evelyn accuses him of having a "crazy" and "most insane" idea. Left with no other options, Evelyn finally tells the truth about Katherine and how she wasn't her dead husband's girlfriend, but rather the product of a union between her and her father, Noah Cross. Jake repeatedly slapped thinking this was another lie, until he realizes that she isn't making a fool out of him, but she really is telling the truth.

With a change of heart after learning the truth and realizing that Evelyn is innocent, Gittes decides to help Evelyn and her "daughter" avoid Escobar and his men. He suggests that she avoid both the railway station and the airport and instead go to her Chinese butler's home in Chinatown. And as a footnote to everything, Evelyn casually observes that the spectacles aren't Hollis'. Katherine is brought down the stairs to meet Jake. Jake tells Mrs. Mulwray that he knows where they are going in Chinatown. He lowers the front window's bamboo shade as he watches them leave from the front of the street. He then calls colleagues Duffy and Walsh to meet him at the Chinatown address in about two hours if they haven't heard from him.