The French Connection (film)
Encyclopedia
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection (clothing)
.
The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film
directed by William Friedkin
. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman
from the non-fiction book
by Robin Moore
. It tells the story of New York Police Department detectives named "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, whose real-life counterparts were Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan
and Sonny Grosso
. Egan and Grosso also appear in the film, as characters other than themselves.
It was the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
since the introduction of the MPAA film rating system. It also won Academy Awards for Best Actor
(Gene Hackman
), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman
). It was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
(Roy Scheider
), Best Cinematography
and Best Sound
. Tidyman also received a Golden Globe Award
, a Writers Guild of America Award
and an Edgar Award
for his screenplay
.
In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
of narcotics between Marseille
, France
and New York City
, USA. In Marseille a policeman is staking out Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey
), a French
criminal who is smuggling heroin from France
to the United States
. The policeman is assassinated by Charnier's henchman
, Pierre Nicoli.
In New York, detectives James "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman
) and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider
) are conducting an undercover
stakeout
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
. After seeing a drug transaction take place in a bar, Russo goes in to make an arrest and the suspect makes a break for it. After catching up with their suspect and delivering a severe beating after the suspect cuts Russo on the arm with a knife, the detectives aggressively interrogate the man, forcing him to reveal where his connection is based.
After Russo's injury is treated, Doyle convinces him to go out for a drink. At the Copacabana
, Doyle becomes interested in Salvatore "Sal" Boca and his young wife, Angie, who are entertaining Mob
members involved in narcotics. Doyle persuades his partner to tail the couple; although the Bocas run a modest newsstand luncheonette, they have criminal records: Sal is said to have held up Tiffany and also killed "a guy named DeMarco" while Angie drew a suspended sentence for shoplifting
and Sal's brother Lou served jail time for assault and robbery. They make nearly nightly trips to several nightclubs, as well as drive several new cars, which indicate they may be involved in criminal activity. A link is established between the Bocas and lawyer Joel Weinstock, who is rumored to have connections in the narcotics underworld; Doyle and Russo allude to a drug shipment from Mexico
bankrolled by Weinstock.
Doyle and Russo roust a bar in their precinct, where the majority of the black patrons are in possession of marijuana and other minor drugs. The rousting is a stunt for Doyle to find an undercover policeman, whom he questions about an apparent shortage of hard drugs on the street; Doyle is told that a major shipment of heroin is on its way. The detectives convince their supervisor, Walt Simonson, to wiretap the Bocas' phones and use several ruses to try to obtain more information.
The film centers on three main points: the criminals' efforts to smuggle drugs into the United States, which is made easier when Charnier dupes his friend, a French actor named Henri Devereaux, into importing an automobile (unbeknownst to Devereaux, the drugs are concealed within the vehicle) and the sale of the drugs to Weinstock and Sal Boca; the efforts of Doyle and Russo to shadow Boca and Charnier; and the conflicts the detectives have with Simonson and a federal agent named Mulderig, assigned to the case due to the wiretap. Doyle and Mulderig dislike each other; Russo and Doyle feel they can handle the bust without the government's help, and Mulderig criticizes Doyle on items ranging from trivialities like Doyle's appearance to an incident where a policeman was killed and Mulderig holds Doyle responsible. Doyle comes to blows with Mulderig.
Weinstock's chemist
tests a sample of the heroin and declares it the purest he has ever seen, establishing that the shipment could make as much as $32 million on a half-million dollar investment. Boca is impatient to make the purchase (reflecting Charnier's desire to return to France as soon as possible), while Weinstock, with more experience in smuggling, urges patience, knowing Boca's phone is tapped and that they are being investigated.
Charnier soon "makes" Doyle and realizes he has been observed since his arrival in New York. Nicoli offers to kill Doyle; Charnier objects, knowing killing one policeman will not amount to anything, but Nicoli says they will be in France before they can be detained. Nicoli attempts to assassinate Doyle, but botches the job, leading to a car chase scene that culminates with Nicoli's hijacking an elevated train.
Nicoli, after killing a policeman who was pursuing him, holds the driver at gunpoint. Near the end of the line Nicoli is confronted by passengers and the conductor passes out. The train reaches the end of the line and is halted by a safety mechanism on the tracks. Nicoli escapes the train and Doyle shoots him when he attempts to escape. The car containing the drugs is impounded when some thieves try to strip it of its valuables. Doyle and Russo take the car apart searching for drugs. When Russo notes the vehicle is 120 pounds over its listed weight, they realize the drugs must still be in the car. The mechanic tells them he did not remove the car's rocker panels; when he does, the drugs are discovered. The police put the car back together and return it to Devereaux.
It seems as though the drug deal has been a major success; Weinstock's chemist tests one of the bags and confirms its quality. Using a car that Sal Boca's brother Lou picked out, the criminals conceal the money. The car is to be imported into France, where Charnier will retrieve the money. Charnier and Sal Boca drive off, but run into a roadblock
consisting of a large force of police led by Doyle. The police chase Charnier and Sal Boca to an old factory. Sal is killed during a shootout with the police and almost all of the others surrender.
Charnier escapes into the warehouse
and Doyle hunts for him. Russo joins in the search. Doyle, trigger-happy and high on adrenaline, sees a shadowy figure in the distance and empties his revolver at it a split-second after shouting a warning. The man Doyle kills is not Charnier, but Mulderig. Doyle seems unfazed and vows to capture Charnier, reloading his gun and running into another room. The last sound heard in the film is a single gunshot. In the TV version that ran in the late 1970s, Doyle says of getting Charnier, I'm going to get that son of a bitch if it takes me the rest of my life!!
Title cards before the closing credits note that Joel Weinstock and Angie Boca got away without prison time while Lou Boca got a reduced sentence and Devereaux served four years. Charnier was never caught. Both Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division.
came to the United States through France (see French Connection
). In addition to the two main protagonists, several of the fictional characters depicted in the film also have real-life counterparts. The Alain Charnier character is based upon Jean Jehan who was arrested later in Paris for drug trafficking, though he was not extradited; the director credits a general lack of punishment to Jehan's military service with Charles de Gaulle
. Sal Boca is based on Pasquale "Patsy" Fuca, and his brother Anthony. Angie Boca is based on Patsy's wife Barbara, who later wrote a book with Robin Moore
detailing her life with Patsy. The Fucas and their uncle were part of a heroin dealing crew that worked with some of the New York crime families
. Henri Devereaux, who takes the fall for importing the Lincoln to New York, is based on Jacques Angelvin, a television actor arrested and sentenced to three to six years in a federal penetentiary for his role, serving about four before repatriating to France and turning to real estate. The Joel Weinstock character is, according to the director's commentary, a composite of several similar drug dealers.
was originally cast to play the role of "Popeye" Doyle, but later backed out. He later said he had a problem with audience reaction to his performance in the 1970 film Joe
, where he played one of a pair of criminals who went on a killing spree. Though the film was meant to be critical of violence, audiences actually enjoyed the violence. This reaction did not sit well with him, and he swore thereafter that he would never perform in a film that glorified violence ever again.
The movie established the careers of both Friedkin and Hackman and was instrumental in ushering in an era of neo-realist
directors in Hollywood during the early 1970s. In an audio commentary track recorded by Friedkin for the Collector's Edition DVD release of the film, Friedkin notes that the film's documentary
-like realism was the direct result of the influence of having seen Z
, a French film. Additionally, this was the first film to show the World Trade Center
: the completed North Tower and the partial completion of the South Tower are seen in the background of one scene.
Friedkin credits his decision to direct the movie to a discussion with film director Howard Hawks
, whose daughter was living with Friedkin at the time. Friedkin asked Hawks what he thought of his movies, to which Hawks bluntly replied that they were "lousy." Instead Hawks recommended that he "Make a good chase. Make one better than anyone's done."
The sequence on the 42nd Street Shuttle took two days to shoot. One of the subway cars in the movie, R17 car
number 6609, has been preserved by the New York Transit Museum
.
(out of the budget range), then Jackie Gleason
, and a New York columnist, Jimmy Breslin
, who had never acted before. However, Gleason, at that time, was considered box-office poison by the studio after his film Gigot
had flopped several years before, and Breslin refused to get behind the wheel of a car, which was required of Popeye's character for an integral car chase
scene. Steve McQueen was also considered, but he did not want to do another police film after Bullitt
and, as with Newman, his fee would have exceeded the movie's budget. Tough guy Charles Bronson
was also considered for the role. Friedkin almost settled for Rod Taylor (who had actively pursued the role, according to Hackman), another choice the studio approved, before he went with Hackman.
The eventually successful casting of Rey as the main French heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier (irreverently referred to throughout the film as "Frog One"), resulted from mistaken identity. Friedkin had asked his casting director to get a Spanish
actor he had seen in Luis Buñuel
's French film, Belle de Jour, who was actually Francisco Rabal
, but Friedkin did not know his name, and Rey, who had played in several other films directed by Buñuel, was instead contacted. After Rabal was finally reached, they discovered he spoke neither French nor English and Rey was kept in the film. In a further irony, after screening the film's final cut, Rey's French was deemed unacceptable by the filmmakers. They decided to dub his French while preserving his English dialogue.
sequences in movie history. The chase involves Popeye commandeering a civilian's car (a 1971 Pontiac LeMans
) and then frantically chasing an elevated train, on which a hitman is trying to escape. The scene was filmed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
roughly running under the BMT West End Line
(currently; the train, then the B
train) which runs on an elevated track above Stillwell Avenue, 86th Street and New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn, with the chase ending just north of the 62nd Street station after the train crashed into another train up ahead. The conductor played by Bob Morrone and train operator played by William Coke, aboard the hijacked train were both actual NYC Transit Authority employees. Friedkin's plan included fast driving coupled with five specific stunts:
Many of the shots in the scene were "real". While Gene Hackman drove well over half of the shots used in the film, legendary stunt driver Bill Hickman
, who also had a small role in the film as Federal Narcotics Agent
Mulderig, drove the stunt scenes and point-of-view shots through the windshield and from the front bumper, with Friedkin running a camera from the backseat while wrapped in a mattress for protection. The production team received no prior permission from the city for such a dangerous stunt, but they had the creative consulting and clout provided to them by Eddie Egan
and Sonny Grosso
(which allowed normal protocol for location shooting like permits and scheduling to be circumvented), and the only precaution taken was to place a "gumdrop" style beacon on the car's roof and blare the horn. The most famous shot of the chase is made from a front bumper mount and shows a low-angle point of view shot of the streets racing by. This was the last shot made in the film and was, according to Friedkin, needed to increase the speed of the chase after a rough cut of the scene proved less impressive than he hoped. While Friedkin contends the front-bumper shot is made at speeds of "up to 90mph," director of photography Owen Roizman, wrote in American Cinemataographer magazine in 1972 that the camera was undercranked to 18 frames per second to enhance the sense of speed. Roizman's contention is borne out when you see a car at a red light whose muffler is pumping smoke at an accelerated rate. Other shots involved stunt drivers who were supposed to barely miss hitting the speeding car, but due to errors in timing accidental collisions occurred and were left in the final film. Friedkin said that he used Santana
's song "Black Magic Woman
" during editing to help shape the chase sequence; though the song does not appear in the film, "it [the chase scene] did have a sort of pre-ordained rhythm to it that came from the music."
The scene concludes with Doyle confronting Nicoli the hitman at the stairs leading to the subway and shooting him as he tries to run back up them. Many of the police officers acting as advisers for the film objected to the scene on the grounds that shooting a suspect in the back was simply murder, not self-defense, but director Friedkin stood by it, stating that he was "secure in my conviction that that's exactly what Eddie Egan
(the model for Doyle) would have done and Eddie was on the set while all of this was being shot."
As of July 2009, the two lead R42 subway cars
in the chase scene, cars 4572 and 4573, were added to the preserved collection of the New York Transit Museum
.
Nominations
formats. For a 2009 reissue on Blu-ray Disc
, William Friedkin controversially altered the film's color timing to give it a "colder" look. Cinematographer Owen Roizman, who was not consulted about the changes, dismissed the new transfer as "atrocious".
appeared in 1975, and in , the NBC television network aired a made-for-TV movie, Popeye Doyle, starring Ed O'Neill
in the title role.
While not a sequel, The Seven-Ups
(1973) is closely related as it stars Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco, was directed by Philip D'Antoni
, written by Sonny Grosso and features another famous car chase choreographed by Bill Hickman. The score for this film was also by Don Ellis.
French Connection (clothing)
French Connection is a retailer and wholesaler of fashion clothing and accessories. Founded in 1972 by Stephen Marks it is based in London, is listed on the London Stock Exchange and operates globally....
.
The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...
directed by William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman was a Cleveland-born American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D.F...
from the non-fiction book
The French Connection (book)
The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy is a non-fiction book by Robin Moore first published in 1969 about the notorious "French Connection" drug trafficking scheme. It is followed by the book The Setup...
by Robin Moore
Robin Moore
Robert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an American writer who is most known for his books The Green Berets, The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Moore also co-authored...
. It tells the story of New York Police Department detectives named "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, whose real-life counterparts were Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan
Eddie Egan
Edward Walter "Eddie" Egan was a New York City Police Department detective whose exploits were the subject of a book and movie, both entitled The French Connection...
and Sonny Grosso
Sonny Grosso
Salvatore "Sonny" Grosso is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection...
. Egan and Grosso also appear in the film, as characters other than themselves.
It was the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
since the introduction of the MPAA film rating system. It also won Academy Awards for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman was a Cleveland-born American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D.F...
). It was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
), Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
and Best Sound
Academy Award for Sound
The Academy Award for Sound Mixing is an Academy Award that recognizes the finest or most euphonic sound mixing or recording, and is generally awarded to the production sound mixers and re-recording mixers of the winning film. Compare this award to the Academy Award for Sound Editing...
. Tidyman also received a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
, a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
and an Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
for his screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
.
In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Plot
The film revolves around the smugglingSmuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
of narcotics between Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA. In Marseille a policeman is staking out Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey
Fernando Rey
Fernando Casado Arambillet , best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film, theatre, and TV actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States...
), a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
criminal who is smuggling heroin from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The policeman is assassinated by Charnier's henchman
Henchman
Henchman referred originally to one who attended on a horse for his employer, that is, a horse groom. Hence, like constable and marshal, also originally stable staff, henchman became the title of a subordinate official in a royal court or noble household...
, Pierre Nicoli.
In New York, detectives James "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
) and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
) are conducting an undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
stakeout
Stakeout
Stakeout is a 1987 film directed by John Badham and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, and Forest Whitaker...
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Bedford-Stuyvesant is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Formed in 1930, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8 and Brooklyn Community Board 16. The neighborhood is patrolled by the NYPD's 79th and 81st...
. After seeing a drug transaction take place in a bar, Russo goes in to make an arrest and the suspect makes a break for it. After catching up with their suspect and delivering a severe beating after the suspect cuts Russo on the arm with a knife, the detectives aggressively interrogate the man, forcing him to reveal where his connection is based.
After Russo's injury is treated, Doyle convinces him to go out for a drink. At the Copacabana
Copacabana (nightclub)
The Copacabana is a famous New York City nightclub. Many entertainers, among them Danny Thomas, Pat Cooper and the comedy team of Martin and Lewis, made their debuts at the Copacabana. The 1978 Barry Manilow song "Copacabana" is named after, and is about the nightclub. Part of the 2003 Yerba...
, Doyle becomes interested in Salvatore "Sal" Boca and his young wife, Angie, who are entertaining Mob
American Mafia
The American Mafia , is an Italian-American criminal society. Much like the Sicilian Mafia, the American Mafia has no formal name and is a secret criminal society. Its members usually refer to it as Cosa Nostra or by its English translation "our thing"...
members involved in narcotics. Doyle persuades his partner to tail the couple; although the Bocas run a modest newsstand luncheonette, they have criminal records: Sal is said to have held up Tiffany and also killed "a guy named DeMarco" while Angie drew a suspended sentence for shoplifting
Shoplifting
Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....
and Sal's brother Lou served jail time for assault and robbery. They make nearly nightly trips to several nightclubs, as well as drive several new cars, which indicate they may be involved in criminal activity. A link is established between the Bocas and lawyer Joel Weinstock, who is rumored to have connections in the narcotics underworld; Doyle and Russo allude to a drug shipment from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
bankrolled by Weinstock.
Doyle and Russo roust a bar in their precinct, where the majority of the black patrons are in possession of marijuana and other minor drugs. The rousting is a stunt for Doyle to find an undercover policeman, whom he questions about an apparent shortage of hard drugs on the street; Doyle is told that a major shipment of heroin is on its way. The detectives convince their supervisor, Walt Simonson, to wiretap the Bocas' phones and use several ruses to try to obtain more information.
The film centers on three main points: the criminals' efforts to smuggle drugs into the United States, which is made easier when Charnier dupes his friend, a French actor named Henri Devereaux, into importing an automobile (unbeknownst to Devereaux, the drugs are concealed within the vehicle) and the sale of the drugs to Weinstock and Sal Boca; the efforts of Doyle and Russo to shadow Boca and Charnier; and the conflicts the detectives have with Simonson and a federal agent named Mulderig, assigned to the case due to the wiretap. Doyle and Mulderig dislike each other; Russo and Doyle feel they can handle the bust without the government's help, and Mulderig criticizes Doyle on items ranging from trivialities like Doyle's appearance to an incident where a policeman was killed and Mulderig holds Doyle responsible. Doyle comes to blows with Mulderig.
Weinstock's chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
tests a sample of the heroin and declares it the purest he has ever seen, establishing that the shipment could make as much as $32 million on a half-million dollar investment. Boca is impatient to make the purchase (reflecting Charnier's desire to return to France as soon as possible), while Weinstock, with more experience in smuggling, urges patience, knowing Boca's phone is tapped and that they are being investigated.
Charnier soon "makes" Doyle and realizes he has been observed since his arrival in New York. Nicoli offers to kill Doyle; Charnier objects, knowing killing one policeman will not amount to anything, but Nicoli says they will be in France before they can be detained. Nicoli attempts to assassinate Doyle, but botches the job, leading to a car chase scene that culminates with Nicoli's hijacking an elevated train.
Nicoli, after killing a policeman who was pursuing him, holds the driver at gunpoint. Near the end of the line Nicoli is confronted by passengers and the conductor passes out. The train reaches the end of the line and is halted by a safety mechanism on the tracks. Nicoli escapes the train and Doyle shoots him when he attempts to escape. The car containing the drugs is impounded when some thieves try to strip it of its valuables. Doyle and Russo take the car apart searching for drugs. When Russo notes the vehicle is 120 pounds over its listed weight, they realize the drugs must still be in the car. The mechanic tells them he did not remove the car's rocker panels; when he does, the drugs are discovered. The police put the car back together and return it to Devereaux.
It seems as though the drug deal has been a major success; Weinstock's chemist tests one of the bags and confirms its quality. Using a car that Sal Boca's brother Lou picked out, the criminals conceal the money. The car is to be imported into France, where Charnier will retrieve the money. Charnier and Sal Boca drive off, but run into a roadblock
Roadblock
A roadblock is a temporary installation set up to control or block traffic along a road. The reasons for one could be:*Roadworks*Temporary road closure during special events*Police chase*Robbery*Sobriety checkpoint...
consisting of a large force of police led by Doyle. The police chase Charnier and Sal Boca to an old factory. Sal is killed during a shootout with the police and almost all of the others surrender.
Charnier escapes into the warehouse
Warehouse
A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...
and Doyle hunts for him. Russo joins in the search. Doyle, trigger-happy and high on adrenaline, sees a shadowy figure in the distance and empties his revolver at it a split-second after shouting a warning. The man Doyle kills is not Charnier, but Mulderig. Doyle seems unfazed and vows to capture Charnier, reloading his gun and running into another room. The last sound heard in the film is a single gunshot. In the TV version that ran in the late 1970s, Doyle says of getting Charnier, I'm going to get that son of a bitch if it takes me the rest of my life!!
Title cards before the closing credits note that Joel Weinstock and Angie Boca got away without prison time while Lou Boca got a reduced sentence and Devereaux served four years. Charnier was never caught. Both Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division.
Cast
- Gene HackmanGene HackmanEugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
as Det. Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle - Fernando ReyFernando ReyFernando Casado Arambillet , best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film, theatre, and TV actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States...
as Alain Charnier - Roy ScheiderRoy ScheiderRoy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
as Det. Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo - Tony Lo BiancoTony Lo BiancoTony Lo Bianco is an American actor in films and television.Lo Bianco was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a taxi driver. He is known for his roles in the cult films The Honeymoon Killers, God Told Me To, and The French Connection...
as Salvatore 'Sal' Boca - Marcel BozzuffiMarcel BozzuffiMarcel Bozzuffi was a French film actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as a brutal hitman in the Oscar-winning US film The French Connection...
as Pierre Nicoli, Hit Man - Frédéric de PasqualeFrédéric de PasqualeFrédéric de Pasquale was a French actor. He appeared in 50 films and television shows between 1960 and 2001.-Selected filmography:* Children of Mata Hari * The French Connection...
as Henri Devereaux - Bill HickmanBill HickmanWilliam "Bill" Hickman was a stunt driver/actor from the 1950s through to the late 1970s. Hickman played a major role in terms of development and execution in three of the greatest movie car chase sequences of all time....
as Bill Mulderig - Ann Rebbot as Mrs. Marie Charnier
- Harold Gary as Joel Weinstock
- Arlene Farber as Angie Boca
- Eddie EganEddie EganEdward Walter "Eddie" Egan was a New York City Police Department detective whose exploits were the subject of a book and movie, both entitled The French Connection...
as Walt Simonson
- André Ernotte as La Valle
- Sonny GrossoSonny GrossoSalvatore "Sonny" Grosso is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection...
as Bill Klein - Benny Marino as Lou Boca
- Patrick McDermott as Howard, Chemist
- Alan Weeks as Willie Craven, drug pusher
- Andre Trottier as Wyett Cohn, weapons specialist
- Sheila FergusonSheila FergusonSheila Ferguson is an American singer, and was one of the longest serving singers of 1970s American female soul music group The Three Degrees.Ferguson settled in the UK after marrying an Englishman...
as The Three DegreesThe Three DegreesThe Three Degrees are an American female vocal group. Formed in 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,, the group has always been a trio though there have been a number of personnel changes and a total of fourteen women have represented the group so far. The original members were Fayette Pinkney,... - Eric Jones as Little Boy (uncredited)
- Darby Lloyd RainsDarby Lloyd RainsDarby Lloyd Rains is a former adult film actress, prolific during the 1970s. She is a member of the XRCO Hall of Fame. She appeared uncredited as a stripper in the 1971 film The French Connection.-Partial filmography:...
as Stripper (uncredited) - Jean Luisi as French detective
Comparison to actual people
The plot centers around drug smuggling in the 1960s and early '70s, when most of the heroin illegally imported into the East CoastEast Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
came to the United States through France (see French Connection
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
). In addition to the two main protagonists, several of the fictional characters depicted in the film also have real-life counterparts. The Alain Charnier character is based upon Jean Jehan who was arrested later in Paris for drug trafficking, though he was not extradited; the director credits a general lack of punishment to Jehan's military service with Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. Sal Boca is based on Pasquale "Patsy" Fuca, and his brother Anthony. Angie Boca is based on Patsy's wife Barbara, who later wrote a book with Robin Moore
Robin Moore
Robert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an American writer who is most known for his books The Green Berets, The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Moore also co-authored...
detailing her life with Patsy. The Fucas and their uncle were part of a heroin dealing crew that worked with some of the New York crime families
Five Families
The Five Families are the five original Italian-American Mafia crime families which have dominated organized crime in America since 1931. The Five Families in New York remain as the powerhouse of the Italian Mafia in the United States.-History:...
. Henri Devereaux, who takes the fall for importing the Lincoln to New York, is based on Jacques Angelvin, a television actor arrested and sentenced to three to six years in a federal penetentiary for his role, serving about four before repatriating to France and turning to real estate. The Joel Weinstock character is, according to the director's commentary, a composite of several similar drug dealers.
Production
Production of the film started in November 1970 and was completed in March 1971. Peter BoylePeter Boyle
Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
was originally cast to play the role of "Popeye" Doyle, but later backed out. He later said he had a problem with audience reaction to his performance in the 1970 film Joe
Joe (film)
Joe is a 1970 drama film starring Peter Boyle, Dennis Patrick, and Susan Sarandon in her film debut. The film was directed by John G. Avildsen.-Plot:...
, where he played one of a pair of criminals who went on a killing spree. Though the film was meant to be critical of violence, audiences actually enjoyed the violence. This reaction did not sit well with him, and he swore thereafter that he would never perform in a film that glorified violence ever again.
The movie established the careers of both Friedkin and Hackman and was instrumental in ushering in an era of neo-realist
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
directors in Hollywood during the early 1970s. In an audio commentary track recorded by Friedkin for the Collector's Edition DVD release of the film, Friedkin notes that the film's documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
-like realism was the direct result of the influence of having seen Z
Z (film)
Z is a 1969 French language political thriller directed by Costa Gavras, with a screenplay by Gavras and Jorge Semprún, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek...
, a French film. Additionally, this was the first film to show the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
: the completed North Tower and the partial completion of the South Tower are seen in the background of one scene.
Friedkin credits his decision to direct the movie to a discussion with film director Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, whose daughter was living with Friedkin at the time. Friedkin asked Hawks what he thought of his movies, to which Hawks bluntly replied that they were "lousy." Instead Hawks recommended that he "Make a good chase. Make one better than anyone's done."
The sequence on the 42nd Street Shuttle took two days to shoot. One of the subway cars in the movie, R17 car
R17 (New York City Subway car)
The R17 is a New York City Subway car class built in 1955. It was one of three car classes purchased in the mid-1950s by the New York City Transit Authority to replace much of the pre-World War II IRT High Voltage rolling stock, which included the Gibbs cars, the Deck Roofs, and the Hedley Hi-V...
number 6609, has been preserved by the New York Transit Museum
New York Transit Museum
The New York Transit Museum is a museum which displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, commuter rail, and bridge and tunnel systems; it is located in a decommissioned Court Street subway station in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City...
.
Casting
Though the cast ultimately proved to be one of the film's greatest strengths, Friedkin had problems with casting choices from the start. He was strongly opposed to the choice of Hackman for the lead, and actually first considered Paul NewmanPaul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
(out of the budget range), then Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, and a New York columnist, Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin is an American journalist and author. He currently writes a column for the New York Daily News' Sunday edition. He has written numerous novels, and columns of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City...
, who had never acted before. However, Gleason, at that time, was considered box-office poison by the studio after his film Gigot
Gigot
Gigot is an American motion picture; it was released in 1962 by 20th Century Fox. The film starred Jackie Gleason and was directed by Gene Kelly.-Synopsis:...
had flopped several years before, and Breslin refused to get behind the wheel of a car, which was required of Popeye's character for an integral car chase
Car chase
A car chase is the vehicular pursuit of a suspect by law enforcement officers. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase...
scene. Steve McQueen was also considered, but he did not want to do another police film after Bullitt
Bullitt
Bullitt is a 1968 American police procedural film starring Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. It was directed by Peter Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness by Robert L....
and, as with Newman, his fee would have exceeded the movie's budget. Tough guy Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
was also considered for the role. Friedkin almost settled for Rod Taylor (who had actively pursued the role, according to Hackman), another choice the studio approved, before he went with Hackman.
The eventually successful casting of Rey as the main French heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier (irreverently referred to throughout the film as "Frog One"), resulted from mistaken identity. Friedkin had asked his casting director to get a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
actor he had seen in Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's French film, Belle de Jour, who was actually Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
, but Friedkin did not know his name, and Rey, who had played in several other films directed by Buñuel, was instead contacted. After Rabal was finally reached, they discovered he spoke neither French nor English and Rey was kept in the film. In a further irony, after screening the film's final cut, Rey's French was deemed unacceptable by the filmmakers. They decided to dub his French while preserving his English dialogue.
Car chase
The film is often cited as containing one of the greatest car chaseCar chase
A car chase is the vehicular pursuit of a suspect by law enforcement officers. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase...
sequences in movie history. The chase involves Popeye commandeering a civilian's car (a 1971 Pontiac LeMans
Pontiac LeMans
The Pontiac LeMans was a model name applied to compact and intermediate-sized automobiles offered by the Pontiac division of General Motors from 1962 to 1981. The LeMans was replaced by the downsized Pontiac Bonneville for the 1982 model year...
) and then frantically chasing an elevated train, on which a hitman is trying to escape. The scene was filmed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
Bensonhurst is a neighborhood located in the southwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn.-Geography:Sometimes erroneously thought to include all or parts of such neighborhoods as Bath Beach, Dyker Heights, and Borough Park, or to be defined by the streets where the concentration of...
roughly running under the BMT West End Line
BMT West End Line
The BMT West End Line is a line of the New York City Subway, serving the Brooklyn, communities of Borough Park, New Utrecht, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Coney Island. The D train operates on the line at all times, providing service to Manhattan and the Bronx via the IND Sixth Avenue Line...
(currently; the train, then the B
B (New York City Subway service)
The B Sixth Avenue Express is a rapid transit service of the New York City Subway. It is colored orange on route signs, station signs, and the official subway map, since it runs over the IND Sixth Avenue Line in Manhattan....
train) which runs on an elevated track above Stillwell Avenue, 86th Street and New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn, with the chase ending just north of the 62nd Street station after the train crashed into another train up ahead. The conductor played by Bob Morrone and train operator played by William Coke, aboard the hijacked train were both actual NYC Transit Authority employees. Friedkin's plan included fast driving coupled with five specific stunts:
- Doyle is sideswiped by a car in an intersection
- Doyle's car is clipped by a truck with a Drive Carefully bumper sticker.
- Doyle narrowly misses a woman with a baby stroller and crashes into a pile of garbage.
- Doyle's vision is blocked by a tractor trailer which forces him into a steel fence.
- Doyle must go against traffic to get back on a parallel path with the train. Intercut with these car scenes underneath the elevated train is additional footage (shots facing the car, not from the driver's perspective) that was shot in Bushwick, Brooklyn, particularly when Doyle misses a moving truck and slams into a steel fence.
Many of the shots in the scene were "real". While Gene Hackman drove well over half of the shots used in the film, legendary stunt driver Bill Hickman
Bill Hickman
William "Bill" Hickman was a stunt driver/actor from the 1950s through to the late 1970s. Hickman played a major role in terms of development and execution in three of the greatest movie car chase sequences of all time....
, who also had a small role in the film as Federal Narcotics Agent
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was a predecessor agency of the Drug Enforcement Administration . It was formed as a subsidiary of the United States Department of Justice in 1968, combining the Bureau of Narcotics and Bureau of Drug Abuse Control The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous...
Mulderig, drove the stunt scenes and point-of-view shots through the windshield and from the front bumper, with Friedkin running a camera from the backseat while wrapped in a mattress for protection. The production team received no prior permission from the city for such a dangerous stunt, but they had the creative consulting and clout provided to them by Eddie Egan
Eddie Egan
Edward Walter "Eddie" Egan was a New York City Police Department detective whose exploits were the subject of a book and movie, both entitled The French Connection...
and Sonny Grosso
Sonny Grosso
Salvatore "Sonny" Grosso is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection...
(which allowed normal protocol for location shooting like permits and scheduling to be circumvented), and the only precaution taken was to place a "gumdrop" style beacon on the car's roof and blare the horn. The most famous shot of the chase is made from a front bumper mount and shows a low-angle point of view shot of the streets racing by. This was the last shot made in the film and was, according to Friedkin, needed to increase the speed of the chase after a rough cut of the scene proved less impressive than he hoped. While Friedkin contends the front-bumper shot is made at speeds of "up to 90mph," director of photography Owen Roizman, wrote in American Cinemataographer magazine in 1972 that the camera was undercranked to 18 frames per second to enhance the sense of speed. Roizman's contention is borne out when you see a car at a red light whose muffler is pumping smoke at an accelerated rate. Other shots involved stunt drivers who were supposed to barely miss hitting the speeding car, but due to errors in timing accidental collisions occurred and were left in the final film. Friedkin said that he used Santana
Carlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
's song "Black Magic Woman
Black Magic Woman
"Black Magic Woman" is a song written by Peter Green that first appeared as a Fleetwood Mac single in various countries in 1968, subsequently appearing on the 1969 Fleetwood Mac compilation albums English Rose and The Pious Bird of Good Omen . In 1970, it became a classic hit by Santana, as sung...
" during editing to help shape the chase sequence; though the song does not appear in the film, "it [the chase scene] did have a sort of pre-ordained rhythm to it that came from the music."
The scene concludes with Doyle confronting Nicoli the hitman at the stairs leading to the subway and shooting him as he tries to run back up them. Many of the police officers acting as advisers for the film objected to the scene on the grounds that shooting a suspect in the back was simply murder, not self-defense, but director Friedkin stood by it, stating that he was "secure in my conviction that that's exactly what Eddie Egan
Eddie Egan
Edward Walter "Eddie" Egan was a New York City Police Department detective whose exploits were the subject of a book and movie, both entitled The French Connection...
(the model for Doyle) would have done and Eddie was on the set while all of this was being shot."
As of July 2009, the two lead R42 subway cars
R42 (New York City Subway car)
The R42 is a New York City Subway car built between 1969 and 1970 by the St. Louis Car Company in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the B Division. This fleet of cars were the first to be fully equipped with air conditioning. The R42 fleet is numbered 4550-4949...
in the chase scene, cars 4572 and 4573, were added to the preserved collection of the New York Transit Museum
New York Transit Museum
The New York Transit Museum is a museum which displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, commuter rail, and bridge and tunnel systems; it is located in a decommissioned Court Street subway station in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City...
.
Academy Awards
Wins- Best PictureAcademy Award for Best PictureThe Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
- Phillip D'Antoni - Best Director - William Friedkin
- Best ActorAcademy Award for Best ActorPerformance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
- Gene Hackman - Best Adapted Screenplay
- Film Editing
Nominations
- Best Supporting ActorAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActorPerformance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
- Roy Scheider - Best CinematographyAcademy Award for Best CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
- Best Sound - Theodore SoderbergTheodore SoderbergTheodore Soderberg was an American sound engineer. He was nominated for six Academy Awards in the category Sound Recording.-Selected filmography:* Imitation of Life * The French Connection * The Poseidon Adventure...
, Christopher Newman
American Film Institute Lists
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies - #70
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills - #8
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains:
- Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle - #44 Hero
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
- "When's the last time you picked your feet, Willy? Who's your connection, Willy? What's his name? I've got a man in Poughkeepsie who wants to talk to you. You ever been to Poughkeepsie?" - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - #93
Home video
The film has been issued in a number of home videoHome video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
formats. For a 2009 reissue on Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
, William Friedkin controversially altered the film's color timing to give it a "colder" look. Cinematographer Owen Roizman, who was not consulted about the changes, dismissed the new transfer as "atrocious".
Sequels and adaptations
A sequel, French Connection IIFrench Connection II
French Connection II is a 1975 crime drama film starring Gene Hackman and directed by John Frankenheimer. It is a fictional sequel to the initially true story of the 1971 Academy Award winning picture The French Connection...
appeared in 1975, and in , the NBC television network aired a made-for-TV movie, Popeye Doyle, starring Ed O'Neill
Ed O'Neill
Edward Phillip "Ed" O'Neill, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the main character, Al Bundy, on the Fox Network sitcom Married... with Children, for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes...
in the title role.
While not a sequel, The Seven-Ups
The Seven-Ups
The Seven-Ups is a 1973 American film released by 20th Century Fox. It stars Roy Scheider as a renegade policeman who is the leader of The Seven-Ups, a police team who uses dirty, unorthodox tactics to snare their quarry on charges leading to prison sentences of seven years or more upon...
(1973) is closely related as it stars Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco, was directed by Philip D'Antoni
Philip D'Antoni
-Work:D'Antoni won an Academy Award in 1971 for the Best Picture, for The French Connection. He also won a Golden Globe award in 1972 for the Best Motion Picture Drama for The French Connection. He began his career on TV with the glamorous productions, "Sophia Loren in Rome," "Elizabeth Taylor in...
, written by Sonny Grosso and features another famous car chase choreographed by Bill Hickman. The score for this film was also by Don Ellis.
External links
- Under the Influence: William Friedkin and The French Connection, DGA Magazine.
- Anatomy of a Chase, DGA Magazine.
- Filmmaking at 90 Miles Per Hour retrospective article in The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...