The French Connection (1971) Great movie, Bad Influence, Ugly Production

(Image: 20th Century Fox)

Two ruthless and belligerent New York City cops stumble upon an international cartel of heroin dealers from Marseilles looking to make a huge sale in the Big Apple. Featuring French New Wave-inspired handheld documentary-style camerawork and on-location shooting, French Connection changed movies forever. The movie was revolutionary for its time.

Along with its realistic style, French Connection also offers up uncompromisingly gritty and realistic characters. From Gene Hackman and Roy Schindler playing Detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo to Fernando Rey and Tony Lo Bianca playing Charnier and Boca, not a single one is so extraordinarily handsome. They all look like people you would see walking down the street, and not movie stars. Ok, maybe Lo Bianco.

Top: Left to right, Roy Schider as Cloudy and Gene Hackman as Popeye. Bottom: Left to right, Fernando Rey as Charnier and Tony Lo Bianco as Boca (Images: 20th Century Fox)

The car chase where Popeye chases an elevated train through Bensonhurst is still hailed by many as the greatest ever shot.

Coming in at 104 minutes running time, The French Connection is a fast-paced, gritty and uncompromising portrayal of the dark side of police work in the early-70s.

THE EDGE

The "hero", or better yet, anti-hero of the French Connection is Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle. He is nothing less than a short tempered bigot played by Gene Hackman in the role that would net him his first Oscar win. Doyle is a thug and not particularly concerned with Justice or the rule of law.

SPOILERS at the end of the movie, Doyle accidentally kills an FBI agent and shows absolutely no remorse or regret as he continues to pursue the Charnier. Throughout the movie, Doyle shows himself to be a needlessly brutal and it doesn’t pay off. At the end of the movie, they bust up the deal and the most responsible parties get away, and those who were caught received token sentences due to a lack of proper evidence.

The central theme of French Connection is that the cops are and can be bad guys, but far too many casual viewers would go on to glorify Popeye Doyle. If the French Connection was less successful, then the point about Doyle would have been made, but the success of the film, has served to canonize him as a good cop.

To Friedkin’s credit, Russo and Doyle do suffer consequences for their actions.

THE LOWDOWN

There is not enough money in the world that would get me to work on The French Connection. Over the years, Friedkin had been transparent about how run-and-gun the production was. Friedkin used a German-made Arriflex 2C 35mm to shoot The French Connection. It's a very small camera that would allow the crew to run into a location, shoot a scene and leave before they were kicked out. It was not uncommon for them to shoot in places without permits or permission.

Shooting Illegally in the NYC Subway (Image: 20th Century Fox)

That makes the environment very difficult to control and makes the entire cast and crew accessories to numerous felonies. As a PA working on this sort of production, you are often the first person that gets asked, "...do you have permission to shoot here?" Then you have to make a choice, lie, claim ignorance, or try to find a producer to bluff their way through that question. All things that are not worth the bargain basement rate you would have earned on a movie like this.

In the clip below, Friedkin reminisces about the groundbreaking car/train chase scene.

You’ve got a liquored-up, emasculated stuntman driving 90 miles an hour down an uncontrolled street. It’s a minor miracle they were not killed, and did not kill somebody else. At that speed, you wouldn’t have time to stop if somebody stepped off a curb without looking. You notice Friedkin recants his decisions for that chase, but his tone makes me doubt his sincerity.

Shooting the car chase, Friedkin directs from the backseat (Image: 20th Century Fox)

Hey look! They used ratchet straps and a duckboard to secure the camera op to the side of a speeding car! No need to bother with a safety rail or safety chain to keep the camera from flying out of his hands and injuring a pedestrian. The 70s were just a different time, man…

I want to tell you, dear reader and Showbiz Hobos, that producers and directors don’t take chances like this anymore, but they do. Every nepobaby wannabe director with a few hundred grand gets out of film school and tries to pull off something like this.  Safety is the concern of everybody on set, and when you have a director and producers who aren't concerned about the life and limb of the crew and the people around them, it's just awful to work there. The crew begins to feel like another piece of gear, just ask the crew of Rust.

THE JIST

The French Connection is a groundbreaking and thrilling movie and should be viewed by anybody who considers themselves a movie fan. Critical viewers ought to look past the pomp and circumstance that the film has earned since its release. The lessons learned by the characters and the lessons that weren't learned by the filmmakers need to be taken into account.