In Marseille, a police detective follows Alain Charnier, who runs a large heroin-smuggling syndicate. The policeman is murdered by Charnier's hitman, Pierre Nicoli. Charnier plans to smuggle $32 million worth of heroin into the United States by hiding it in the car of his unsuspecting friend, television personality Henri Devereaux, who is traveling to New York by ship. In New York City, detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo go out for drinks at the Copacabana. Popeye notices Salvatore "Sal" Boca and his young wife, Angie, entertaining mobsters involved in narcotics. They tail the couple and establish a link between the Bocas and lawyer Joel Weinstock, a major buyer in the narcotics underworld. Popeye learns that a massive shipment of heroin will arrive within two weeks. The detectives convince their supervisor to wiretap the Bocas' phones. Popeye and Cloudy are joined by federal agents Mulderig and Klein.
Devereaux's vehicle arrives in New York City. Boca is anxious to make the purchase while Weinstock urges patience, knowing they are being surveiled. Charnier realizes he is as well, "makes" Popeye and escapes on a departing subway shuttle at Grand Central Station. To shake his tail, he has Boca meet him in Washington D.C., where Boca asks for a delay to avoid the police. Charnier is impatient and wants to conclude the deal quickly. On the flight back to New York City, Nicoli offers to kill Popeye, but Charnier objects, knowing that Popeye would be replaced by another policeman. Nicoli insists, however, saying they will be back in France before a replacement is assigned. Soon after, Nicoli attempts to shoot Popeye but misses. Popeye chases Nicoli, who boards an elevated train. Popeye shouts to a policeman on the train to catch Nicoli and then commandeers a passenger car. He gives chase, accidentally crashing into several vehicles on the way.
Realizing he is being pursued, Nicoli works his way forward through the carriages, shoots the pursuing policeman who tries to intervene, and hijacks the motorman at gunpoint. He forces him to drive straight through the next station, and shoots the train conductor. The motorman has a heart attack, and they are just about to slam into a stationary train when an emergency trackside brake engages, hurling the assassin violently to the floor. A battered Popeye arrives to see the killer descending from the platform. Nicoli sees Popeye, turns to run, but is shot dead. After a lengthy stakeout, Popeye impounds Devereaux's Lincoln. In a police garage, he and his team tear the car apart piece by piece searching for the drugs, but seemingly come up empty handed. Then Cloudy notes that the vehicle's shipping weight is 120 pounds (54 kg) over its listed manufacturer's weight, indicating that the contraband must still be in the car. Further search reveals heroin packages hidden inside the rocker panels. The police reassemble and return the car to Devereaux, who delivers it to Charnier.
Charnier drives to an old factory on Wards Island to meet Weinstock and deliver the drugs. After Charnier has the rocker panel covers removed, Weinstock's chemist tests one of the bags and confirms its quality. Charnier removes the drugs and hides the money, concealing it inside the rocker panels of another car purchased at an auction of junk cars, which he will take back to France. Charnier and Sal drive off in the Lincoln, but hit a roadblock with a large contingent of police led by Popeye. The police chase the Lincoln back to the factory, where Boca is killed during a shootout while most of the other criminals surrender. Charnier escapes into a nearby warehouse with Popeye and Cloudy in pursuit. Popeye sees a shadowy figure in the distance and opens fire too late to heed a warning, killing Mulderig. Undaunted, Popeye tells Cloudy that he will get Charnier. After reloading his gun, Popeye runs into another room and a single gunshot is heard.
Title cards describe the fates of various characters: Weinstock was indicted, but his case was dismissed for "lack of proper evidence"; Angie Boca received a suspended sentence for an unspecified misdemeanor; Lou Boca (Sal's brother, an accessory to the handoff) received a reduced sentence; Devereaux served four years in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy; and Charnier was never caught. Popeye and Cloudy were transferred out of the narcotics division and reassigned.
The film was originally set up at National General Pictures, but they later dropped it, and Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered to make it at Fox with a production budget of $1.5 million.[1] The film came in $300,000 over budget at a total cost of $1.8 million.[3]
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 by Costa-Gavras. Friedkin mentioned the film's influence on him when directing The French Connection:
After I saw Z, I realized how I could shoot The French Connection. Because he shot Z like a documentary. It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next. And that is an induced technique. It looks like he happened upon the scene and captured what was going on as you do in a documentary. My first films were documentaries too. So I understood what he was doing but I never thought you could do that in a feature at that time until I saw Z.[10]
The film was among the earliest to show the World Trade Center: the completed North Tower and the partially completed South Tower are seen in the background of the scenes at the shipyard following Devereaux's arrival in New York.
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 Gene Hackman for the lead, and actually first considered Paul Newman (out of the budget range), then Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle and a New York columnist, Jimmy Breslin, who had never acted before.[11] However, at that time Gleason was considered box-office poison by the studio after his film Gigot had flopped several years before, Boyle declined the role after disapproving of the violent theme of the film, 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. Lee Marvin, James Caan, and Robert Mitchum were also considered; all turned it down.[12][13] 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 casting of Fernando Rey as the main French heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier (irreverently referred to throughout the film as "Frog One"), resulted from mistaken identity. Friedkin had seen Luis Buñuel's 1967 French film Belle de Jour and had been impressed by the performance of Francisco Rabal, who had a small role in the film. However, Friedkin did not know his name, and remembered only that he was a Spanish actor. He asked his casting director to find the actor, and the casting director instead contacted Rey, a Spanish actor who had appeared in several other films directed by Buñuel. After Rabal was finally reached, they discovered he spoke neither French nor English, and Rey was kept in the film.[11] Friedkin recounts his casting opinions in Making the Connection: The Untold Stories (2001). Extra feature on 2001 Five Star Collection edition of DVD release. 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.
Comparison to actual people and events
The plot centers on drug smuggling in the 1960s and early 1970s, when most of the heroin illegally imported into the East Coast came to the United States through France (seeFrench Connection).[14]
On April 26, 1968, a record-setting seizure of 246 lb (111.6 kg) of heroin was made, concealed in a Citroën DS and smuggled to New York on the SS France ocean liner.[15][16][17] The total amount smuggled during the many transatlantic voyages of this DS was 1,606 lb (728.5 kg) according to arrested smuggler Jacques Bousquet.[18]
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 since France does not extradite its citizens.[19] 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 City crime families.[20]
Henri Devereaux, who takes the fall for importing the film's drug-laden Lincoln into New York City, is based on Jacques Angelvin, a television actor arrested and sentenced to three to six years in a federal penitentiary for his role, serving about four before returning to France and turning to real estate.[21] The Joel Weinstock character is, according to the director's commentary, a composite of several similar drug dealer financiers.[22]
Car chase
The film is often cited as featuring one of the greatest car chase sequences in movie history.[23] 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 D 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. At that point, the train hits a train stop, but is going too fast to stop in time and collides with the train ahead of it, which has just left the station.[a]
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. Director of photography Owen Roizman wrote in American Cinematographer magazine in 1972 that the camera was undercranked to 18 frames per second to enhance the sense of speed; this effect can be seen on a car at a red light whose exhaust pipe 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.[24] Friedkin said that he used Santana's cover of Peter Green'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."[25]
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, its climax captured as a still shot in a theatrical release movie poster for the film. 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."[26][27]
Filming locations
The French Connection was filmed in the following locations:[28][29][30]
50th Street and First Avenue, New York City (where Doyle waits outside the restaurant)
82nd Street and Fifth Avenue (near the Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York City, (Weinstock's apartment)
86th Street, Brooklyn, New York City (the chase scene)
Westbury Hotel, 15 East 69th Street, Manhattan, New York City (Charnier's hotel)
Reception
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars and ranked it as one of the best films of 1971.[31]Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote: The French Connection "is in fact a very good new kind of movie, and that in spite of its being composed of such ancient material as cops and crooks, with thrills and chases, and lots of shoot-'em-up."[32] A review in Variety stated: "So many changes have been made in Robin Moore's taut, factual reprise of one of the biggest narcotics hauls in New York police history that only the skeleton remains, but producer Philip D'Antoni and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman have added enough fictional flesh to provide director William Friedkin and his overall topnotch cast with plenty of material, and they make the most of it."[33]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded a full four stars out of four and raved: "From the moment a street-corner Santa Claus chases a drug pusher thru the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, to the final shootout on deserted Ward's Island, The French Connection is a gutty, flatout thriller, far superior to any caper film of recent vintage."[34][35]
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "every bit as entertaining as Bullitt, a slam-bang, suspenseful, plain-spoken, sardonically funny, furiously paced melodrama. But because it has dropped the romance and starry glamor of Steve McQueen and added a strong sociological concern, The French Connection is even more interesting, thought-provoking and reverberating."[36] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film "an undeniably sensational movie, a fast, tense, explosively vicious little cops-and-robbers enterprise" with "a deliberately nervewracking, runaway quality ... It's a cheap thrill in the same way that a roller coaster ride is a cheap thrill. It seems altogether appropriate that the showiest sequence intercuts between a runaway train and a recklessly speeding car."[37] In his book Reverse Angle, John Simon wrote: "Friedkin has used New York locations better than anyone to day," "[t]he performances are all good", and "Owen Roizman's cinematography, grainy and grimy, is a brilliant rendering of urban blight."[38]
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was generally negative, writing: "It's not what I want not because it fails (it doesn't fail), but because of what it is. It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks. There's nothing in the movie that you enjoy thinking about afterward—nothing especially clever except the timing of the subway-door-and-umbrella sequence. Every other effect of the movie—even the climactic car-versus-runaway-elevated-train chase—is achieved by noise, speed, and brutality."[39]David Pirie of The Monthly Film Bulletin called the film "consistently exciting" and Gene Hackman "extremely convincing as Doyle, trailing his suspects with a shambling determination; but there are times when the film (or at any rate the script) seems to be applauding aspects of his character which are more repulsive than sympathetic. Whereas in The Detective or Bullitt the hero's attention was directed unmistakably towards liberal ends (crooked businessmen, corrupt local officials, etc.) Doyle spends a fair part of his time beating up sullen blacks in alleys and bars. These violent sequences are almost all presented racily and amusingly, stressing Doyle's 'lovable' toughness as he manhandles and arrests petty criminals, usually adding a quip like 'Lock them up and throw away the key.'"[40]
The film has an approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 96% based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Realistic, fast-paced and uncommonly smart, The French Connection is bolstered by stellar performances by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, not to mention William Friedkin's thrilling production."[41] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 94% based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[42]
In 2014, Time Out listed The French Connection as the 31st best action film of all time, according to a poll of several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors.[43]
The French Connection has been described as a neo-noir film by some authors.[44]
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The French Connection as one of his favorite films.[45][46]
Director David Fincher cited The French Connection as one of the five films that "had a Profound Impact on my Life"[47] and served as an important influence on the cinematography on his film Seven;[48]Brad Pitt cited The French Connection as a reason he participated in Seven.[49]
Director Steven Spielberg said that he studied The French Connection in preparation for his 2005 historical action thriller film, Munich.[50]
Benny Safdie of the Safdie Brothers named The French Connection as one of his top five favorite films of all time.[51]
In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the tenth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.[65]
Home media releases
The French Connection has been issued in a number of home video formats. On September 25, 2001, the film was released on VHS and DVD, with both formats being released in box sets featuring both the film and its sequel, French Connection II.[citation needed] For a 2009 reissue on Blu-ray, William Friedkin controversially altered the film's color timing to give it a "colder" look.[66] Cinematographer Owen Roizman, who was not consulted about the changes, dismissed the new transfer as "atrocious".[67] On March 18, 2012, a new Blu-ray transfer of the movie was released. This time, the color-timing was supervised by both Friedkin and Roizman, and the desaturated and sometimes over-grainy look of the 2009 edition has been corrected.[68][69]
In June 2023, media publications discovered that a version of the film available on digital platforms such as Apple TV and the Criterion Channel had been altered to excise a scene in the film that contains usage of racial slurs.[70][71] The decision received backlash from fans and cineasts, who compared the censorship to vandalism and called out the decision for hiding its historical context. Joseph Wade compared the cut to vandalising a piece of art.[72]
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, a fried chicken restaurant chain that was founded in 1972 and had its name inspired by the Popeye Doyle character in the film
Notes
^R42 cars 4572 and 4573 were chosen for the film and had no B subwayrollsigns because they were normally assigned to the N subway train. Consequently, they operated during the movie with an N displayed. As of July 2009, these cars were withdrawn from service, but are preserved as part of the New York Transit Museum fleet.[citation needed]
^ abFriedkin recounts his casting opinions in Making the Connection: The Untold Stories (2001). Extra feature on 2001 Five Star Collection edition of DVD release.
^Collins, Larry; Lapierre, Dominique (February 6, 1972). "The French Connection—In Real Life". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 20, 2020. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
^Alex Ballinger (October 12, 2004). New Cinematographers. HarperCollins. ISBN9781856693349. In preparation [for the film, Seven], David [Fincher] showed me Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971) and the French Connection (William Freidkin, 1971) and Seven was inspired by a mixture of the stylised work of the former and the rawness and grittiness of the latter.
^Amy Longsdorf (September 16, 1995). "Spotlight on Brad Pitt Golden Boy Turns Gritty In New Film". The Morning Call. Retrieved 20 May 2022. Why, with all his choices, did Pitt settle on "Seven"? "I love movies from the '70s like 'The French Connection' and that's what (director) David Fincher and I talked about during our first meeting. I was looking for something with a documentary feel. I wanted to play a character who has flaws, who has good intentions but makes mistakes. I also wanted to kill the mythic thing -- this, like, larger-than-life thing about me."
^Jacqueline Coley (January 14, 2020). "The Safdie Brothers' Five Favorite Films". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 15 July 2021. Benny Safdie: "Last one. I'm going to go with The French Connection, because it's one of the most incredible cop movies and pulp movies there is. The camera work, Gene Hackman, the shots from up on the rooftop looking down. That chase scene alone puts it on this list. You hear how they made that movie, and you really feel the bare hands that went into that thing, and it just reset how you make a movie like that. You know, totally changed the game on that level. Just seeing that car barrel through the streets, you feel the danger and you feel the pressure of all of these things. It's doing pulp in a whole new way and in a visceral way. Then, on top of that, you have these people with real stakes and real things happening to them, and [director William] Friedkin, he's a king."
^Jeffrey Wells (February 25, 2009). "Atrocious...Horrifying". Hollywood Elsewhere. Archived from the original on June 2, 2009. Retrieved August 8, 2009.
King, Neal, Rayanne Streeter, and Talitha Rose. "Cultural Studies Approaches to the Study of Crime in Film and on Television." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (2016). online
Lichtenfeld, Eric. Action speaks louder: Violence, spectacle, and the American action movie (Wesleyan University Press, 2007).
Ramaeker, Paul. "Realism, revisionism and visual style: The French Connection and the New Hollywood policier." New Review of Film and Television Studies 8.2 (2010): 144–163. online
The French Connection essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010, ISBN0826429777, pages 674-676
