Otto Penzler ranks, analyzes, & celebrates the 106 greatest crime films of all-time. Catch up on the series and find new installments daily here.
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The French Connection (1971)
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TYPE OF FILM: Detective
STUDIO: Twentieth Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Philip D’Antoni
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
SCREENWRITER: Ernest Tidyman
SOURCE: The French Connection, book by Robin Moore
RUNNING TIME: 104 minutes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gene Hackman……………………………………………………………..Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle
Fernando Rey……………………………………………………………….………Alain Charnier
Roy Scheider…………………………………………………………………………Buddy Russo
Tony LoBianco…………………………………………………………..………………..Sal Boca
Marcel Bozzuffi……………………………………………………………………….Pierre Nicoli
Frederic De Pasquale……………………………………………………………………Devereaux
Bill Hickman…………………………………………………………………………….Muldering
Ann Rebbot…………………………………………………………………………Marie Charnier
Eddie Egan……………………………………………………………………….Walter Simonson
Sonny Grosso……………………………………………………………………………..…..Klein
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DID YOU KNOW?
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Because of his involvement with The French Connection, Eddie Egan, the real-life New York Police Department detective on whom Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle was based, was fired from his job only seven hours before his retirement papers were due to be signed.
Egan, one of the top cops of the NYPD, had, with his partner Sonny Grosso (the inspiration for Buddy Russo), cracked one of the biggest drug cases in New York City history, nabbing heroin worth $32,000,000 on the street. This case formed the basis for Robin Moore’s book, subsequently made into The French Connection.
Hired to work on the film as a consultant along with a small role (as Walter Simonson), Egan was pleased with Gene Hackman’s portrayal of him and was proud of the film. The NYPD, however, was not at all pleased to see its cops portrayed as vicious thugs who beat up suspects as brutally as criminals did. The image of rogue cops, ignoring the rules of the job as well as repeatedly breaking the laws they were sworn to uphold, enraged the department. Egan went on to do other film and television work, including small acting roles and consulting jobs, notably on Prime Cut (1972), which starred Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman; The Seven-Ups (1973), with Roy Scheider and Tony LoBianco; and Report to the Commissioner (1975), with Michael Moriarty.
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THE STORY
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Doyle and Russo spot a group of drug-involved crooks at a bar, and Doyle talks Russo into following the one they don’t know, Sal Boca, “just for fun.” They soon learn that they have stumbled onto one of the biggest drug deals ever to go down in New York, as 120 pounds of heroin are being smuggled into the United States from France in an automobile belonging to a French TV actor, Devereaux, who has no idea that he is smuggling drugs.
A major surveillance effort ensues, with the FBI being called in to work with the NYPD, and the principal suspects are followed. However, Alain Charnier (referred to by Doyle as “Frog One”) spots Doyle’s tail and loses him in the subway. With Doyle clearly their major problem, Charnier’s associate, Pierre Nicoli, tries to shoot Doyle, accidentally killing a woman passing by. Doyle chases him to a rooftop and then to an elevated train, which Nicoli commandeers as the cop pursues him by car. When the train races out of control and crashes, Nicoli leaps out and Doyle shoots him.
The police realize that the drugs have been hidden in Devereaux’s car, but they find it clean when they search it. Doyle refuses to let the car go, knowing that the drugs must be there, and the car is virtually disassembled before they find the bags of powder in the rockers. The car is put back together and returned with apologies to the actor, who has been told that the car was stolen and recovered, and the police follow as he drives to some ramshackle building on Ward’s Island in New York’s East River.
Just as the drug deal is about to be transacted, the police and FBI men, having surrounded the buildings, order the culprits to surrender, but the gangsters open fire and a full-scale gun battle ensues, during which Doyle accidentally shoots an FBI agent. When the roundup is concluded, Charnier has escaped, the remaining criminals are given relatively light sentences, and Doyle and Russo, because of their flouting of police-department rules, are transferred as punishment.
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Director William Friedkin was only thirty-two years old when he made The French Connection. The chase scene, in which Popeye is in a car and his quarry is in an elevated train, is without question the most exciting chase scene in movie history. It has been emulated often, of course, but never bested.
Gene Hackman had been Friedkin’s seventh choice to play “Popeye” Doyle. His first had been Steve McQueen, followed by a string of others, including Jackie Gleason and even columnist Jimmy Breslin. It was Hackman’s biggest starring role, though he had made a good splash in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He had been eager to take the role. “When I first read the part,” he has been quoted as saying, “it seemed like the chance to do all those things I watched James Cagney do as a kid.”
Although not as good as the original, the sequel, French Connection II, made four years later, is also a first-rate drama, with Gene Hackman turning in another outstanding performance as “Popeye” Doyle and the elusive Alain Charnier again being well played by Fernando Rey. A much less successful effort was Popeye Doyle, a 1986 television movie.
Eight Academy Awards nominations went to The French Connection. The film won for: Best Picture, Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman), and Best Editing (Jerry Greenberg). Tidyman also won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his screenplay, and Hackman was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics. Friedkin also received the Best Director award from the Directors Guild. In recognition of the memorable chase scene as well as the superb moment when “Frog One” escapes Doyle’s tail on the subway, Jerry Greenberg, thanked the New York City subway system when he picked up his Oscar for Editing.
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BEST LINE
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Doyle and Russo have just caught a junkie and are trying to get him to talk. Russo asks him to name his supplier, without much luck, when the apparently insane Doyle asks him “When’s the last time you picked your feet? Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie? You’ve been there, right? You sat on the edge of the bed, didn’t you? You took off your shoes and put you fingers between your toes and picked your feet, didn’t you? …I’m gonna nail you for picking your feet in Poughkeepsie.” Don’t worry if you don’t get it. No one does.
