The French Connection
The French Connection (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from freefall-productions.com on 02/11/20)
1971 / US / 104 minutes
“That son of a bitch is here! I’m gonna find him and I’m gonna get him!”
Director: William Friedkin / Screenplay: Ernest Tidyman, based on the novel by Robin Moore / Director of Photography: Owen Roizman / Music: Don Ellis / Production: Philip D’Antoni for Twentieth Century Fox / Cast: Gene Hackman (Jimmy Doyle), Fernando Rey (Alain Charnier), Roy Schneider (Buddy Russo), Tony Lo Bianco (Sal Boca), Marcel Bozzuffi (Pierre Nicoli) Frederic de Pasquale (Devereaux), Bill Hickman (Mulderig).
The French Connection is the real deal: a true, undisputed classic of modern cinema. I normally avoid writing about undisputed classics (cinematic or otherwise), either those I personally love or those I do actually dispute. It’s like when the writer comes to tackle the entry for Star Wars in a “Top 100 Sci- Fi Films” magazine article- the problem is coming up with anything worth saying when it’s all been said before.
1971 / US / 104 minutes
“That son of a bitch is here! I’m gonna find him and I’m gonna get him!”
Director: William Friedkin / Screenplay: Ernest Tidyman, based on the novel by Robin Moore / Director of Photography: Owen Roizman / Music: Don Ellis / Production: Philip D’Antoni for Twentieth Century Fox / Cast: Gene Hackman (Jimmy Doyle), Fernando Rey (Alain Charnier), Roy Schneider (Buddy Russo), Tony Lo Bianco (Sal Boca), Marcel Bozzuffi (Pierre Nicoli) Frederic de Pasquale (Devereaux), Bill Hickman (Mulderig).
The French Connection is the real deal: a true, undisputed classic of modern cinema. I normally avoid writing about undisputed classics (cinematic or otherwise), either those I personally love or those I do actually dispute. It’s like when the writer comes to tackle the entry for Star Wars in a “Top 100 Sci- Fi Films” magazine article- the problem is coming up with anything worth saying when it’s all been said before.
But the point of this book (and it’s predecessor) is not just to introduce lost or forgotten gems to a wider audience but to also encourage readers to see the better known works included in a different light. The French Connection obviously falls into the latter category because before it was a classic, it was incredibly daring for it’s time.
It’s protagonist is a foul- mouthed, drunken, casually racist antihero who shoots a fleeing suspect in the back, it’s style goes way beyond “Gritty Realism” all the way into documentary- like guerrilla filmmaking and half it’s dialogue isn’t even in English. All this would be pretty unusual for an Oscar favourite now but in the early ’70’s, it was unheard of.
Notoriously hard- living hellraiser William Friedkin had long been a connoisseur of French cinema (one- too good to check- quote about him from a critic at the time was that “If he was any more of a Francophile he’d be a fucking onion”) and had started out the most arthouse of the New Hollywood directors in the late ’60’s. Friedkin was extremely anti- commercialism and said he’d never make anything with a budget of over one million dollars.
Despite also conducting several short term casual relationships, his girlfriend at the time was the daughter of Howard Hawks. Friedkin had made a string of arty financial failures by the time he eventually met Hawks, who told him: “People don’t want stories about somebody’s problems or any of that psychological shit. What they want is action stories. Every time I made a film like that, with a lot of good guys against bad guys, it had a lot of success- if that matters to you”.
“That really stayed with me. I would have embarked on a course of having made obscure Miramax- type films before Miramax” Friedkin recalled years later, “But I had this epiphany that what we were doing wasn’t making films to hang in the fucking Louvre. We were making films to entertain people and if they didn’t do that first they didn’t fulfil their primary purpose. It was like somebody gives you a key and you didn’t even know there was a lock; it led to The French Connection”.
As focussed as Friedkin now was on his newfound purpose of making a no nonsense thriller, he still retained his experimental spirit and would bring it into the mainstream with him. Black and white morality was first out of the proverbial window, followed swiftly by formal, by the numbers shooting. Actors didn’t even block scenes- Friedkin just told his cameramen to try to follow the action as it was happening as if it was real.
The script (written by Shaft creator Ernest Tidyman) and the book it was based on were hardly even used- instead, the cast improvised with material given to them by their real life counterparts. The true events that inspired The French Connection had taken place a decade previously. Two NYPD detectives, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso (both have cameo roles in the film) had been out drinking after work when they spotted a seemingly newly affluent and unusually young gangster out partying with several better known, established villains.
After following the real version of the film’s Sal Boca for the rest of the night, Egan and Grosso set up a complex surveillance operation that would eventually reveal that he was a minor part of a much larger heroin smuggling ring doing business with a contact in Marseilles. Whilst the idea of doing the film as a period piece was abandoned early on (even just ten years later it would have been way beyond the budget), The French Connection does follow the real events very closely.
As the fictionalised Egan and Grosso (renamed Jimmy Doyle and Buddy Russo), Gene Hackman and Roy Schneider used the real duo’s interrogation techniques and surveillance tactics and the mechanic who dismantles the car being used to smuggle the heroin is the actual mechanic who did it playing himself.
The ringleader of the operation did get away as Alain Charnier does (the entirely fictional French Connection II has Doyle catching up with him a few years later) and was said to have been allowed to disappear by the French authorities as he’d also been a resistance hero. However, Doyle accidentally shooting his FBI rival Mulderig at the end was thankfully made up- Egan approved it because he disliked the (still unnamed) real Mulderig so much.
Fernando Rey playing Charnier was a happy accident that came about when Friedkin’s casting director sent him the wrong man (he’d wanted Francisco Rabal, another Spanish actor who had done a lot of French language roles). Even though Rey’s French wasn’t very good (he’s dubbed whenever he’s not speaking English), everyone was so impressed with him that he was kept on the film anyway.
The famous car chase (technically a Car vs. Train chase) didn’t really happen but was added to The French Connection to introduce a strong action element at it’s midpoint. Although some found it too tense to be enjoyable, it outdoes even Bullit’s chase scene and was filmed in real traffic by Friedkin’s stunt team (Friedkin has since said he’d never attempt anything so dangerous again but he did arguably surpass himself years later with the lesser seen chase in To Live and Die in L.A.).
In summary, there is no better introduction to ’70’s US cinema than The French Connection as it simply has everything the era became famous for: uncompromisingly realistic drama, great characters, outstanding performances and technical brilliance- all whilst remaining the crowd pleasing actioner Friedkin set out to make on the advice of a past master. As Francis Ford Coppola said after seeing it during a break from editing The Godfather: “Well, I guess I failed. I took a popular, pulpy, salacious novel, and turned it into a movie about a bunch of guys sitting around in dark rooms talking”.
It’s protagonist is a foul- mouthed, drunken, casually racist antihero who shoots a fleeing suspect in the back, it’s style goes way beyond “Gritty Realism” all the way into documentary- like guerrilla filmmaking and half it’s dialogue isn’t even in English. All this would be pretty unusual for an Oscar favourite now but in the early ’70’s, it was unheard of.
Notoriously hard- living hellraiser William Friedkin had long been a connoisseur of French cinema (one- too good to check- quote about him from a critic at the time was that “If he was any more of a Francophile he’d be a fucking onion”) and had started out the most arthouse of the New Hollywood directors in the late ’60’s. Friedkin was extremely anti- commercialism and said he’d never make anything with a budget of over one million dollars.
Despite also conducting several short term casual relationships, his girlfriend at the time was the daughter of Howard Hawks. Friedkin had made a string of arty financial failures by the time he eventually met Hawks, who told him: “People don’t want stories about somebody’s problems or any of that psychological shit. What they want is action stories. Every time I made a film like that, with a lot of good guys against bad guys, it had a lot of success- if that matters to you”.
“That really stayed with me. I would have embarked on a course of having made obscure Miramax- type films before Miramax” Friedkin recalled years later, “But I had this epiphany that what we were doing wasn’t making films to hang in the fucking Louvre. We were making films to entertain people and if they didn’t do that first they didn’t fulfil their primary purpose. It was like somebody gives you a key and you didn’t even know there was a lock; it led to The French Connection”.
As focussed as Friedkin now was on his newfound purpose of making a no nonsense thriller, he still retained his experimental spirit and would bring it into the mainstream with him. Black and white morality was first out of the proverbial window, followed swiftly by formal, by the numbers shooting. Actors didn’t even block scenes- Friedkin just told his cameramen to try to follow the action as it was happening as if it was real.
The script (written by Shaft creator Ernest Tidyman) and the book it was based on were hardly even used- instead, the cast improvised with material given to them by their real life counterparts. The true events that inspired The French Connection had taken place a decade previously. Two NYPD detectives, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso (both have cameo roles in the film) had been out drinking after work when they spotted a seemingly newly affluent and unusually young gangster out partying with several better known, established villains.
After following the real version of the film’s Sal Boca for the rest of the night, Egan and Grosso set up a complex surveillance operation that would eventually reveal that he was a minor part of a much larger heroin smuggling ring doing business with a contact in Marseilles. Whilst the idea of doing the film as a period piece was abandoned early on (even just ten years later it would have been way beyond the budget), The French Connection does follow the real events very closely.
As the fictionalised Egan and Grosso (renamed Jimmy Doyle and Buddy Russo), Gene Hackman and Roy Schneider used the real duo’s interrogation techniques and surveillance tactics and the mechanic who dismantles the car being used to smuggle the heroin is the actual mechanic who did it playing himself.
The ringleader of the operation did get away as Alain Charnier does (the entirely fictional French Connection II has Doyle catching up with him a few years later) and was said to have been allowed to disappear by the French authorities as he’d also been a resistance hero. However, Doyle accidentally shooting his FBI rival Mulderig at the end was thankfully made up- Egan approved it because he disliked the (still unnamed) real Mulderig so much.
Fernando Rey playing Charnier was a happy accident that came about when Friedkin’s casting director sent him the wrong man (he’d wanted Francisco Rabal, another Spanish actor who had done a lot of French language roles). Even though Rey’s French wasn’t very good (he’s dubbed whenever he’s not speaking English), everyone was so impressed with him that he was kept on the film anyway.
The famous car chase (technically a Car vs. Train chase) didn’t really happen but was added to The French Connection to introduce a strong action element at it’s midpoint. Although some found it too tense to be enjoyable, it outdoes even Bullit’s chase scene and was filmed in real traffic by Friedkin’s stunt team (Friedkin has since said he’d never attempt anything so dangerous again but he did arguably surpass himself years later with the lesser seen chase in To Live and Die in L.A.).
In summary, there is no better introduction to ’70’s US cinema than The French Connection as it simply has everything the era became famous for: uncompromisingly realistic drama, great characters, outstanding performances and technical brilliance- all whilst remaining the crowd pleasing actioner Friedkin set out to make on the advice of a past master. As Francis Ford Coppola said after seeing it during a break from editing The Godfather: “Well, I guess I failed. I took a popular, pulpy, salacious novel, and turned it into a movie about a bunch of guys sitting around in dark rooms talking”.
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