The French Connection (film)

The French Connection is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, and Fernando Rey. The screenplay, by Ernest Tidyman, is based on Robin Moore's 1969 book of the same name about narcotics detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. It tells the story of their fictional counterparts, New York Police Department detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, in pursuit of wealthy French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier (played by Rey).
At the 44th Academy Awards, the film earned eight nominations and won five, for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Scheider), Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing. Tidyman also received a Golden Globe Award nomination, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award for his screenplay. A sequel, French Connection II, followed in 1975, with Hackman and Rey reprising their roles.
The French Connection appeared on the American Film Institute's list of the best American films in 1998 and again in 2007, placing 70th the first time and 98th the second. In 2005, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
In Marseille, a police detective follows Alain Charnier, who runs a heroin-smuggling syndicate. Charnier's hitman, Pierre Nicoli, murders the detective. 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 City by ship. In Brooklyn, police detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle dressed as Santa Claus and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo stake out a bar known for drug trafficking. They later go out for drinks at the Copacabana. Popeye observes Salvatore "Sal" Boca and his wife, Angie, entertaining mobsters involved in narcotics. They tail the couple and establish a link between the Bocas and lawyer Joel Weinstock, a buyer in the narcotics underworld. Popeye learns that a shipment of heroin will arrive soon. 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 in a hurry to make the purchase, but Weinstock urges patience, knowing they are being surveilled. Charnier realizes he is being surveilled as well, identifies Popeye as a detective, and escapes on a departing subway shuttle at Grand Central Station. To evade Popeye, he has Boca meet him in Washington D.C., where Boca asks for a delay to avoid the police. Charnier wants to conclude the deal quickly. On the flight back to New York City, Nicoli offers to kill Popeye, but Charnier says Popeye would just be replaced by another policeman. Nicoli insists, however, saying they will be back in France before a replacement is assigned. Soon, Nicoli attempts to snipe Popeye in Brooklyn but misses. Popeye chases Nicoli, who boards an elevated subway train. Popeye shouts to a policeman on the train to catch Nicoli and then commandeers a passing car. He gives chase, crashing into several vehicles on the way.
Realizing he is being pursued, Nicoli shoots the policeman who tries to intervene, and hijacks the train at gunpoint, forcing the motorman to drive through the next station and shooting the conductor. The motorman suffers a heart attack, and the train is about to collide with another when the emergency brake engages, hurling Nicoli to the floor. Popeye arrives and sees Nicoli descending from the platform. Nicoli sees Popeye and turns to run, but Popeye shoots him dead. After a long stakeout, Popeye impounds Devereaux's Lincoln. In a police garage, mechanics tear the car apart, searching for drugs, but come up empty-handed. Then Cloudy discovers that the car's weight was 120 pounds over its standard weight, implying that the contraband must be in the car. Finally, they remove the rocker panels and find packages of heroin. Because the original car was destroyed during the search, the police substitute a lookalike and return it to Devereaux, who delivers it to Charnier.
Charnier drives to an old factory on Wards Island, where Boca's brother Lou works, 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 inside the rocker panels of another car purchased at a junk car auction, which he plans to take back to France. Charnier and Sal drive off in the Lincoln, but a large contingent of police led by Popeye blocks their path. The police chase the Lincoln back to the factory, where Boca is killed during a shootout. Most of the other criminals surrender. Charnier escapes into a nearby abandoned bakery 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, he tells Cloudy he will get Charnier. He reloads his gun and runs into another room. A single gunshot is heard.
Title cards describe various characters' fates: 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 received a reduced sentence; Devereaux served four years in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy; Charnier was never caught. Popeye and Cloudy were transferred out of the narcotics division and reassigned.
National General Pictures was originally set to produce the film but dropped it, and Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered to make it at Fox with a $1.5 million budget. The film came in $300,000 over budget, at $1.8 million.
The overall atmosphere, character characterization and narrative style are largely influenced by the French film Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville. William Friedkin was also inspired by Alain Delon's performance, where he plays a solitary and methodical hitman, to shape the character of Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman).
In an audio commentary Friedkin recorded for the film's Collector's Edition DVD release, he says the film's documentary-like realism was the direct result of his having seen Costa-Gavras's Z. He describes Z's influence on The French Connection:
The film was among the earliest to show the World Trade Center: the completed North Tower and partially completed South Tower are seen in the background of scenes at the shipyard after Devereaux arrives in New York.
Though the cast proved to be one of the film's greatest strengths, Friedkin had problems with casting from the start. He strongly opposed Gene Hackman as the lead, first considering Paul Newman (too expensive), then Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle, and the columnist Jimmy Breslin, who had never acted. The studio considered Gleason box-office poison after his film Gigot had flopped several years before, Boyle declined the role out of disapproval of the film's violence, and Breslin refused to get behind the wheel of a car, as Popeye does in an integral chase scene. Steve McQueen was also considered, but did not want to do another police film after Bullitt; moreover, as with Newman, his fee was too high. Charles Bronson was also considered for the role. Lee Marvin, James Caan, and Robert Mitchum were also considered; all turned it down. Friedkin almost settled for Rod Taylor (who had actively pursued the role, according to Hackman), another choice the studio approved, before going with Hackman.
The casting of Fernando Rey as Alain Charnier (irreverently called "Frog One" throughout the film) resulted from mistaken identity. Friedkin had seen Luis Buñuel's 1967 film Belle de Jour and been impressed by the performance of Francisco Rabal, who had a small role in it. But Friedkin did not know Rabal's name, remembering only that he was a Spanish actor. He asked his casting director to find the actor, and the casting director contacted Rey, a Spanish actor who had appeared in several other Buñuel films. Rabal was finally reached, but because he spoke neither French nor English, Rey was kept in the film.
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 U.S. via France (see French Connection).
On April 26, 1968, a record-setting 246 lb (111.6 kg) of heroin was seized, concealed in a Citroën DS and smuggled to New York on the SS France ocean liner. The total amount smuggled during the DS's many transatlantic voyages was 1,606 lb (728.5 kg), according to arrested smuggler Jacques Bousquet.
Like its two protagonists, several of the film's other characters have real-life counterparts. Alain Charnier is based on Jean Jehan, who was later arrested in Paris for drug trafficking but not extradited, because France does not extradite its citizens. 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 New York crime families.
Characters not prominently depicted in the film include the special agents and undercover operatives of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), the federal agency primarily responsible for investigating the French Connection, who worked alongside NYPD detectives throughout most of these events until the FBN dissolved later in 1968.
Henri Devereaux, who takes the fall for importing the film's drug-laden Lincoln into New York, is based on Jacques Angelvin [fr], 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. According to the director's commentary, Joel Weinstock is a composite of several similar drug-dealing financiers.
The film is often cited as featuring one of the greatest car chase sequences in movie history. The chase involves Popeye commandeering a civilian's car (a 1971 Pontiac LeMans) and frantically chasing an elevated train on which a hitman is trying to escape. The scene, coordinated by Bill Hickman, was filmed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, roughly running under the BMT West End Line (now 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.
The scene's most famous shot is from a front bumper mount and shows the streets from a low angle. 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 Doyle's car, but due to errors in timing, accidental collisions occurred that were left in the film. Friedkin said he used Santana's cover of Peter Green's song "Black Magic Woman" during editing to help shape the chase sequence. The song does not appear in the film, but 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 at the stairs leading to the elevated train track and shooting him as he tries to run back up them, as captured in a still shot used in a theatrical release poster for the film. Many of the police officers who were advisers for the film objected to the scene on the grounds that shooting a suspect in the back is murder, not self-defense, but Friedkin stood by it, saying 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".
The French Connection was filmed at the following locations:
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars and ranked it one of the best films of 1971. 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." Variety wrote: "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." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded the film four stars out of four and wrote: "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."
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film "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." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "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." 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."
Pauline Kael's review in The New Yorker was generally unfavorable. She wrote: "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." 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.'"
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The site'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." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 94% based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
In 2014, Time Out listed The French Connection as the 31st-best action film of all time, according to a poll of film critics, directors, actors, and stunt actors.
Some writers have called The French Connection a neo-noir film.
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The French Connection as one of his favorite films.
Director David Fincher cited The French Connection as one of the five films that "had a Profound Impact on my Life" and served as an important influence on the cinematography on his film Seven; Brad Pitt cited The French Connection as a reason he participated in Seven.
Director Steven Spielberg has said he studied The French Connection in preparation for his historical action thriller film Munich.
The American Film Institute recognizes The French Connection on several of its lists:
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.
The French Connection has been issued in various home video formats. In 2001, it was released on VHS and DVD in box sets featuring both the film and its sequel, French Connection II. For a 2009 reissue on Blu-ray, Friedkin controversially altered the film's color timing to give it a "colder" look. Cinematographer Owen Roizman, who was not consulted about the changes, called the new transfer "atrocious". In 2012, a new Blu-ray transfer of the movie was released whose color timing both Friedkin and Roizman supervised; the 2009 edition's desaturated and sometimes grainy look was corrected.
In 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 that contains racial slurs. 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.