French
Cats: Drama|
I was always amazed at how many people had not seen The French Connection. I was even more shocked when some one said to me that they had never heard of it. The above ad was all over the subway when I was a kid. I will never forget the young woman walking up to my side of the desk on a Friday night with the DVD box in her hand and almost sheepishly asking me ” is this really that good”. I stood there for a moment just staring at her with the shock look in my eyes and on my face. I forget sometimes that I am old and a movie geek. I saw this movie in the theater when I was 10. It made me love Gene Hackman. It made me love the under appreciated Roy Scheider who should have gotten the Oscar for All That Jazz. It furthered along my love of movies and the art and mechanics of movie making. I assured the nice young lady that the movie was really really really good, in fact great. On the following Monday she came to tell me she agreed.
The picture is based on a true story. The largest heroin bust in New York, maybe the world. The legend goes that one night detective Eddie Egan was out with his partner, detective Sonny Grosso when they saw a couple that flashed a great deal of money but didn’t look quite right. On a hunch the detectives followed the couple and the rest is history.
The movie fleshes out the international aspects beautifully. A documentary filmaker coming from his native france with his beautiful Lincoln (I know, a Lincoln Mark 5 in France?) to make a film. In need of funding he agrees to let his car be a herion mule for Alain Chanier (Fernando Rey), a dapper businessman from Marseilles, France, who is in reality a drug lord working on selling an enormous amount of almost pure heroin in New York City.
The local aspects also flesh out nicely. The New York based buyer of the heroin is small time hood Salvatore Boca(Tony Lo Bianco). He and his wife Angie are the couple who end up getting followed by detectives Egan and Grosso (Doyle and Russo in the movie). Sal Boca is putting together the finacing for what could be the biggest payoff for him and every one else involved. The couple had been followed after a long night of flashing money to a small candy store - newspaper/magazine store - luncheonette (these do not exist anymore but in movies) in Brooklyn. With Sal & Angie’s (the name of the candy store) under surveillance detective Russo (Roy Scheider) notice upper level mob types and money people going in and out of a back room. All of this suspisious behavior and goings on lead detective “Popeye” Doyle on an almost animal like search for the heroin and those bringing it in. His pursuit is so persistant that almost costs him his life in botched sniper attack.
Gene Hackman is masterful in the role of “Popeye” Doyle. He almost didn’t make it though. Burt Lancaster and Robert Mitchum were both offered the role first, both turned it down probably due to Doyle’s almost unlikeable character. Both Lancaster and Mitchum would have been good (most people know how I feel about Mitchum) but they were too old for the role as far as I am concerned. Gene Hackman who was not well known at the time brought a younger energy to the role, making it believable that a member of the law enforcement community would have the energy to tail someone all night long. Mr. Hackman also brought a what I called an “animal” aspect to Popeye Doyle, especially when it came to the pursuit of “bad guys”. His overwhelming desire to stay with this case, something he believes could be huge, knows no limitations. I believe that Mr. Hackman’s perfomance as Popeye Doyle is as if he were a wild law enforcement animal. While following Sal in a car he gets stuck in traffic on the exit ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mr. Hackman’s Popeye Doyle gets out and runs after the car he was following like a wild dog. His behavior in a few bars in a search for drugs is ferocious; if that happened today it would have brought indictments and the ACLU out against him. When he is questioned by superiors as to the validity of the case he becomes enraged. All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the car chase.
The look of the movie is shall we say. gritty. Especially when it Popeye and Cloudy (detective Russo’s nickname) are on screen. There is a great and obvious contrast scene in which our hero’s have followed Alain Chanier to a fancy east side French restaurant. While the alledged drug lord is having a fancy French lunch Popeye and Cloudy are outside in the bitter cold, standing there eating pizza. Inside it looks warm and clean. Outside looks cold and dirty. The picture is populated with characters and locations that evoke another era of New York that is gone. And I still haven’t mentioned the car chase.
Producer Philip D’Antoni must have loved a good car chase. The following year he produced and directed a picture called The Seven - Ups which had a very similar feel to French Connection but not it’s depth. Although scripted by Sonny Grosso it is no where near the caliber of French Connection. It is, however, a decent movie with an incredible car chase (right through the upper westside). The French Connection car chase is probably the best car chase ever put on film. There is no describing it. One must see it. Since it is not playing at a theater near you, the Fox Movie Channel will have to do. Like I said, I was 10 when I saw it in the theaters. I was not horribly scarred by it.
May 16th at 8:00PM on the Fox Movie Channel
