The French Connection (1971)

I don’t think I had caught up with this one since it was new, although I recall I was so smitten then I saw it a few times. It was the big car chase that kept me coming back, a total thrill at the time. The whole thing holds up pretty well, particularly if ‘70s action, car chases, and/or Gene Hackman are your thing. The Road Warrior spoiled me for car chase scenes ever since, but the epic one featured here, racing to keep up with a subway train on elevated tracks overhead, is at least as good as anything you might find on Rockford Files reruns (RIP Stuart Margolin btw, who played the extremely annoying Angel Martin and died last month). Hackman, of course, is always excellent, one of the best we’ve got, going all the way back to Bonnie and Clyde and at least through Unforgiven and maybe The Royal Tenenbaums. He’s a dirty cop here, and one thing that has changed for me since 1971 is that it doesn’t seem as heroic—his busts and investigations routinely go over the line and I have considerably less sympathy for him now. The narrative is somewhat hard to follow because of director William Friedkin’s frenzied and fractured style, which in many ways rivals the work of his peer Nicolas Roeg. It’s hard to follow, but basically all you need to know is there’s a big drug deal going down—a large shipment of heroin coming in from Marseille (which makes it the French connection, see). Popeye Doyle (Hackman) is on the case, working off his various insane hunches, which unfortunately for everyone often (not always) prove out. Owen Roizman’s camera is as restless and energizing as the New York streets he is shooting on. The edits are crackling sharp. The French Connection is gritty, it’s hard-school knocks, and it’s still reasonably entertaining. Also of note is a soundtrack by Don Ellis, which is edgy yet unobtrusive, fitting itself well into all the noise of this picture. The Three Degrees get a cameo performing in a club too and it is terrific. I didn’t remember it from seeing this when it was new, but now it seems almost worth the price of admission alone.