The movie
The French Connection is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film. Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey and Marcel Bozzuffi are the protagonists. William Friedkin directed it.
At the 44th Academy Awards, the film earned eight nominations and won five ones (Best Picture, Best Actor (Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay).
The film is about two tough New York City Detectives, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (played by Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (played by Scheider). They try to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming from France on behalf of Alain Charnier, a suave and urbane gentleman who, nevertheless, runs a heroin-smuggling syndicate (played by Rey).
The story is deployed with many adventurous scenes, which undoubtedly inspired a lot of directors of subsequent action films.
The scene
Popeye chases Pierre Nicoli, who is Charnier’s hitman (played by Bozzuffi), who boards an elevated subway train. Nicoli shoots a policeman who tries to intervene and hijacks the train. The scene is the chase of the train by a car. Popeye drives the car. It is one of the most breathtaking action scenes in the film history.
It is remarkable that the car chase was filmed without obtaining the proper permits from the city. Instead, members of the NYPD’s tactical force helped to clear traffic for approximately five blocks in each direction. Permission was given to control the traffic signals on those streets where they ran the chase car.
However, they illegally continued the chase into sections with no traffic control, where they actually had to evade real traffic and pedestrians.
Many of the (near) collisions in the movie were therefore real and not planned. The near-miss of the lady with the baby carriage scene was carefully rehearsed. A camera was mounted on the car’s bumper for the shots from the car’s point-of-view.
The French Connection certainly deserves a leading place in any cinephile library.
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