The French Connection

[kalowski]

Just found this on Talking Pictures.
Must have seen it ten times but it's everything I love about movies.
What a film!
The grit of 70s Manhattan, and what really feels like a glimpse of the "anything goes" drug squad. Hackman and Schneider are magnificent and it's a great bit of guerilla film making at times.

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's a bloody good film.

I thought the French 2014 La French/The Connection was a decent period successor as a 'from the other side' tale.

[willbo]

what is it about 70s movies that managed to be so more raw but larger than life at the same time

[zomgmouse]

it's just a classic isn't it

the story of why Fernando Rey got cast is pretty funny:

The casting of Fernando Rey as the main French heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier (irreverently referred to throughout the film as "Frog One"), resulted from mistaken identity. Friedkin had seen Luis Buñuel's 1967 French film Belle de Jour and had been impressed by the performance of Francisco Rabal, who had a small role in the film. However, Friedkin did not know his name, and remembered only that he was a Spanish actor. He asked his casting director to find the actor, and the casting director instead contacted Rey, a Spanish actor who had appeared in several other films directed by Buñuel. After Rabal was finally reached, they discovered he spoke neither French nor English, and Rey was kept in the film.

haven't seen the sequel but it's meant to be surprisingly quite good isn't it

[kalowski]

it's just a classic isn't it

the story of why Fernando Rey got cast is pretty funny:

haven't seen the sequel but it's meant to be surprisingly quite good isn't it

Ages since I've seen it, but surprisingly quite good is a good description. It's not in the same league as #1, but it's very watchable.

[sevendaughters]

There's a bit of Popeye on smack nonsense in the second one that slows the pace, but "not as good as the first film" is something that is true of 99.9% of films.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

The sequel serves as a realistic portrayal of Marseille in the seventies. Director John Frankenheimer was already an alcoholic at that point (the death of Robert Kennedy had a VERY traumatic effect on him, as Kennedy spent the day of the election at Frankenheimer's place, and Frankenheimer dropped him at the hotel), with a very uneven track record during three decades, but he could occasionally deliver. Frankenheimer had spent a lot of time in France and spoke French fluently. He was even able to experiment during production, as some scenes were half improvised, with Hackman interacting with actual passersby while the cameras were hidden from view.

The gritty and tight pacing of the original isn't really there. The incident at the climax of the first film isn't really addressed either in the sequel. And there's none of the based on actual facts stuff this time. It's more a fictional story about a fish out of water (something that's literally highlighted in the opening) who turns out to be a cop in France. The smack sequence is worth it, if only for the scene with Cathleen Nesbit (who was close to 87 at the time) and for depicting the effects of drugs (while they were more of a MacGuffin in the original). Then it takes time before there's an action sequence, but they turn out to be quite efficient. The ending, without any major spoiler, is weird, as it switches repeatedly to first person perspective.

However, I first saw it on French TV, one week after the original, and it was jarring, given that both films were dubbed, except that they had to change everything for the second one, with Hackman now speaking in an heavily accented French. Also, Fernando Rey's undubbed French in both films is really terrible. Rabal later worked with Friedkin on Sorcerer.

The story about the car where the heroin was hidden in the first film was the inspiration for Bourvil and Louis de Funès' "The Sucker" (the comedy they did just before La Grande Vadrouille). Director Gérard Oury assumed that the French television personality to whom the car belonged was a patsy (while he turned out to be an accomplice) and wrote a whole script around it.

[sevendaughters]

If you like this you should definitely check out Battle of Algiers, Z, and any of the later Melville films like Army of Shadows, Le Samourai, and Cercle Rouge. But yeah, 70s NYC on film can't be beat. And the music! Christ.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Or The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and A Dog Day's Afternoon.

[kalowski]

Good recommendations. I have not seen Army of Shadows and never even heard of Cercle Rouge!!!

Or The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and A Dog Day's Afternoon.

Both fantastic films.

[checkoutgirl]

Cercle Rouge

That's my favourite of the Melville films, a real man's film.

[kalowski]

Well I am a real man so ...

[zomgmouse]

The sequel serves as a realistic portrayal of Marseille in the seventies. Director John Frankenheimer was already an alcoholic at that point (the death of Robert Kennedy had a VERY traumatic effect on him, as Kennedy spent the day of the election at Frankenheimer's place, and Frankenheimer dropped him at the hotel), with a very uneven track record during three decades, but he could occasionally deliver. Frankenheimer had spent a lot of time in France and spoke French fluently. He was even able to experiment during production, as some scenes were half improvised, with Hackman interacting with actual passersby while the cameras were hidden from view.

The gritty and tight pacing of the original isn't really there. The incident at the climax of the first film isn't really addressed either in the sequel. And there's none of the based on actual facts stuff this time. It's more a fictional story about a fish out of water (something that's literally highlighted in the opening) who turns out to be a cop in France. The smack sequence is worth it, if only for the scene with Cathleen Nesbit (who was close to 87 at the time) and for depicting the effects of drugs (while they were more of a MacGuffin in the original). Then it takes time before there's an action sequence, but they turn out to be quite efficient. The ending, without any major spoiler, is weird, as it switches repeatedly to first person perspective.

However, I first saw it on French TV, one week after the original, and it was jarring, given that both films were dubbed, except that they had to change everything for the second one, with Hackman now speaking in an heavily accented French. Also, Fernando Rey's undubbed French in both films is really terrible. Rabal later worked with Friedkin on Sorcerer.

The story about the car where the heroin was hidden in the first film was the inspiration for Bourvil and Louis de Funès' "The Sucker" (the comedy they did just before La Grande Vadrouille). Director Gérard Oury assumed that the French television personality to whom the car belonged was a patsy (while he turned out to be an accomplice) and wrote a whole script around it.

great info thank you!
apparently they dubbed rey in french in the first one

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Frankenheimer tended to record very entertaining audio commentaries (sometimes more than the film itself), and the one for FCII is no exception.

He tells a story about a deleted scene shot in hidden camera mode in which Popeye asked for direction from an unsuspecting cop who handled the traffic at a crossroad. Hackman was supposed not to understand what the cop was saying, so the cop had to explain it over and over. Until the point where the camera zoomed out and showed that a traffic jam had formed.
Turns out that the cop had got his position due to a well-connected uncle. Officials from Marseille seized the footage or forced the production not to use it, especially as it was shot without authorization, like many scenes in the movie.

[Keebleman]

Saw the Safdie Bros' Good Time last night. A superb film, and very close to that early 70s feel.  They didn't shoot without permits but behaved as if that was what they were doing, and so didn't lock down locations or tell passers-by what was happening.

[monkfromhavana]

Don't remember much about French Connection 2, but I concur with everyone that it's a great film and you can almost feel the grime under your fingernails.

[Blumf]

French Connection 2 is on Talking Pictures TV in 40 mins, 2335h