GENE HACKMAN WITH ROY SCHEIDER IN 'THE FRENCH CONNECTION'

Title: THE FRENCH CONNECTION Shown: Gene Hackman, Marcel Bozzuffi Year: 1971 Rating: ****1/2

After becoming a legendary yet sometimes difficult actor, Gene Hackman would put vulnerable young directors through the ringer, ranging from two of his best known films, HOSSIERS and THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS... and years earlier, the Oscar-winning blockbuster that turned him from a recurring co-star into a bonafide movie star, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, was not much different...

Except that William Friedkin didn't bend to Hackman's initial reluctance to fully embrace the sordid, uncompromising nature of New York City cop Popeye Doyle within the pallid purgatory aesthetic... ironically encroached by classy and sophisticated French drug-smuggler Fernando Rey aka "Frog One" (with deadly henchman Marcel Bozzuffi)...

Gene Hackman and Al Fann in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Ignited by Doyle and comparably affable partner Roy Scheider as Buddy Russo's instinctual hunch on well-dressed Tony Lo Bianco, only suspicious for spending too much money at a nightclub... 

Resulting in the titular FRENCH CONNECTION... the bigwig criminal and the nervous climber planning a potential heroin deal of epic, never-heard-of proportions...

Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

With all-night stakeouts, claustrophobic surveillance, sporadic shootouts, a high-octane car chase and the tensely suspenseful conflict of a working-class cop desperately tailing a millionaire kingpin, THE FRENCH CONNECTION is a groundbreaking hybrid of slow-burn/old-school police procedural and viciously rugged 1970's exploitation that... with a jarring soundtrack featuring eerie high-pitched violins that would inhabit Friedkin's THE EXORCIST... is never dull or predictable, thrusting the viewer onto dangerous streets with both the good guys and the bad...

But Hackman's cocky, temperamental Doyle is as equally flawed as he's heroic: from beating up black perpetrators to busting up black barrooms to picking up loose hippie chicks, here's a cop movie that criminals can embrace — providing a lawman's vantage from exploding/shattering glass. 

Gene Hackman and  Alan Weeks in The French Connection with Roy Scheider

Gene Hackman and  Alan Weeks in The French Connection with Roy Scheider

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Tony Lo Bianco with Arlene Farber in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman and real-life counterpart Eddie Egan in The French Connection with Roy Scheider

William Friedkin's The French Connection with Roy Scheider

Tony Lo Bianco with real life Buddy SONNY GROSSO in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Patrick McDermott in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Fernando Rey in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION with Fernando Rey

Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Bill Hickman and real life Doyle EDDIE EGAN in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Marcel Bozzuffi in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION with Irving Abrahams

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Fernando Rey in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Marcel Bozzuffi and Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Arlene Farber in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Tony Lo Bianco in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Benny Marino in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Fernando Rey and Marcel Bozzuffi in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Fernando Rey and Marcel Bozzuffi in THE FRENCH CONNECTION with Frédéric de Pasquale

Fernando Rey and Ann Rebbot in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Roy Scheider in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Patrick McDermott in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Tony Lo Bianco with Harold Gary in THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Fernando Rey and Tony Lo Bianco in THE FRENCH CONNECTION with Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION