The French Connection  ★★★★★

THE 1970s were arguably the most productive decade in modern cinema history.

Films like The French Connection and The Godfather set standards in visual story-telling that crime dramas still seek to emulate.

The former film was released in 1971 and remains best known for its stunning eight-minute action sequence in which a car chases a speeding elevated train, causing mayhem in its path.

The sequence is important because it mirrors the approach taken by director William Friedkin for the entire film, emulating guerrilla-style techniques he had seen in recent films like Z and The Battle of Algiers.

In these films, rather than closing the streets to pedestrians and traffic for filming, the directors had co-mingled the actors with the public and surrounds, shooting at street level and creating a new, semi-documentary style of authenticity to their dramas.

Friedkin’s piece de resistance – and something he admits was entirely reckless and would never happen today – was to put star Gene Hackman behind the wheel and just film him and other stunt cars tearing down the road without any official permissions, putting unsuspecting motorists as well as actors and crew at huge safety risk and opening up the studio to potential prosecution.

The result speaks for itself with the chase considered one of the three greatest in cinema history (alongside car v car in Bullitt and chariot v chariot in Ben Hur) but The French Connection is also much more, a thrilling approach to naturalism in directing and acting that helped create the police procedurals that have dominated film and television screens since.

The film is written by Ernest Tidyman and based on a 1969 non-fiction book by Robin Moore who also wrote two other novels made into interesting films around the same period – The Green Berets and The Happy Hooker.

Tidyman’s script adjusts real events and characters to tell the story of the dogged work and commitment of two New York detectives Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle and Buddy ‘Cloudy’ Russo, that led to a massive international drug bust. Their real-life counterparts, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, play bit-parts in the film.

Alain Charnier is a rich French drug smuggler who partners with mid-level New York mobster Sal Boca who is determined to close a deal that will make him a bigger player.

An off-duty hunch by Doyle to follow Boca leads to a growing surveillance operation. The combination of Doyle’s obsessive determination and the criminals’ arrogance and ego leads to their downfall.

Charnier manipulates a French television actor as the unwitting courier of heroin from Marseilles that will be worth more than $30 million on the street. When Doyle’s efforts start to threaten the operation, Charnier orders his assassination, leading to the stunning chase sequence.

 The film’s style is different for a variety of reasons –  bystanders pass through scenes unaware of filming, dialogue between characters occurs over other scenes, background noise is enhanced, the camera lingers on small details, e.g. a licence plate, extreme close-ups are reflected in windows and mirrors.

The city of New York is almost a character in the film, heaving with life, looking in places like a warzone, its junkie population desperate for the relief that will come from the successful deal.

In the way is an anti-hero made for and by the city – bold, brash, confident, booze-fuelled Popeye Doyle – a racist, womaniser and bigot whose commitment and determination veers dangerously into single-mindedness and tunnel-vision, putting everyone, colleagues and those in his sights, on edge.

It’s a fantastic performance by Hackman who was rewarded with the Academy Award for Best Actor The excellent main cast includes Roy Scheider as Russo, Fernando Rey as Charnier and Tony Lo Bianco as Boca, but another strength is the fact that every performance, no matter how minor, comes across as absolutely authentic to the story and location.

Apart from the chase, which occurs about an hour in, and the final showdown, many of the best and most memorable scenes are smaller ones that help create the extraordinary final result.

Charnier’s henchman taking a piece of bread from a dead man’s shopping bag, Doyle having pizza and bad coffee while watching Charnier feasting inside a five-star restaurant, a drug purity tester told he can take ‘the rest’ reaching for a large bag only to be scolded, Doyle and Russo laughing at Sal’s argument with his girlfriend Angie caught on surveillance tape, Charnier and Doyle playing cat and mouse on the subway and Popeye’s wave to Charnier near the film’s end.

Along with The Godfather and Goodfellas, The French Connection is one of the greatest crime dramas ever made.