Car Movies

The French Connection is a 1971 Hollywood crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore. It tells the story of two New York City policemen who are trying to intercept a heroin shipment coming in from France. It is based on the actual, infamous “French Connection” trafficking scheme. It stars Gene Hackman (as pork pie hat-wearing New York City police detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle), Fernando Rey (as the villain French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier) and Roy Scheider (as Jimmy’s partner Buddy “Cloudy” Russo). It also features Eddie Egan and Sonny “Cloudy” Grosso, the real-life police detectives on whom Hackman’s and Scheider’s characters were based.

It was the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since the introduction of the MPAA film rating system. It also won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Ernest Tidyman). It was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Roy Scheider), Best Cinematography, and Best Sound. Tidyman also received a Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award for his screenplay.

In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Plot

The film revolves around the smuggling of narcotics between Marseilles, France and New York City. The film opens in Marseilles with a policeman staking out Alain Charnier, a French criminal who ostensibly works as a former stevedore-turned-shipping executive but is in fact involved in smuggling heroin from France to the United States. The French policeman is eventually killed by Charnier’s henchman, Pierre Nicoli.

In New York City, detectives James “Popeye” Doyle and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo are also performing an undercover stakeout, with Doyle dressed as Santa Claus and Russo pretending to be a hot dog stand vendor. Eventually the suspect they are waiting for makes a break for it, and the detectives pursue him on foot. After catching up with their suspect and delivering a severe beating after the suspect cuts Russo on the arm with a knife, the detectives aggressively interrogate the man and eventually force him to reveal where his “connection” is based.

After Russo’s arm injury is treated, Doyle convinces him to go out for a drink. At the nightclub they go to, Doyle becomes interested in two people: Salvatore “Sal” Boca and his beautiful young wife, Angie, who are lavishly entertaining several known Mob members involved in narcotics. Doyle persuades his partner to come along as they tail the couple; several scenes are shown establishing the fact that although the Bocas run a modest newsstand diner, their extravagant lifestyle includes nearly nightly trips to several nightclubs, as well as driving several different new cars, which indicates they may be involved in some sort of criminal activity. Eventually there is a link established between the Bocas and well-to-do lawyer Joel Weinstock, who is rumored to have extensive connections in the narcotics underworld (in a voice over exchange Popeye and Cloudy allude to a drug shipment from Mexico bankrolled by Weinstock).

Doyle and Russo then roust an African American bar in Bedford Stuyvesant where the majority of the patrons are in possession of low quality marijuana and other minor drugs. The rousting is a stunt for Doyle to find an informant (who he physically assaults to keep his cover) whom he then questions about an apparent shortage of hard drugs on the street; Doyle is told that there is word a major shipment of heroin is on its way. The detectives convince their supervisor, Walt Simonson, to pursue wiretapping the Bocas’ phones and use several ruses to try to obtain more information on their subjects.

The film now centers on three main points: the criminals’ efforts to smuggle drugs into the U.S. which is made easier when Charnier dupes his friend Henri Devereaux into importing an automobile into the U.S. (unbeknownst to Devereaux, the drugs are carefully concealed within the vehicle) and the eventual sale of the drugs to Weinstock and Sal Boca; the efforts of Doyle and Russo to shadow Boca and Charnier; and the conflicts the two detectives have with both Simonson (their superior) and a federal agent named Mulderig. Both Doyle and Mulderig openly dislike each other; Russo and Doyle feel that they can handle the bust without the government’s help; and Mulderig never hesitates to criticize Doyle on items ranging from trivialities like Doyle’s appearance to an incident in the past where a policeman was killed and Mulderig clearly holds Doyle responsible for it; when Mulderig caustically states, “the last time you were dead certain, we had a dead cop,” Doyle comes to blows with Mulderig and the two must be separated by Simonson and Russo.

Charnier soon “makes” Doyle and decides he has to be eliminated. Charnier’s henchman Nicoli, who assassinated the French detective, offers to do the job and tries to kill Doyle from a rooftop with a rifle. He botches the job and a cat-and-mouse pursuit underneath the BMT West End Line begins, which eventually leads up to the car chase scene described below. The chase ends when the elevated train Nicoli has hijacked crashes into another train; when Doyle catches up with Nicoli, he shoots Nicoli in the back while he attempts to escape by running back up the stairs leading to the train platform. The car containing the drugs that Devereaux imported into the U.S. is eventually staked out by the police and impounded when some young thieves try to strip the car of its valuables. Doyle and Russo then rip the car apart in an hours-long search, before eventually finding the narcotics after the mechanic states that he has stripped everything on the car except the rocker panels.

At the film’s climax, it seems like the drug deal which takes place at an abandoned factory on Ward’s Island has been a major success; Boca and Weinstock’s resident heroin expert tests the substance and declares it to be of top quality. In return, using an old car that Sal Boca’s brother Lou picked out, the criminals stash the money in almost the same hiding place that was used on the car Devereaux brought in. The car is to be imported into France, where Charnier will then retrieve the money. Charnier and Sal Boca drive off and only moments later run into a roadblock consisting of a large force of police officers, led by Doyle. The police chase Charnier and Sal Boca back to the factory grounds, where Sal is killed during a shootout with the police and almost all of the others surrender after tear gas is fired by the police.

Charnier escapes into the warehouse and a tense sequence ensues as Doyle hunts for Charnier. Russo joins him in the search, which takes a sudden shocking turn as Doyle, trigger-happy and high on adrenaline, sees a shadowy figure in the distance and empties his revolver at it only a split-second after shouting a warning. To Russo’s horror, the man Doyle kills is not Charnier, but Mulderig. Doyle seems unfazed by this and vows to capture Charnier, reloading his gun and running off into another room in the distance. The last sound heard in the film is a single gunshot.

Title cards before the closing credits note that of the people arrested and tried, only Joel Weinstock and Angie Boca got away without any prison time while the case against Weinstock was dismissed, and Angie received a suspended sentence. Alain Charnier was never found or tried in America. It also states that both Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division.