French Connection [DVD] [1971]

That said, it's still impossible not to become engrossed into the dirty, twisting narrative as the film still outshines later copycat works. Hackman sparkles in the lead role as Popeye Doyle, and William Friedkin's direction flows from portraying a grimy drug-feuled underworld, through kinetic pursuits and car-chases to a hammerering finale. One of the greatest films of the '70s, and one of the best cop films ever. Unforgettable.

This awesome special edition set features a director/cast commentary, multiple documentaries (like the excellent Poughkeepsie Shuffle) and deleted scenes with commentaries. One to own, I think.

As Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle, Gene Hackman's bruising portrayal of real-life idiosyncratic Harlem special Narcotics Bureau officer Eddie Egan deservedly won him an Oscar - unfortunately overshadowing his partner in the film Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo's (Roy Scheider) less evident contribution to Ernest Tidyman's crackling script. Both Egan and Grosso had small starring rôles in the film (Egan as Lieutenant Walter Simonson, Grosso as Klein), as well as served as technical advisors. By most accounts, Eddie Egan was not a likeable person: an unsympathetic, tireless, vulgar and brutal man, obsessively wedded to his career which was itself engaged in off-the-main-street detective work [he died recently, 2006]. In an attempt to portray Egan's character as accurately as possible, Hackman spent several weeks 'up close and personal' with Egan, getting under his skin. And get under the latter's skin Hackman did, as was attested by Egan's irritation and near-violent outbursts. But Hackman obviously did his research well, did he not ...?!! Apparently, the NYPD was so angered by the film's depiction of it that it punished Egan by firing him just hours before he signed his retirement papers.

Otherwise the film is a pretty straightforward cop thriller ... but with exciting set pieces. The scenes of Hackman's car-train chase under the elevated-railway in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in pursuit of callous hitman 'Frog Two' Pierre Nicoli are extremely tense because ... they were genuine. Producer Phillip d'Antoni wanted something 'extra' over the chase scenes in his earlier Bullitt (1968). The New York City authorities were not contacted for permission to film the scenes there, nor was the NYPD involved in stewarding traffic. Hackman committed several moving violations with a camera plonked on the dashboard in front of him - the looks of horror and fear on his face at the near-misses (eg. the mother with a baby in the pram) ... were entirely real. As was the - entirely unplanned and therefore unrehearsed - 'minor' crash of a civilian's car ... Now THAT was a lucky escape ...

The target of Hackman and Scheider's obsessions is 'Frog One,' Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), the lynchpin in a large heroin import scam. Whilst the cops get soaked standing out in the rain chewing cold pizza, debonair and urbane Charnier dines sumptuously in warm and expensive restaurants. Marseilles is (still) the centre of Union Corse ('Corsican Union') activities in France and parts of the Mediterranean, much as the Mafia is in Sicily, the Camorra in and around Naples, and the Cosa Nostra in the United States. The source of Union Corse heroin was the Laotian section of the still-flourishing 'Golden Triangle' around Burma-Thailand-Laos (recall the restaurateur in AIR AMERICA?). When the French pulled out of the region following defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the heroin trade remained largely under Union Corse control; the Communists saw no reason to stop the decadent/capitalist/imperialist [add your own adjective!] West poisoning itself ... preferably American soldiers and draftees in South Vietnam. Contacts with the region still exist.

After a number of surveillances, arrests, a stripped Lincoln Continental (the rocker panels!), a showdown, and a shoot-out ... wily operator Charnier evades capture, although the stash worth $32 million is lost. Ever relentless, vigilante Doyle will not give up:

"The son of a bitch is here. I saw him. I'm gonna get him ..."