Field Dispatch
Matt Connarton Unleashed: Erich Pilcher reviews The French Connection.
All right, Popeyes here, your hands on your hands, get off the
bar and get on the wall. What's my name? Popeye Doyle. If
he doesn't like you, he'll take you apart. And it's all perfectly legal
because Doyle fights dirty. You want to take a ride there? Fat man
and plays rough. J Doyle is bad news, but he's a good cop.
We're going there on the barn. How many times have I been down
hard? He looked up and saw him smiling like a shining dime. Yeah,
and hope that he would stay and tell me why he was so heavy?
If he handed out? Who is it? Jewish? Lucky? What
about the last big time Springers? Think? You know? Are you?
He's spritting around what the Russians are in Jersey? They said he sticker,
don't give him a tail. My friend's name is Boker Sounder too, a
Boker Boca from downtown. They're pretty sure you pull off a contract on a
guy named de Marco and that's not a drop. I'm not a charge for
your bloomy nails. Oh Sea doesn't mess. And then on our own,
after working the whole day and night, we tell him the book and we
sat only for particularly week now who do we come up with? The French
Connection? A millionaire export with a record too clean to be true, and
Doyle knows it, but he's been known to make mistakes. You're a hunch.
Is a backfired before it? Though? This time you can't afford to
be wrong. Ust I knew the deal hasn't gone down. I n I
know it hasn't. I could, I could feel I'm dead certain last time
you're dead? Certain we have a dead cop. I left him? Why
what You're hide? The air? The steak up, Frank seats, the
payoff, chase stop talk you all right? Why French Connection. Hollywood,
and of course the films that have been created there have went through many landmark
metamorphosis. These are often defined by era, style, or even political landscape.
This week's film brought forth a new style of filmmaking called the New Hollywood
Way. That brought forth a major change not just in how films were made,
but in how actors and actresses performed in them, how writers wrote them
in how us the viewers not just see them but remember them in the lasting
impressions they make on us. Directed by the recently passed on William Friedkin,
based on the nineteen sixty nine book of the same name. Nineteen seventy one's
French Connection introduces us to New York narcotics detectives Jimmy Popeye Doyle and Buddy Cloudy
Russo played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, respectively. These men, early
in the film find themselves in a heroin investigation that could become the biggest drug
bust in American history. In our first clip, we are going to hear
how this film really change the image of police officers in cinema. Gone were
the happy, go lucky men hunting criminals joyfully? Doyle and Russell harken back
to the hard boiled detectives of the forties. This first scene is an example
of this, is they try to shake down a low rent drug dealer.
This scene is quite interesting because we hear the start of a possible good cop
bad cop game between the two that quickly goes to the wayside. And then
in our second clip, the duo crash a local bar and you again hear
the tough intensity of Doyle. But in this scene one cannot help but notice
allusions to future hard nosed detectives in cinema. Yeah, come on, break
please come on, ain't say nothing to this. Break your ass. Come
on, come on, get out. I don't stub me. Will you
stum men? Lit h? Come on, Jill, Jimmy, come on,
let me man, I'll mest I want to bust you. I want
to bust you. Post we talked, he talked to it. You got
a friend here Monday? You got a friend. You gotta tell us too,
your man? He's what's the last time you picked to pete? Willie?
Who's your connection? Welly, what's his name? Hey? John?
No? No? Mans no, hey no, Jodph Barber, Jodiph Barber.
Right, that's who it isn't it. I don't come sady. What's
Joe's last name? I don't know, man, I know there's a one
twenty fifty man about the barber show? What's time to set? Want to
talking about? Man? I don't. And you know what's said of the
street he lives on? Hey, what's the last on you pick your feet?
What's he talking about? I've got a man of po Keepsi wants to
talk to you. Have you ever been a Pokeepsi? H? Have you
ever been Pokeepsi? Hey? Man, come on, gim me a prag
here, let's talk him about. Hey, you say, come on,
have you ever been pokeepsi? You've been a pokeepsi? I'm I want to
hear it. Come on, yes, have you been there? All right?
Yeah? You sat on the edge of the bed, didn't you?
You talk off your shoes, put your finger between your toes and pick your
feet, didn't you. That's say, all right, you want to see
on my partner. You know what that means, Scott dude, all went
wrong. I gotta stim grip about his bowling scores. Now I'm gonna fust
your ass for those three bags, and I'm gonna nail you for picking your
feet for keepsie. Next the bar, shake down, all right? Pop
eyes here, get your hands on your heads, get off the bar and
get on the wall. Come on, move move it's not sweetheart. Move
Come on, gait around all right? Come on, heakes the window.
Fall turn around here, turn AROUNDO come on, loop, hands out of
your pocket, turn around, turn around on your heart, come on,
turn around, come on, turn around, Get on the wall, get
on an get turn around. Hey, you dropped that, look it up,
hands off, pick it up? Come on, move what are you
looking at? All right? Bring it here? Get your hands out of
your pockets. What's my name? Doyle? What mister Doyle? Come here?
You pick your feet? Do you get over? Get your hands on
your head. We told you people are coming back. We're gonna keep coming
back here until you clean his barrow. Keep your eye on your neighbor.
He dropped something that belongs to you. Hospel here, turn around, we
got here. I just belong to you. I'm stand up there, naughty.
Keep your hands on your head. Get in there if you want to
take a ride there fat ma'am. H they attention. We're gonna ask questions
later. Un around ash all right, shut up, damn shut up?
Anybody want a milk check? All right? Come over here, you and
you, hey whiskers, come on? Who lass? When I call you,
get in you. What made this film such a discovery upon its release
is that, despite being a somewhat fictional film, it views like a documentary.
This was intentionally done by the masterful work of Friedkin. He Is stated
he wanted the viewer to feel as if not even the camera knew what was
going to happen next. The car chase scenes the foot pursuits in this film
are evidence of this. The best auditory example of this is our next clip.
When the heroine finally enters the United States from France, it is tested
for purity. A scene such as this had not been conveyed on America cinema
with such realism. So much so both law enforcement and those that were in
evolved with drug dealing have complimented on its realism in both talking about the purity
of the drug and the business side of it. Last off one two hundred
Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to ten US Government certified two twenty lunar trajectory Junk
of the Month club sirloin steak two thirty create a poison, absolute dynamite,
eighty nine percent pure junk, best I've ever seen. If the rest is
like this, you'll be dealing on this load for two years. So he
taught me. It's oneth a half million. How many kilos sixty sixty kilos,
eight big ones at quilo right, This stuff will take a seven to
one hit on the street, and by the time against down the nickel bags
will be at least thirty two million. Thank you, Howard, Take what
stuff there with you and good night. Ah, not that one, the
little one. I guess we gotta deal, Well, we gotta here sells
a test a deal for half a million dollars? Maybe, baby, Come
on, Joel, I don't know. Guy's an hour once the break,
wants to go back to France. This guy's not gonna hang around and play
games. Ok. He's one of the shrewdest cat I ever come across one
of wires. Schmuck, what's the hurry? You could see a couple of
shows. Visit the top of the Empire State Building. Don't jerk me,
wine stock. I spend a lot of time setting this one up. So
what do you want to badge? This is your first major league game?
Sell one thing I gonna learn. Move calmly, move cautiously. You'll never
be sorry. Look, I've been damned careful up to now. This is
why your phone lines are tapped in the fensive call on all over you like
Fleelans. Look, I'm telling you he'll take the deal somewhere else. So
let him take the sixty kilos of heroin someplace else and find out how easy
it is to put together. I have to make get in cash. He
wouldn't find there's any hurry to know this kind of business. The stuff is
here. We can make the switch in an hour. Look why Stock,
I'm telling you he'll split up. We don't move. This guy's got him
like that. He's everything they say he is. What about you? So?
Are you everything they say you are? In my opinion, the realism
conveyed in this film is what sets it apart from any other cop film.
The intense and brilliant performances by Hackman and Scheider just put this film on another
level. Couple that with the masterful direction of Freakin who you used his experience
in filming documentaries to truly make this film unique upon its release, and it
is allowed its influence to be felt to this day. This film is a
favorite of so many directors, including Spike lee In, David Fincher. The
late legendary director Akirakirasawa called it his favorite film. Brad Pitt stated he took
his acclaimed role in the film seven because of this movie. Upon its release,
it garnered mass critical acclaim. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards,
winning five. This includes Best Picture, Best Director. This is one of
the few films to accomplish that feat and Best Actor for Hackman. Scheider was
nominated for Best Boarding Actor, but did not win the accolades. The acclaim
the influence along with breakthroughs previously stated, truly make this a legendary treasure in
the history of cinema and also is Die cast ironclad proof of the directorial genius
that was William Friedkin. I hope you join me next week when with college
football season starting, we will look at a film often called a football movie,
but is it really will dissect that when we look at the nineteen seventy
four classic The Longest Yard for WMNH and Matt Connerton unleached. This has been
a classic film review with Piltre don't to
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