William Friedkin's 1971 Best Picture winner 'The French Connection' established a sub-genre all its own, the gritty cop drama, the effects of which are still felt today in any number of television shows and movies.
With a new HD transfer supervised by William Friedkin himself and an extra disc of special features, 'Do you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?' should be a question you'll gladly want to answer.
Taking a number of top honors on Oscar night in '72, 'The French Connection' ran off with Best Picture in a banner year that also included classics 'The Last Picture Show', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Fiddler on the Roof' with Hackman getting Best Actor, Friedkin getting Best Director over Kubrick and the film's secret weapon, editor Jerry Greenberg with the much deserved Best Editing for delivering that knockout middle-act chase sequence.
With a background in documentary filmmaking, Friedkin took those sensibilities and capitalized on the beginning of a more gritty cop movement pioneered by Siegel with 'Madigan' (1968) to solidify his own doomed portrait of then working-class anti-heroes. That Don Siegel's own 'Dirty Harry' opened mere weeks after 'The French Connection’; the directions they each took became obvious.
'Dirty Harry' may have been 'dirty' and 'urban' but it's anti-establishment agenda and squinty-eyed superhero protagonist was a world away from Popeye Doyle. Gene Hackman's blue-collar vigilante cop completely consumed by the cold, gritty streets of New York and what he would find oozing it's way in the shadows. Shot almost exclusively on the streets of Marseilles and New York, with NY being captured during a bleak, early winter; the heroes and villains of the tale could be easily confused.
Based on a true story that had a ironic real-life ending (heroin seized in the case, and in the film, was stolen a year after the film opened; alas, a starting point for the sequel), the constant momentum of the story surrounds the exploits of two NYC detectives, Hackman's Popeye Doyle and his more restrained partner Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo (Roy Scheider), when they stumble onto a drug trafficking deal headed up by shifty Frenchman Charnier (Fernando Rey).
Their brazen law-enforcing methods are established early on as we see the two storm a bar in Bed-Stuy browbeating the black patrons and not afraid of letting a few racial epithets fly.
They do what they need to do to attain leads and capture perps that includes powering past their own uncooperative department to bust Charnier who Doyle knows is up to no good. It all progresses as if the case was actually unfolding in front of hidden cameras.
While Rey and Scheider are fine in the supporting roles, the film only stops to focus, if not care, about Popeye Doyle with Hackman offering up a powerhouse performance.
Well known from 'Bonnie & Clyde' and a few other pics, it was probably 'The French Connection' that launched his long career as a leading character actor star. Hackman gives Doyle a fearless determination to stomp out the enemy at all costs. It doesn't even seem to be about right or wrong as Doyle is no saint but more what side he arbitrarily fell on.
The script is a loose affair that mostly seems to fall upon the naturalistic bickering of Doyle and Russo while offering up only a bare minimum of exposition to keep audiences aware of the broad strokes of the plot. No, the plot is almost irrelevant; it's the characters that make up the plot, the movement of the plot and the conviction of the plot that makes this a classic. Oh, and that kick-ass elevated train/car chase sequence. But make no mistake; this isn't 'Bullitt' which has lingered on a car chase sequence alone.
Like the recent high-def restoration of 'The Godfather' films, I imagine 'The French Connection' will raise a bit of controversy over the fact that William Friedkin personally supervised the transfer and decided to mute the colors and up the grain – which is exactly what people don't want out of a high-def release.
This process could be argued all day long but ultimately it's the director's choice and at least an HD featurette is presented for Friedkin to state his case. I personally could have done with just a bit less grain but parts of the movie look spectacular anyways. Notably, this release looks a lot different than the previous DVD release which reduced the grain and boosted the colors.
One thing that no one can complain about is the lossless audio, however, with Don Ellis's fantastically tense jazz score coming through loud and clear. A host of special features are presented over 2-discs with disc 1 getting two commentaries, one with Friedkin and the other with Hackman and Scheider.
These two were carried over from the old 'FIve Star Collection' DVD release. New to BD is a trivia track with facts on the making of and the true case with photos also popping up - some intriguing stuff here and a nice complement to one of the commentaries. An isolated score track and an intro from Friedkin round out disc 1 extras.
On disc two, special features carried over from the previous DVD release is the selection of 'Deleted Scenes', the BBC Doc 'The Poughkeepsie Shuffle' and 'Making the Connection: The Untold Stories of the French Connection'. All great stuff if you never picked up the old DVD release.
What's new and in HD is a list of featurettes: 'Anatomy of a Chase' is a cool recreation of the chase sequence with Friedkin and producer D'Antoni heading back to Brooklyn to retrace their steps. 'Hackman on Doyle' is a new interview; 'Friedkin and Grosso Remember the Real French Connection' has Friedkin visiting the office of now producer Sonny Grosso whom Doyle was patterned after. 'Scene of the Crime' has Friedkin meet actor/advisor Randy Jurgensen about the sometimes crazy shooting experience.
'Cop Jazz' takes a look at the music of Don Ellis, 'Rogue Cop: The Noir Connection' connects the film to some of Fox's golden age film noirs and 'Color Timing' finishes things off by looking at what Friedkin was aiming for with this HD restoration.
Despite a HD transfer that a few might question, if you're a fan of the film, it looks as if we have no choice but to put our faith in what filmmaker Friedkin wanted. There's still a lot of detail and even the apparent grain fits the mood of the movie so I'm not sure how to call this one.
What I'm not on the fence about is the film which is an unquestionable classic. Fox throws both old and new features at this 2-disc release so this is still an easy recommend. For those annoyed with grain regardless of age or appropriateness, you might want to rent first.
The French Connection [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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