Chasing After “The French Connection”

Some years ago, backstage at the West Hollywood Festival of Books, I chanced to chat with William Friedkin. It wasn’t much of a conversation: I was hardly a fan of The Exorcist, and didn’t have much in the way of insider questions to pose to the famous director. Nor did he seem to really welcome my interest in his career. Still, he was an Oscar winner, and a leading light among the New Hollywood filmmakers of the 1970s. So the news of his passing sent me to re-watch his most acclaimed thriller, 1971’s The French Connection.

 Despite its title, most of this down-and-dirty film is set in the mean streets of New York City. In early scenes I was pleased to see a few genuine glimpses of the Vieux-Port of Marseille, where some European baddies are planning a major drug deal, sending $32 million worth of heroin to the Big Apple in the trunk of a car being shipped across the Atlantic. By the time they and the dope arrive, two scruffy NYPD detectives (played by Roy Scheider and the Oscar-winning Gene Hackman) are on their trail, and most of the film becomes a cat and mouse game, with the cops pursuing the “frogs” through dingy alleyways and traffic-heavy streets. The mid-film chase involving a hijacked commuter train pursued by Hackman (as “Popeye” Doyle) in a commandeered sedan is what stood out in my mind from my long-ago first viewing of this film, and it’s just as exciting now, some fifty years after the initial release. (Wow! – the woman with the baby carriage really sets the heart athumping.) But there are lots of other great action sequences as well.  I’ve read that in directing this film, Friedkin took his inspiration from the French thriller Z, in which director Costa-Gavras filmed a fictional story about a political assassination in documentary fashion, thus heightening its drama. As Friedkin was to put it, “It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next.” With Z as a  model, he shot The French Connection similarly, using a sense of rawness and uncertainty to pump up the adrenaline of audiences.

 I was surprised to learn that the budget was a modest $1.5 million, though the filmmakers went $300,000 over. But because of what was, even in the Seventies, modest budgeting, Friedkin couldn’t hire a glamorous star like Paul Newman or Steve McQueen. Tough guys Lee Marvin, Peter Boyle, James Caan, and Robert Mitchum turned down the Popeye role, which eventually went to Hackman. He had Hollywood cred, including a Supporting Oscar nomination for Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, but The French Connection is what truly put him on the map.

 Though Popeye and his partner are based on specific New York cops, I was surprised this time around to recognize that the film makes little effort to characterize them outside of their on-the-job behavior, Popeye’s pork-pie hat, and his leering way of challenging others: “Do you pick your feet?” Frankly, they seem to have no life beyond their profession. Their language is raw and their behavior is often beyond the pale. In fact we learn that a former partner of Popeye’s died when one of his hunches backfired. Even when Popeye and Cloudy ultimately triumph, there’s a painful irony: the final crawl makes clear that none of the drug-runners they’ve brought down ever really faces serious punishment, and the kingpin of the whole operation gets away scot-free. Just another day in the life of New York’s Finest.

The West Hollywood Connection: How I Kibbitzed with William Friedkin

 You never know who you’ll bump into at the West Hollywood Book Fair. It all started in the green room, where speakers hang out, enjoying the free food. My panelist Dwayne Epstein, author of Lee Marvin: Point Blank, was chatting with a friendly gentleman, and I asked to be introduced. That’s how I found myself trading opinions with William Friedkin, who shot to fame with such landmark Seventies films as The French Connection and The Exorcist.

Friedkin, author of a brand-new memoir (The Friedkin Connection, natch!), was in a reflective mood. I asked whether he’d crossed paths, early in his career, with Roger Corman, and discovered he was the rare director of that era who did not start out with the King of the Bs. When I remarked on the challenges I had faced in writing a biography of my old boss, he was not overly sympathetic. Most people who hear that Roger demanded of me the right to read my book in manuscript and remove anything he considered “derogatory” are flabbergasted by the man's chutzpah. Friedkin, though, pointed out that most Hollywood figures would be equally demanding. His own wife, former studio chief Sherry Lansing, sought to impose similar conditions on a biography now being written by a talented and sympathetic journalist. But Friedkin prides himself on never reading the various books (like Peter Biskind’s bestselling Easy Writers and Raging Bulls) that touch on his own checkered career.

Friedkin clearly has no great regard for the Corman brand of low-rent filmmaking. But he admires Roger for never laying claim to being an artist. In fact, Friedkin is reluctant to tout himself or any other Hollywood filmmaker as anything more than an entertainer. Art, he feels, is what happens when someone stares at a blank page or a blank canvas (or today a blank computer screen) and then produces something of value. He regards movies as much too collaborative to really bear the stamp of an individual artist, unless we’re talking about a filmmaker on the level of Bergman, Fellini, or Kurosawa. (Hey, Roger Corman distributed masterworks by all three! But I digress.)

My Hollywood Biography panel was less about artists than about the intricate dance between stars and their fans. Michael Stern, whose I Had a Ball is a memoir of his friendship with the immortal Lucy, described how Lucille Ball cherished her fan base, consistently remaining gracious about photos and autographs. Both Dwayne Epstein and B. James Gladstone (The Man Who Seduced Hollywood) waxed eloquent about star power. We learned from Gladstone that legendary Hollywood lawyer Greg Bautzer parlayed his good looks, athletic skills, splendid wardrobe, and suave moves on the dance floor into a life studded with celebrity romance. (Among the glamour girls he squired were Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, and Ava Gardner.)  Lee Marvin, too, was known for his sex appeal. But Epstein insists Marvin pooh-poohed his own attractiveness, comparing himself unfavorably to a real star like Clark Gable, whose mere presence in a studio hallway could cause women to faint dead away. Ageless Milt Larsen paid tribute to the incomparable Cary Grant, who once took it on himself to personally welcome visitors into the famous magicians’ club known as the Magic Castle. The guests were dazzled, wondering how Larsen, the Castle’s founder, had managed to conjure up that particular illusion.  

Personally I’m paying tribute to the booksellers who helped make the fair possible. Kudos to Book Soup, which hosted Friedkin, Sally Kellerman, and other celebs, and also to Traveler’s Bookcase, where fans of my panel could buy books and make their authors feel like stars.    

Beverly at the West Hollywood Book Fair (with thanks to Barbara Troeller)