THE FRENCH CONNECTION from 20TH CENTURY FOX (1971). According to reports on the box office receipts. The film grabbed $75 million at the world wide box office (1971 ticket prices). It is considered to be one of the best films ever made and its' influence resonates to this day. The car chase scene is also the best thing ever filmed.
It's based on a popular book from the 1960's about real life narcotics detectives. Freidkin claimed that all of the Hollywood studios turned down the movie twice. Richard Zanuck was being fired from 20th Century Fox within months and told Freidkin to make the film.
Freidkin was only known as a documentary filmmaker who brought that kind of "feel" to "French." The film crew shot it all on-location in France and New York. Freidkin was also big on realism with the human experience. It comes through in every scene of this movie. It stands up to this day and looks fantastic on BluRay Disc.
Two narcotics police detectives play a hunch from the Brooklyn streets. They follow the owner of a small diner who might be connected to a major Heroin drug deal. It was coming in from the country of France (Albiet the French Connection). That package drug deal reaches $32 million and was to be distributed in New York. Can these two detectives stop this deal?
The movie was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 5 including Best Picture. It also won Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director (William Freidkin), Best Editing (Gerald B. Greenberg) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman).
What a lasting tribute to William Freidkin who recently passed at age 87.
(Below) The Film Trailer of "The French Connection" 1973.
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