![]() ![]() He reshot the vacant lot scene and nailed it.Ħ. By the end of the shoot, Hackman had fully inhabited the character. Friedkin also took advantage of the actor's anti-authoritarian streak by behaving like a tyrant and goading his star into rage. ("A lot of what Egan did," Friedkin explained later, "was bravado in order to seize control and make sure that all of these suspects, most of them dealers and often users of heavy drugs, would do what he told them to do.")ĥ. ![]() He had a hard time getting into character for a scene early in the shoot, where Popeye rousts a suspect in a vacant lot.Īfter following Egan around for a week, however, Hackman realized that the character's casual brutality was simply the theatrical way Egan rattled suspects. According to Friedkin, Hackman balked at having to talk and behave like a racist thug. So Hackman won the role without even having to audition. French connection movie how to#But Friedkin fired Breslin quickly after discovering that the newsman wasn't much of an actor and, like many New Yorkers, didn't know how to drive. They even considered casting Egan to play himself before ultimately hiring iconic New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin. In fact, the filmmakers had considered Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, James Caan, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, and Jackie Gleason, all of whom turned the role down. Hackman was not Friedkin's first choice to star. Every time I made a film like that, with a lot of good guys against bad guys, it had a lot of success."ģ. "People don't want stories about people's problems or any of that psychological sh**," Friedkin quoted Hawks as telling him. Friedkin - then an up-and-coming young director with four financially disappointing movies under his belt - took on the project after seeking career advice from legendary old-school director Howard Hawks. Egan plays Walter Simonson (the character based on Egan's own boss) and Grosso plays Detective Klein.Ģ. Egan (the inspiration for Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, Hackman's character) and Grosso (the inspiration for Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, Roy Scheider's character) not only served as technical advisers on the film, but also can be seen in cameos. The bust netted 112 pounds of heroin with a street value of $32 million. ![]() "The French Connection" is based on a real-life 1961 drug bust made by New York cops Eddie "Popeye" Egan and Sonny "Cloudy" Grosso. In honor of its 45th, here are 23 things you never knew about this classic. It won Best Picture and four other Oscars, made A-listers of Gene Hackman and director William Friedkin, and thrilled audiences with what is still one of the most hair-raising car chase sequences ever filmed. It proved that true-crime dramas could be the stuff of both high art and blockbuster action filmmaking. " The French Connection" changed all that when it was released 45 years ago this week (on October 9, 1971). When you think of Best Picture Oscar winners, you think of grand epics or weighty historical topics, not grimy, intimate cops-and-robbers dramas. ![]()
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