Classic Movie Review The French Connection

The French Connection (1971) 

Directed by William Friedkin 

Written by Ernest Tidyman

Starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco 

Release Date October 7th, 1971 

Published August 11th 2023 

I don't get it. I don't get what anyone sees in The French Connection. I've tried. I've seen The French Connection a half dozen times. Each time I watch I try and see what so many others, including my idol, Roger Ebert sees in this beloved action movie. For the life of me, I just don't see it. The characters are thin, the action that is supposedly pulse-pounding feels plodding as I see it, and that car chase that has been raved about for more than 50 years is only impressive because it looks genuinely dangerous. I guess we're lucky no one was killed. That's supposed to be impressive. 

I do believe that the elements of The French Connection should work. William Friedkin is a very good director. I have recently written about his exceptional work much later in his career on a pair of outlandish but artful and exciting movies, The Hunted and Bug. I also have a great deal of love and respect for Gene Hackman. Hackman is one of the greats of 1970s cinemas, an icon who kept up his remarkable legacy of great work through to the end of his career via well-earned retirement just as Friedkin returned to the big screen. Roy Scheider, the cinematography, the dirty, grimy milieu, all add up to what should have been a really great movie. So why do I find The French Connection so mind numbingly dull? 

The French Connection tells the wide-ranging story of a drug deal. It begins in France where, presumably, an undercover cop is brutally gunned down. The opening scene of The French Connection lingers for ages as we watch the cop watch his targets, a French businessman named Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), and his henchman, Pierre (Marcel Bozzuffi). He follows them from one location to another, and then goes for a walk and buys a baguette and appears to be calling it a day. He grabs his mail, and he gets shot in the face. 

Then we head to New York City where Detective Popeye Doyle is dressed as Santa Claus and talking to some kinds. Out of the corner of his eye, Doyle is watching a bar nearby where his partner, Cloudy (Roy Scheider) is undercover and waiting for a perp to make a move. When the perp does make a movie, a chase ensues. Eventually, in a back alley, after Cloudy gets stabbed in the hand, the perp is caught, and Doyle purposefully confounds the suspect by asking him if he 'Picked his toes in Poughkeepsie. Why? Who the hell knows. It never comes up exactly why Doyle does this. I had to google it to find out that it was a nonsense phrase intended to cause confusion during an interrogation. 

Toes aside, we then watch as Doyle and Cloudy get on the scent of a new player in the local drug business. Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) is a small-time shop owner who dreams of moving up in the drug racket. He's become connected to a top guy, a money man and Kingpin named Weinstock. Having made another connection with the aforementioned French guys, Sal has positioned himself to potentially pull off the biggest international heroin smuggling operation in history. Millions of dollars of the purest heroin on the market being brought into the country via a French movie star named Devereaux (Frederic de Pasquale). 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Straw Dogs (1971)

Straw Dogs (1971)

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Written by David Zelag Goodman, Sam Peckinpah

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Susan George

Release Date December 22nd, 1972

Published September 12th, 2011

"Straw Dogs," a remake of the controversial 1971 Sam Peckinpah thriller, opens in theaters nationwide September 16, 2011. Many questions surround this remake from director Rod Lurie, the most potent being whether or not the new "Straw Dogs" can stir up audiences the way the original did 40 years ago. Have audiences become so desensitized to violence that we can no longer be shaken the way our parents were when "Straw Dogs" took the violence of the tumultuous '60s and '70s and planted it squarely in the upper middle class home of a young everyman and his beautiful wife, saying, essentially, this could happen to you?

" Straw Dogs " starred Dustin Hoffman, one of our finest actors and, at the time of the filming, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood due to his other controversial works "The Graduate" and the X-Rated Best Picture-winner "Midnight Cowboy." Hoffman's David was a timid man who, when forced to step up and defend his young wife Amy (played by Susan George), failed repeatedly.

David and Amy have moved to a cottage in the English countryside where Amy grew up. There, a number of people from her past, including a jealous ex-boyfriend, are waiting with judgmental eyes for her new husband. Things begin badly when men doing work in their home harass Amy and David refuses to do anything about it.

Instead, David attempts to befriend the workers, who continuously humiliate and poke fun at him. Eventually, the workers invite David to go hunting with them. Leaving him stranded in the woods, the workers return to David's home, where the former flame proceeds to rape Amy.

Peckinpah's shooting of the rape scene was debated at the time and remains the film's most controversial element. The stomach of many an audience member turned as Amy's resistance to her rape slowly turned to pleasure, the rapist being a man she's been with before; she seems to give into him and begin enjoying it. Things turn dark again, however, when a second man enters the scene. Amy never tells David about the rape. The film devolves toward an ultra-violent conclusion not because David is finally ready to defend his wife, not because he is seeking revenge over the rape, but because of a complex series of misunderstandings.

Feminist scholars have argued that Peckinpah's depiction of Amy's rape was his revenge against the character's feminist bent and the way the character repeatedly emasculates Hoffman's David. Peckinpah was often criticized as a misogynist for his depiction of women onscreen.

Remake director Rod Lurie has even taken shots at Peckinpah's alleged misogyny.

In an interview with the Brandeis University newspaper, Brandeis Now, Lurie said, "I was never enchanted with Peckinpah's philosophies on human behavior or his attitude toward women. I don't want to talk too deeply about that because he isn't here to defend his name, but it certainly came into the context of my making the film."

Does this imply Lurie's "Straw Dogs" will tone down the violence of the original? At the very least we can expect a new context and perspective on what takes place. Lurie's "Straw Dogs" is rated R but, unlike Peckinpah's film -- which was plagued by a ratings battle over its violent content -- the remake has been met with no such controversy.

Which brings us back around to my original question: Can the new "Straw Dogs" stir audiences the way the original did 40 years ago? It depends on a number of factors, not least of which is how much Lurie has shifted the context of what takes place in the film and how graphically the violence is depicted. Peckinpah's high shock factor played as big a role in the impact of "Straw Dogs" on audiences as did his intent to bring violence into the well-tended homes of the upper middle class. 40 years later can a new "Straw Dogs," or any other film for that matter, reach audiences the way "Straw Dogs" did in 1971?

We will find out how audiences take to the new "Straw Dogs" when the film arrives in theaters nationwide Friday, September 16, 2011.