There's no denying the skill that went into The French Connection. It's the runner-up exciting film about people doing almost nothing, second only to All the President's Men--and I'm only half-joking when I say that. It takes a director with vision to make a couple of guys tailing a couple of other guys interesting, and William Friedkin definitely has the vision: he single-handedly creates the meaning that holds the sketchy script together and keeps us caring about whether our heroic flatfoots get their dubious man. That meaning, however, ought to give us pause, as it makes that same year's hit Dirty Harry look like Easy Rider by comparison.

First of all is the matter of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, played with Cagney-like intensity by Gene Hackman. He's styled here as one of those renegade cops too tough for their namby-pamby superiors, and he's often seen in classic "going too far" mode, chasing black drug dealers and abusing them, or humiliating scores of them in an outrageous bust on a ghetto bar. Needless to say, this is not the sort of thing that gets you in good standing with VILLAGE VOICE readers, so it hardly comes as a surprise that Popeye is so virulently racist that he refers to certain French suspects as "Frog One" and "Frog Two." The film makes absolutely no attempt to undercut or downplay this little handicap--on the contrary, it's central to whatever scuzzy charge the film has.

"Frog One," by the way, is Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), The French Connection of the title, who is trying to break into the American drug market and thinks he's finally found a way in. Alain, naturally, is everything that Popeye is not: cultured, rich, powerful, and largely above the rules that Popeye so desperately wants to break. Also in contrast to his Yank nemesis is the fact that he is never seen doing anything--he just stands around being elegant, receiving gifts from his trophy girl and never once raising his voice. It's as if Archie Bunker's worst nightmare had magically appeared to rub his insignificance in his face, a humiliation that Popeye has been contrived to avenge.

Seizing on this central antagonism, Friedkin streamlines and accelerates it, making what is already liberation for all of the hardhat types who shook their fists at the upheavals of the sixties a bracing jolt for anyone who might still be sitting on the fence. Everything about The French Connection has been calculated for horror, from the bigoted commentary on its parade of ethnic stereotypes to the murky browns that give the film a rank, rotted feel--we are meant to be wallowing in our basest desires, it's supposed to give us a thrill. And so what might have been merely a bunch of guys following criminals becomes a delicious release from responsibility, with Popeye in pursuit of the class and ethnic scum (elegant French, brutal black and, despite a partner named Russo, grease-dripping Italian) who made everyone have to bow their heads in shame. The sixties are over; now we kick ass.

Irresponsibility, of course, has been one of the principal attractions of movies since their inception, so I can tolerate this kind of thing as long as everyone keeps their mouths shut. There are times in The French Connection that the ambience grabs the reins and runs, leaving coherence at the gate and allowing for some great entertainment; the famous subway-auto chase scene is perhaps the most obvious example, mined for the amoral shock of the horrible killer and the only slightly less amoral cop in pursuit. In a sense, it doesn't matter who wins as long as someone does, in a matter that our nobler instincts get chucked. Friedkin's direction is so assured here--kinetic action, rapid montage, sinister colour scheme all working in glorious tandem--that even I couldn't help but be pleased by the outrageousness of it. Had the movie remained on the level of bull-headed men duking it out I would have had far fewer reservations about it than I presently have.

Nevertheless, there must be a morality even to our immorality, and so The French Connection oversteps the lines of even the thieves' code to which it tries to adhere. I find it amusing that it won a slew of Oscars during its initial release: while the idea that this hairy, sweaty beast of a film was deemed quality goods even in its day is an interesting testament to how far we've come, the fact that its political incorrectness has been adopted by an array of comedians and other entertainers is testament to how far we have to go.-Travis Hoover

The French Connection looks so good on DVD that I wonder if it's a betrayal of Friedkin's intentions. Apart from its ultra-grainy establishing shot of Marseilles, the film's THX-approved, 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer gleams--the lower lower lower east side of Manhattan has never seemed so...I don't want to say clean, but fresh, as if we've been transported back in time to the pre-Giuliani New York. Owen Roizman's source-lit images have sensational crispness and yet the grit is gone. I am similarly torn on the soundtrack, which has been remastered in immersive Dolby Digital 5.1: The French Connection now sounds less like a documentary and more like a low-budget actioner. While there's very little bass, separation between all channels is outstanding. Be warned that the intro music is quite loud and startling at reference level; I'd recommend keeping your receiver at low volume to start.

Fox's Five Star Collections are always exceptional, and The French Connection Five Star edition lives up to the family name, so to speak. A two-disc package, the first DVD contains only the film supplemented by two commentaries. On his, William Friedkin starts out strong but lapses into discussing police procedural as it pertains to what we're seeing--if he feels the need to explain, say, a triangular surveillance, perhaps he also feels he didn't do his job as a director. Gene Hackman (who reiterates major reservations he had about portraying Doyle's racist side) and Roy Scheider split the duties on the second, non-screen-specific track, with Hackman beginning at chapter two and Scheider relieving him of his duties at chapter eighteen. Both men are gracious, talkative, and lucid, Scheider being the better storyteller.

A pair of the most revealing making-of documentaries ever made comprise the bulk of Disc 2. In the BBC's "Poughkeepsie Shuffle", from the same team responsible for the brilliant Exorcist special "Fear of God", Friedkin resurfaces as the ultimate strutting-peacock director, saying he couldn't hack the book on which the film was based, that Hackman made a boring lunch companion (these comments are intercut with Hackman paying sincere compliment to Friedkin's social skills), and that every screenplay written for The French Connection--including the one that was shot and awarded an Oscar--was terrible. Of the film's ending, Friedkin delivers the instantly classic analysis, "It doesn't mean anything. Although it might." Many of the surviving cast and crew are interviewed here, with a few more joining in the fun of "Making the Connection: The Untold Stories", an E!-ish retrospective whose lips loosen as it progresses. Despite attention-taxing, if sweet, segments in which Sonny "Cloudy" Grosso (the Scheider character's real-life counterpart) watches The French Connection and reminisces about his days with late partner Eddie "Popeye" Egan, the American "Untold" manages to hold its own against the British "Poughkeepsie".

Seven beat-up deleted scenes are presented in a Friedkin-hosted compilation (which was edited by the DVD Savant himself, Glenn Erickson) as well as individually elsewhere on the platter. Friedkin calls these scenes "scaffolding": they were required to build The French Connection and extraneous to its final structure. (I'm in total concession to the wisdom of cutting all but the last, a donut shop frisk that adds untold dimension to Popeye Doyle.) Additional material on Disc 2, for that fifth star: three still galleries (including another must-view section of ad art) and trailers for The French Connection and The French Connection II. Did the team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker cook up the latter's tagline "French Connection II, the only film that could follow The French Connection!"? All sarcasm aside, this is one of the year's best collectible DVDs.-Bill Chambers

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