The French Connection 1971

The Film:

I'm pretty sure I've seen this one before, quite some time ago. I definitely remember the car chase, but I'm not sure about much else - so I'm looking forward to seeing it (again). I used to get it muddled in my head with Chinatown (which is a couple of years later and a very different film) so maybe I don't really know what I'm about to watch.

I do know that this film won out in two very strong categories (Film and Director). Following on from Midnight Cowboy a few years earlier, it has a very modern, "gritty" style and subject matter and is another example (along with In The Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy and the Godfather films that are on their way) of a Best Picture winning film that represents a new and different way of doing things. Welcome to the 70s!

The Ceremony:

This all happened a week before I was born - on 10th April 1972 - so everything after this point is within my lifetime.

It was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion again, with only four hosts this time - Helen Hayes, Alan King, Sammy Davis Jnr and Jack Lemmon.

The ceremony was notable for being one of the last public appearances of Betty Grable who was suffering from cancer and died the following year.

Nothing else really special to report, except for a certain award given to a certain film pioneer (see below!)

Other Notable Winners That Night:

And about time too!

Best Actor went to Gene Hackman, and Best Actress to Jane Fonda, winning her first Oscar for Klute. Both the supporting awards went to performances from The Best Picture Show (Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman). The fact that all these are for morally complicated characters in morally complicated films definitely sets down a marker for the 1970s!

The biggest and most popular award of the night by far went to Mr Charles Chaplin who won a long overdue honorary award for his contribution to film-making (he got one in 1929, but with very little fuss or fanfare, and it wasn't a statuette!). Most of his best films and greatest innovations happened before the Awards began (which is a shame - The Kid should have swept the board for starters, except there wasn't a board to sweep!) so he had to wait until his 70s to get his own statuette. He received a twelve minute standing ovation, which is still (and probably will remain) the longest in Oscars history.

I love Chaplin films. He has a strong claim to have invented (at least in Hollywood terms) both Romcoms and the sort of Social Commentary/Political Satire that we still have today. Some of his best films are nearly a century old now and still work for contemporary audiences in both these genres. Hooray for Chaplin!

Best Song:

This year it's all about cool cops strutting around New York. And this is one of the coolest songs ever to win an Oscar! Isaac Hayes may have had a bigger UK Chart hit with his Chocolate Salty Balls several decades later, but this is his finest moment:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Come to think of it, I don't recall Maestro Pembridge ever
conducting Beethoven's Ninth!

It's a pretty strong category this year - including Nicholas and Alexandra (historical dramas about royalty were on their way out though), Fiddler on the Roof (as were muscials).

I think The French Connection was a deserved winner, but two others could have equally been seen as strong winners. The Last Picture Show is a very good film that has stood the test of time and is in the US National Film Registry (as is The French Connection). However, I'm going to go against my usual instincts and give honourable mention to a Kubrick film for once - A Clockwork Orange is very good, which is probably why it is so problematic, so much so that I'm a bit surprised that it was nominated. It got significantly edited for US release (I'm guessing that was the version that got nominated). It ultimately got banned (by Kubrick himself) in the UK after copycat violence and became one of those films (like The Exorcist) that was a must see for students in the 90s. The Exorcist could be seen in "members clubs" in the 90s (ie. in the SU as long as you paid £1 to join Film Soc) - Clockwork Orange was only available crammed into the room of someone who was cool enough to have an illegal copy. Amazing how times have changed......

Our Verdict:

Good cop, bad cop - all in one!

I enjoyed this film far more than I thought I would. Firstly I was worried that it was going to be an early example of something that has now become formulaic - it is that, but it's such a good example that it stands nicely as the original with everything else (to a greater or lesser extent) an inferior copy. There are several scenes which, by the late 70s / early 80s, had been imitated regularly on the sort of cop shows the US was churning out for Saturday night viewing. But the mastercopies are here and they are brilliant!

Chat et souris - le souris gagne!

Secondly, I was bothered that it was going to be difficult to watch because, given the characters and subject matter, it would have become dated. I was worried mainly about casual racism, sexism, homophobia etc. Some of that was there, but it was so well bound up in the characterisation and scene-setting - particularly in the first twenty minutes or so - that it just about justified its existence.

Thirdly, this sort of cop drama, car chase sort of thing really isn't my sort of film. I wouldn't have chosen to watch it, had it not been on this list, or at least been something which was highly praised by critics. I needn't have worried - I really enjoyed it, and I agree with the critics that it is a very good film indeed.

About as 1971 as any movie scene ever gets!

I generally prefer my films to be character-led with great storylines that develop those characters (hence my love of Wilder, Capra and Mankiewicz!). This doesn't really have any of that. Apart from Hackman's Popeye Doyle, we don't really see into any of the characters at all - and even with Doyle it's snapshots of the various (sometimes very morally dubious) motivations he has as a cop, rather than anything more substantial. We don't even really have that much of a complicated or clever plot. There's some drugs coming in from France, Doyle and Russo are trying to find them. That's basically it! (I know, I'm simplifying things, but not by much)

Russo and Doyle - like an American Carter and Regan

What I liked most about The French Connection were the surveillance and/or chase scenes, of which there were several, all expertly shot and paced. I read somewhere that this film is basically just people watching and chasing other people - and you're never entirely sure if anyone really gets caught (except the ones that get a bullet!). That's probably a fair summary - but its done so well. The scene where the top baddie ("Frog One") is being followed on and off (and on again) a subway train by Doyle is brilliant. And the famous car chase scene, where the car is chasing the train that is travelling above it, is also fantastic - even though the posters weirdly reveal the end of that sequence! It's not too much of a spoiler to reveal that everything comes to a head in an abandoned (and very wet) warehouse, but the ending is wonderfully ambiguous and yet still weirdly satisfying. As an example of the genre, The French Connection is a masterclass - and it still holds up nearly 50 years later.