A Great Epic Car Chase Film

Going back over 35 years ago I remember watching two greatcar chases at the movies in less than a years time. The first one was Steve McQueen in Bullitt and the second one was from one of my favorite actors--Gene Hackman, staring in the French Connection.

This entertaining film was directed by William Friedkin and it was actually shot on the streets of New York. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore. The French Connection tells the story of two New York City policemen who are trying to intercept a heroin shipment coming in from France. It is based on the actual, infamous "French Connection" trafficking scheme. It stars Gene Hackman,[Popeye Doyle],Roy Scheider [as his partner "Cloudy" Russo], and Fernando Rey. It also features Eddie Egan and Sonny "Cloudy" Grosso, the real-life police detectives on whom Hackman's and Scheider's characters were based.

The film revolves around the smuggling of narcotics between Marseilles, France and New York City. The film opens in Marseilles with a policeman staking out Alain Charnier, a French criminal who ostensibly works as a former stevedore-turned-shipping executive but is in fact involved in smuggling heroin from France to the United States. The French policeman is eventually assassinated by Charnier's henchman, Pierre Nicoli.
While Doyle and Russo are in a nightclub one night, Doyle becomes interested in two people and decides to trail the couple after they leave the club.Although the suspect, Sal Bocas,only runs a modest nightstand/dinner, Doyle observes that the suspect and his wife lead an ectravagent lifestyle and he decides that they have to involved in some sort of criminal activity.After establishing a connection between Bocas and a man named Weinstock,who has extensive connections with the narcotics underdworld, Doyle and Russo then roust an informent in another bar and he questions him about the appartent shortage of herion on the streets. Doyle finds out about an apparent shipement of heroin and convinces his boss to agree to a wiretap on Bocas's phones and then, by using several ploys, tries and obtains more information about their suspects.

This is where the action starts to pick up when Doyle starts to tail Charnier, who has tricked his friend Henri Devereaux into importing an automobile that is concealing drugs. But both detectives start having trouble with their own boss and also with a federal agent named Mulderig. After a failed attempt on Doyle's life by Charnier henchmen Nicoli, [this is where there is an epic car and train chase]Doyle eventually kills Nicoli after he catches up to him. He finds Devereaux's and has it impounded where after a few hours, they find drugs in the rocker panels. They put the car back together and return it to Devereaus. After following the car to a factory where the drug deal is going down, the police kill Boca in a shootout and Doyle shoots and kills Federal agent Mulderig by mistake.

It was the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and in 2005 the film was added to the list of films preserved in the United States National Film Registry. And it also containes one of the greatest car chase sequences in movie history. The chase involves Popeye securing a citizen's car (a 1971 Pontiac LeMans) and then obsessively chasing the out-of-control elevated train, on which a hitman is trying to escape. This car chase alone is reason enough to view this film more than once.