Did anyone else notice that there is a I believe a quick shot of the Trade Towers early on in the movie? When I say Trade Towers I really mean just one of them and it is only partially built. I looked up the dates of the film (1971) vs that of the Towers (finished in 1973) and it fits! Kind of cool. I was looking to see if the towers were in there or not and it just caught my eye.
shareYup, the Towers were going up as the cast and crew were out on location filming. It's one of the reasons why The French Connection is now a fascinating period patina time-piece of the streets of New York City between December 1970 to February 1971 (the three months of location shooting). No other film captures the sights and smells and urban decay of the city during that freezing cold winter the way that this one does. The New York of that time isn't just the backdrop to events, in a way it's the main character.
As for the Trade Towers, if you want to see one one of the biggest and most chucklesome historical goofs in cinema history, watch The Valachi Papers (1972). This Charles Bronson period gangster thriller has a night scene supposedly taking place in 1930s' New York.... with the modern high rise Twin Towers plainly visible in the background!!! Absolutely priceless in its ineptitude.
Thanks for the reply. Great point about NYC being one of the main characters. That is too funny about the Bronson pic!
shareYou can see the same New York winter of late 1970/early 1971 in Shaft. Coincidentally, Ernest Tidyman wrote the screenplays for both films (winning the Academy award for The French Connection).
Filming for both productions actually took place during the same months, and with some scenes being shot on the same days, just a few miles apart. So when you watch certain location scenes in Shaft you can think to yourself "A couple of miles away, at the very moment this sequence is taking place, Friedkin and co were downtown or uptown shooting footage for The French Connection".
Ernest Tidyman reportedly never visited the shoot for The French Connection, but he was apparently a regular visitor on the production of Shaft and had a lot of creative input. Ironically, he may have won an Oscar for the more famous production, but its clear which film he was more invested in emotionally. Possibly because Shaft was his own original creation (from his own novel).
Anyway, its interesting to see two different visions of the same New York winter. Perhaps worth checking it out if you haven't already.
I have seen parts of Shaft but had no idea they had the same screenwriter nor were filmed at the same time. Pretty neat! I will have to sit down and watch Shaft through sometime and see how the city is portrayed.
Now that I have read through a lot of the comments on imdb about FC I have a greater sense of how it fits into the way people thought of police work back then (and how they think of it now). The funny thing is, I rewatched a film last night which is a personable fave. It is called Citizen X and I believe was made for cable, with Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydown, Imelda Staunton, etc. It is about how long it took the Soviet Union to kill a serial killer in its midst and is quite good, and is based on a true story. In one scene towards the end the main detective has to go to a sanitarium for a while to regain his health because he has had to fight the Russian bureaucracy for so long in trying to catch the killer. He is watching tv in a lounge at the sanitarium and what should be on but that scene from FC where Doyle is beating up the black guy at the bar! Pretty cool. You can tell that the Russian played by Rea is somewhat shocked by the immediacy and brutality that a cop in the US can get away with.
Anyhow, I digress, but it is always fun to talk about great movies.
Here are a couple of other tie-ins between SHAFT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. When Doyle drives his Ford through Times Square, we see the movie, GET CARTER, playing at one of the bijous. Shaft walks past the same theater marquee with the same film playing.
Alan Weeks, the pusher in TFC is also in SHAFT. He's disguised as a waiter, but is really helping Shaft's friend, Ben Buford. Weeks wields a gun in SHAFT, countering his cowering junkie performance in TFC. He had a busy winter.
In Shaft's office, there is a January 1971 wall calendar. In the Police Dept. garage scene in TFC, there's a calendar behind the police sergeant played by Randy Jurgensen. I'm not sure if the month is January, but there's a one in three chance that it is.
One point: SHAFT's production schedule did not last three months. It was a much lower budgeted film than even the low-budget FRENCH CONNECTION. In fact, SHAFT was released in the summer of '71 while post-production on TFC dragged on through September, when Don Ellis scored it.
No, production on Shaft didn't last a whole three months. You're right there. It did however criss-cross time wise with location filming for The French Connection. Shaft was December 1970 to January 71. Principal photography (for New York scenes) on The French Connection dragged on into February and even into early March (Friedkin went somewhat behind schedule and over budget). The Marseille scenes would have been shot later, around March/April.
It's just nice that we get two pictures representing a time capsule of that time and place - although The French Connection is indisputably the greater and more significant film of the two.
You could run a double bill of these two pictures around the theme of the New York winter of 1970-1971. A social history lesson in popular cinema form.
You're right. That would make quite a double-bill. Also of interest, THE GODFATHER went into production about a week after THE FRENCH CONNECTION's NY location shooting wrapped.
And for the absolute most trivial trivia. The only personnel to work on THE GODFATHER who worked on SHAFT was assistant director, Steve Skloot. From THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE GODFATHER employed its sound man, Chris Newman, and Sonny Grosso as an actor and police technical advisor.
Great trivia there guys,thanks for sharing,also must not forget Randy Jurgensen who was in both The French Connection(Police Sergeant) and The Godfather(one of Sonny's assassins in brown hat).
shareAnother Seventies New York classic well worth watching is producer Philip D'Antoni's follow up action thriller The Seven-Ups. Former cast members from The French Connection include Roy Scheider (playing the lead role), Tony Lo Bianco, Sonny Grosso and Bill Hickman.
It's got another classic car chase, and the grindingly downbeat New York locations give another taste of the urban decay, high crime rate, racial tensions, and the mood of paranoia and depression that characterised so many urban American thrillers of this era.
It also has footage where you can see the (recently completed) Twin Towers in the background skyline. So many films of this era feature the Towers at some point. Steven Spielberg recreated them with C.G.I in Munich for just one very telling shot of the Seventies city skyline at the end of the movie.
Good call on Randy Jurgensen as one of Sonny Corleone's assassins. Yep, THE SEVEN-UPS is another good NY policier. In fact, Jurgensen was in a scene in THE SEVEN-UPS that was cut from the picture. Don't remember a shot that included the Twin Towers. Was it in the New Jersey scene with the actors Richard Lynch and Tony Lo Bianco? Lastly, THE SEVEN-UPS must have had Pontiac as a sponsor as almost every principle car in the picture was made by that auto company.
THE SEVEN-UPS was photographed by Urs Furrer. The director of photography on SHAFT.
A friend of mine brought up The Seven-Ups in conversation about a month ago,really need to see that one soon,when i watch the extras on the French Connection dvd i can't help but be impressed by Sonny Grosso,Eddie Egan & also Randy Jurgensen,it leaves me thinking about the stories these guys could tell you,The French Connection case was just one story,albeit remarkable.
shareTHE FRENCH CONNECTION is based on a true story, but THE SEVEN-UPS is a fictional account of mobsters being kidnapped for ransom. There was no such squad as "the Seven-Ups." I think Sonny Grosso based the story very loosely on a investigation task force team he worked in after he and Egan were broken up and re-assigned from the Narcotics Bureau. Sonny's partner from that team is in the film. His name is Jerry Leon.
I don't know why Phil D'Antoni didn't go with one of Grosso's real-life exploits. In fact, there's one incident I know of that would have made a great scene for a film. One day, while Grosso and Egan were driving a suspect back to the station house, the suspect broke free of his handcuffs and wrestled Egan's pistol away. Before Sonny could stop the car and get to the back seat where the action was taking place, the suspect, still grappling with Egan, fired a round that went through the roof of the car. The cops finally managed to subdue the suspect and take him to the precinct for further "interrogation."
Egan seems to have been a rather ambiguous figure - liked and loved by some (Grosso remained steadfastly loyal to his late partner), but utterly hated and despised by some of his other former colleagues who came forward to trash his memory after he died. Egan was of course formally investigated for police corruption, just days before he was due to retire and collect his police service pension. These were dark times.
As an actor he gave some nice screen performances. He's very good in the cult oddball thriller Prime Cut, playing an Irish mobster boss who reveals a paper parcel full of sausages made from human flesh! It's also the only other production apart from The French Connection in which Eddie Egan and Gene Hackman both appear - although they don't have any scenes together in this one. They didn't get along very well in real life. Liberal mid-westerner Hackman described Egan as a racist, fascist thug.
Prime Cut is well worth checking out if you haven't seen it. It is (in my opinion) one of the true great Seventies genre movies. Gene Hackman is superb as the main villain, with Lee Marvin giving a career best as the anti-hero protagonist. The climactic gunfight in a field of sunflowers, with its extraordinary use of sound and editing, is one of the most amazing suspense sequences in American cinema. One for any enthusiast's must-view list of Seventies classics.
Yeah, I saw PRIME CUT when it came out. Actually, it stars Lee Marvin with Cissy Spacek in an early role as a prostitute. Hackman plays the villain and his part issn't very big. He probably got Egan the role.
Egan wasn't that well liked even after he left the job. Like you said, Sonny was the guy who stood up for him most. There's an old New York Magazine article from 1972 on-line, written by "French Connection" author, Robin Moore. It chronicles the last days of Egan on the job. Well worth the read. If you think Doyle is racist in the film, wait until you read the words that come out of Egan's mouth.
I'll see if I can find the link.
I have also read that SIU Detective Joseph Nunziata was one of the gunmen who shoot Sonny in "The Godfather". We know he is in TFC, so, that would make him a third crossover. As Nunziata was a close friend of Grosso's, it makes sense.
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A city is a main character? Um, no. Not even close. One of the most ridiculous comments I read on here. The main characters are the people
shareDie Hard 3 captured NYC much better than this one did. Much more action scenes and the explosions were so much bigger here. And the driving scene in Die Hard 3 in the taxi going to Wall St was better executed than the taxi chase in French Connection
shareHow did you get any NYC smells from watching this movie on TV?
shareNever before or since have the Trade Towers looks more heart-breakingly beautiful than in the film MOONSTRUCK.
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thank you I was going to ask if the WTC is in the picture.finished in '73 you would have seen only part of it done when this movie was made.
shareZombie thread, I know, but from a native New Yorker it was called "the World Trade Center," nicknamed "the twin towers."
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