Review: Roy Scheider in The French Connection
The French Connection was released in 1971, the same year as Dirty Harry. Both are seminal police detective films that are of its time, but also helped shape the look and feel of police films and television for decades to come.
Connection connected at the box office and at the Oscars, winning a total of five Oscars, including for Best Actor for Gene Hackman, Best Film and Best Director for William Friedkin. Roy Scheider was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actor role.
The titles are in your face, just like the film. Scheider is third billed behind Hackman and Fernando Rey.
The film opens in Marseilles, but soon we move to the cold streets of New York, setting up Hackman - as Popeye Doyle - and Scheider - as Buddy Russo - as partners. Which is great.
We have pair undercover, Hackman as Santa Claus and Scheider selling pretzels (insert own "wanna pretzel?" impression here) whilst dressed in a flannel shirt. Scheider exudes cool in all his scenes. Soon they are chasing after a perp, no music, just the sound of running and breathing and a shakey camera alongside.
These are cops who get the job done, just not necessarily by the book all the time. They are down and dirty, just because that was how they got results.
To add to the authenticity Hackman and Scheider spent weeks going out at night with the two detectives they portray in the film. An amazing way to do research for the characters says Hackman on the commentary.
There's lots of hand held camera that we just take for granted now, almost giving it that documentary and gritty feel, which is what Friedkin started out making before moving into feature films.
In fact many of the shots on the streets on New York are stolen, so are just filmed with handheld cameras with no permission and the actors surrounded by lots of real New Yorkers.
And New York is as much the star of this film as the actors are, its the almost forgotten filthy New York with its apocalyptic wastegrounds. It's very much the same NYC as Taxi Driver and the inhabits the violent world as The Taking of Pelham 123, which featured Robert Shaw.
The French Connection director, Friedkin, had already directed other future Jaws star, Shaw, in The Birthday Party (1968), and would go onto direct The Exorcist - which just so happened to be the film that Jaws took its highest grossing film of all time title from.
Scheider and Hackman bounce off one another and are a great double act, in fact it is one of the things missing from The French Connection II - which was released in 1975, the same year as that fish movie.
They really spark off one another when they appear together, sadly those appearances are intermittent throughout, with Scheider not even appearing in key scenes like the masterful subway chase on foot, which is just a beautiful bit of tense cat and mouse.
That only serves as foreplay though to The French Connection's most famous sequence the car chasing the overground subway train, again featuring a blistering Hackman and an amazing point of view shot from the front of the car. Again much of that was shit on the fly, especially the pov shots - which allegedly captured the moment a real mum stepped out in the road with her baby and pram. It made the cut.
And its still an exhilarating ride, perhaps it's no surprise then that the film was from the same Producer as Bullitt, Philip D'Antoni. He would go onto direct Scheider in The Seven-Ups, which again featured a blistering car chase.
Alas, Scheider is once again not in the frame during those famous scenes, as he mentions in the commentary he is just the side-kick.
Still, that rapport when they were together shone through and both men were Oscar-nominated for their roles, with Hackman taking home the award on the evening.
With its New York locations you could almost be forgiven for viewing this as Martin Brody: the early years, Brody being put in witness protection and moved to Amity Island for a quiet life and protect him and his family. We can but dream.
Scheider had a fantastic run of films in the 1970s, starting with this and Klute in the same year. He'd continue with The French Connection - in tone at least - with The Seven-Ups, seeing Scheider as another policeman, we'd then have Jaws in 1975, with Scheider returning to work for director William Friedkin in 1977's Sorcerer, with a return to Amity Island for Jaws 2 in 1978 and - his own personal favourite role - in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz in 1979. He wouldn't be the side-kick for long.