Movies Better Than Sex

The French Connection, William Friedkin, 1971,  US  Starring Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi, Frederic de Pasquale. 104 min, Film Neo Noir  The screenplay, written by Ernest Tidyman, is based on Robin Moore's 1969 book of the same name.  New York Detective "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner (Roy Scheider) chase a French heroin smuggler.  An urban crime thriller which won undeserved acclaim for its efficient but unremarkable elevat- ed-railway chase and its clumsy, showy emphasis on grainy, sordid realism. The performances are strong, although Hackman has done far better than this portrayal of a hard-nosed cop obsessively tracking down a narcotics ring in New York, using methods disapproved of by his superiors. The real problems, however, are that Friedkin's nervy, noisy, undisciplined pseudo-realism sits uneasily with his suspense motivated shock editing; and that compared to (say) Siegel's Dirty H...