The French Connection I & II DVD Set

William Friedkin's classic policier, propelled to box-office glory and a fistful of Oscars in 1972, was distinguished by its pedal-to-the-metal filmmaking and fashionably cynical attitude toward law enforcement. The picture traces the efforts of Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle, a brutally pushy New York City narcotics detective, and his partner (Roy Scheider) to close the pipeline pumping Middle Eastern smack into the States through the French port of Marseilles. Loosely based upon an actual investigation that led to what was then the biggest heroin seizure in U.S. history, Doyle is portrayed as a dauntless crime fighter and Vietnam-era "pig," a reckless vulgarian whose antics get innocent people killed. It was widely recognized at the time that Friedkin had lifted a lot of his high-strung technique from the Costa-Gavras thrillers The Sleeping Car Murders and Z, even importing one of Costa-Gavras's favorite thugs, Marcel Bozzuffi, to play the Euro-trash hit man plugged by Doyle in an elevated train station. An impressive official sequel, French Connection II, directed by John Frankenheimer in 1975, took Popeye to the south of France and got him hooked on horse. A couple of semiofficial spinoffs followed, The Seven-Ups, which elevated Scheider to the leading role, and Badge 373, with Robert Duvall stepping in as the pugnacious flatfoot. The actual French Connection cops, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, made cameo appearances in the original film.

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