For some filmmakers, the chance of a lifetime comes along, often by happenstance, when the right material is presented to them at the right time, and they decide to make a movie that will become one of the defining achievements of their career. For William Friedkin, after four productions which challenged him to adapt to and learn the ways of Hollywood, here finally was a chance to do something exciting, different and challenging. What experience from a Sonny and Cher musical, two play adaptations and a comedy about burlesque could one bring to a hard-boiled, gripping thriller about French drug traffickers smuggling heroin into New York? Perhaps none on the surface, but if Friedkin had learned anything, it was versatility, and he certainly stepped up to the task at hand. At the time this script came his way, Friedkin was dating the daughter of famed director Howard Hawks, who encouraged the young director to, “Make a good chase. Make one better than anyone has ever done.”

While the famous car chase is certainly the most memorable aspect of The French Connection, Friedkin and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman deserve credit for maintaining a consistent, tight energy of suspense throughout, as we are slowly sucked into a world of street crime, low-level drug dealers and high-level distributors. We are intrigued by the ‘good’ cops ‘Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and ‘Cloudy’ Russo (Roy Scheider), who sacrifice their entire lives for the sake of busting criminals, but at the cost of losing what little sanity and decency they have left. The movie makes it clear that Doyle is corrupt and bigoted, but if he’s on the side of the law, does the end justify his means? Conversely, if the drug lord Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) is highly sophisticated and well-mannered, does that excuse the way he makes his living?

On the outside of the law Salvatore Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) is a recently released convict whose lavish lifestyle and connections to high-level mobsters single him out to the police as stakeout material. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that Boca is trying to convince his superiors that he can pull off a huge drug deal in the same way that Doyle tries to convince his superior that he can pull off the arrest and conviction of these criminals. It is this moral ambiguity Friedkin maintains so sharply that makes this story compelling. Yet, this is also done on an instinctual level as the tension is slowly built, and then released through memorable sequences such as Popeye tracking Charnier on a subway, the famed car chase through Brooklyn and the final showdown in an abandoned warehouse on Wards Island. In many ways, it’s difficult to explain how this movie works other than through its technical achievements. What Friedkin accomplished was the ability to make the viewer feel that the movie works in your gut, even if your brain questions certain aspects.

Buttressing the intangible abilities of Friedkin is a terrific cast, headlined by Hackman, who won his first Academy Award for this role, and shows the grit and determination he would utilize to great effect in subsequent movies. Friedkin noted that it took a lot of confrontations with Hackman to get the proper performance, but it is well worth it as we see Popeye, in his eyes and body language, constantly angry, frustrated and resentful of the lack of respect he gets from his own boss as well as the luxurious life the drug distributors enjoy. Does this color his behavior in the final sequence? Almost certainly, but it also gives us a richly detailed and accurate portrayal of police in New York City at this time, as well as a timeless depiction of the eternal struggle between the ‘good’ guys using dirty tactics and the ‘bad’ guys doing everything necessary to keep their hands clean.

In her review for The New Yorker, Pauline Kael mentions the difference in tone and attitude in movies shot in Los Angeles as opposed to New York City. While those made in LA are capable of being set in virtually any locale due to the wide variety of geography California offers, “New York City is always New York City; it can’t be anything else.” Thus, being shot in 1970, The French Connection shows us a decaying urban landscape that we know now was one of the lowest points for America’s great metropolis in the twentieth century. New York has certainly changed in the fifty years since, which makes this movie all the more relevant and important for its time-capsule capture of the dirty streets, grimy living conditions and sour attitude that dominated this period. Even the scenes shot in midtown Manhattan have an unkempt look and feel, and it’s not just because of the lighting. Much of the city, even gloriously upper-class Manhattan, needed a serious scrub, and it would get that in the 1990s, but here, the threat of crime and urban nightmares exists everywhere. Does the fact that the movie’s technique is so domineering justify any plot holes or inconsistencies? Only the viewer can answer for himself, but if one decides it does work, then Friedkin has accomplished something tremendous: an amoral, technically brilliant, somewhat illogical masterpiece that reflects the machinations of those on both sides of the law.