Renowned for its famous car/train chase scene, The French Connection (1971, Philip D’Antoni Production in association with Schine-Moore Productions; 20th Century-Fox) is a pretty decent action film. For me, it falls into the same genre as 2012’s Best Picture winner Argo—some violence, lots of suspense, and plenty of thrills. The acting isn’t bad either. Gene Hackman is excellent as “Popeye” Jimmy Doyle, the obsessed, nearly psychotic narcotics cop who follows a hunch and uncovers a conspiracy to smuggle millions of dollars of drugs into New York—a conspiracy with, of course, a French connection.

The infamous car chase scene in moody black and white!

Overall, The French Connection was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won five: Film Editing, Writing (Screenplay—based on material from another medium), Directing for William Friedkin, Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Picture. It did not win for Cinematography, Sound, or Actor in a Supporting Role for Roy Scheider as Doyle’s partner Buddy “Cloudy” Russo. It was another interesting year at the Academy Awards in 1972. The BP nominees ranged from Fiddler on the Roof to A Clockwork Orange (so The French Connection fell in the middle of charming and disturbing…), and Charlie Chaplin was presented with a honorary award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century,” which was probably a legitimate award for a very innovative man, though it was couched in language that allowed Hollywood to pat its own back a bit.

The French Connection is based on a non-fiction book with the full title The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy, written by Robin Moore and published in 1969. The book (and very loosely, the film as well) tells the story of real-life New York narcotics cops Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, who were responsible for breaking up a trans-Atlantic drug smuggling ring in 1962. The “French Connection” was the name given to the drug-trafficking route that began in the 1930s and went from Turkey to France to Canada to the United States. This drug trade reached its peak in the 60s and 70s when it accounted for 80-90 percent of the heroin that found its way into the U.S. The 1970s brought an increase in illegal drug use by Americans; and both government-sponsored programs and deaths of celebrities (like Janis Joplin in 1970) were less than effective in stemming the tide of abuse. In our own times, the “opioid crisis” still rages as politicians, medical personnel, and parents all struggle to find a solution to our culture’s drug addiction.

Popeye and Cloudy find what they’re looking for.

For me, one of the most poignant scenes in The French Connection shows the aftermath of a car crash in which several young people are killed. It isn’t very clear in the film whether or not the incident is drug-related; but with the film’s reliance on the drug trade for its plot, it seems to me that there has to be a connection (no pun intended). There’s a lot of politicking and policing in the film—lots of staking out and chasing the bad guys—but the reality of what happens when people use illegal drugs falls into the background a bit. In my opinion, seeing the prone, bloody bodies of the crash victims really illuminates the deeper tragedies of rampant drug use in our society. Illegal drugs kill, and those who traffic in them don’t give a rip–and I for one am not sure which is more heartbreaking.

For more thoughts on The French Connection and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!