Friday, October 3, 2008

"I took everything out of there but the rocker panels!"

I love the way this actor says his line,
with that thick Canarsie accent.
The French Connection was released in 1971.
Gene Hackman plays a
New York City narcotics cop,
a mean, profane, boorish, loudmouthed S.O.B.
This guy murders four people
in the course of the movie;
he was expendable.
This is Charnier ("Frog One").
He is the smuggler.
See ya later!
Hi, there!
This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
This renegade chemist is
using a Thiele tube to determine
the melting point of the heroin and thus its purity.
I'm a geek, what can I tell ya?
And where did he get those glasses?
Hey, isn't he the same guy we saw
on the Odessa Steps?!
And, of course, that car chase.
One of the best in the movies.
UPDATE: Interesting piece of trivia. The stunt driver in The French Connection was Bill Hickman, who also had the minor role of "Muldrick", the FBI agent who is accidentally shot by Popeye Doyle. Hickman was also the stunt driver in "Bullitt". And get this: he was driving the station wagon behind James Dean when Dean had his fatal accident. He said later, "We were about two or three minutes behind him. I pulled him out of the car, and he was in my arms when he died, his head fell over. I heard the air coming out of his lungs the last time. Didn’t sleep for five or six nights after that, just the sound of the air coming out of his lungs."

Bill Hickman died of cancer in 1986. He was 65.

1 comment:

phlegmfatale said...

This for me is THE car chase in all of filmdom. What can I say? I'm a mechanic's daughter. There's something singularly toothsome about a soundtrack in which the appropriate transmission sounds when we see the corresponding car onscreen. Great audio as much as visual in this one, for maximum impact. Yee Haw!

Plus-- Gene Hackman? Om nom nom!
This one gets the full 5 hankies on the phlegmometer.