Trivia for
The French Connection (1971) More at IMDbPro »

• Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman patrolled with Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso for a month to get the feel of the characters. Hackman became disgusted at the sights he saw during this patrol. In one incident he had to help restrain a suspect in the squad car and later worried that he would be sued for impersonating a policeman.
  
  
• Even though there isn't a note of music during the spectacular car chase, William Friedkin cut that sequence to the tempo of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman"
  
  
• At the end of the film a superimposed caption informs us that Popeye and Cloudy were transferred out of Narcotics and reassigned. Eddie Egan was always upset that the film thus implied that this happened to himself and Sonny Grosso after the French Connection; in reality the two cops were split up four years and two similarly large narcotic cases later.
  
  
• Both James Caan and Peter Boyle turned down the role of Popeye Doyle
  
  
• Robert Mitchum claimed to have turned down the role of Popeye Doyle because he hated the story.
  
  
• According to director William Friedkin, legendary New York City newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin was originally hired to play "Popeye" Doyle, and completed three weeks of rehearsals with co-star Roy Scheider before Friedkin decided to recast the role. After Breslin left the production, Friedkin approached Peter Boyle to play Popeye Doyle. Boyle turned him down.
  
  
• Fernando Rey was cast by mistake; William Friedkin wanted an actor he remembered seeing in Belle de jour (1967), and the casting director thought it was Fernando Rey - who was hired. Only upon arriving at the airport to meet Rey did Friedkin see that it was not the actor he had been thinking of; he also learned that Rey spoke no French. Once at Rey's hotel (the same one he stays at in the film), Friedkin called the casting director, who realized he had confused Rey's name with that of the correct actor, Francisco Rabal. Friedkin considered firing Rey, but changed his mind once it was learned that Rabal wasn't available and didn't speak any English, either.
  
  
• The car crash during the chase sequence, at the intersection of Stillwell Ave. and 86th St., was unplanned and was included because of its realism. The man whose car was hit had just left his house a few blocks from the intersection to go to work and was unaware that a car chase was being filmed. The producers later paid the bill for the repairs to his car.
  
  
• The conductor on the subway train was the actual conductor, whose name was Bob Morrone. The actor who was supposed to play the conductor didn't show up on the day that scene was to be filmed. In addition, the motorman was the actual motorman. The Transit Authority refused to allow an actor to operate a subway train.
  
  
• The chase sequence takes place beneath the West End subway line, whose proper letter marking in 1971 was a B (as of 2004, D). When equipment for the movie was chosen, the producers insisted on clean cars, and the only available clean cars were normally assigned to the N line and did not have B signs. Consequently, they operated during the movie with an N displayed in the front slot.
  
  
• The sequence on the Times Square-Grand Central shuttle took two full days to shoot (without permission from the Transit Authority), even though it lasts for only a few minutes on screen. Car 6609, an R-17, is preserved at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. A different trainset was apparently substituted between the time filming of that scene began and ended because the car numbers are not the same when Fernando Rey finally outwits Gene Hackman and leaves him behind at the station.
  
  
• The principal car chase scene was widely considered to be the best ever put on film at the time, overtaking Bullitt (1968) for that honor. William Friedkin later attempted to outdo himself with a chase sequence in To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).
  
  
• The real-life detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, on whom the characters of Doyle and Russo are based, appear in the movie as the detectives' supervisors.
  
  
• William Friedkin has said the chase scene was shot entirely out of sequence, and over a period of five weeks. It did not involve solid day-to-day shooting. One reason was that they were given permission to use only one particular Brooklyn line, the Stillwell Avenue, running from Coney Island into Manhattan (the West End line). The entire chase was shot with an Arriflex camera, as was most of the picture. One brief shot, where Hackman's car slams into the fence, was filmed in Ridgewood under the Myrtle Ave., or M, line.
  
  
• The traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge was shot without permission.
  
  
• For many of the shots with the car, the assistant directors, under the supervision of Terence A. Donnelly, cleared traffic for approximately five blocks in each direction. Members of the NYPD's tactical force helped control traffic. But most of the control was achieved by the assistant directors with the help of off-duty NYPD officers, many of whom had been involved in the actual case. Permission was given to literally control the traffic signals on those streets where they ran the chase car.
  
  
• Subway car 4572, the lead R-42 rail car in the chase scene, has been renovated and is operating on the M and Z line, which runs from Jamaica, Queens to Lower Manhattan.
  
  
• All of the extras used in the first bar scene were real life police officers.
  
  
• According to William Friedkin in the DVD Commentary, a lot of police officers objected to the scene in which Doyle shoots Nicoli in the back to end the chase. However, the real "Popeye" Doyle, Eddie Egan, was on set and gave Friedkin his approval.
  
  
• The scene where Doyle and Russo chase down the dealer near the beginning and Gene Hackman shouts out his famous question "Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?" is based on the real "good cop/bad cop" interrogations of the real "French Connection" detectives, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grasso according to William Friedkin in the DVD Commentary. Grasso would gingerly ask a suspect direct questions about his crimes to which Egan would alway but in and yell out unusual questions like the Poughkeepsie question. The suspect would get so rattled by Egan's forceful questioning that he felt more comfortable answering Grasso's questions, thus incriminating himself.
  
  
• An article quoted some of the performers as admitting that they pretty much ignored the dialog in the script and used terms and phrases the police advisers gave to them during rehearsals. Ironically, the screenplay won an Oscar. (Note: Owen Roizman, the film's cinematographer, maintains that the dialog in the finished film is almost exactly the same as that in the screenplay he read during production).
  
  
• In at least one glimpse of the Manhattan skyline (as the car is being unloaded from the cargo ship), you can see the first of the World Trade Center towers under construction.
  
  
• Steve McQueen was offered the chance to star in this film. Having already played a cop in Bullitt (1968), he did not want to act in any more cop roles, and turned down the offer.
  
  
• In the film, Popeye, Cloudy, and BNDD (Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, forerunner of the DEA) Agent Bill Mulderig stake out Chanier's Lincoln Continental (the case's "dirty" car) after seeing Sal Boca drive it to a side street; the stakeout lasts until 4:10 AM the next morning. In the actual French Connection case the stakeout of Frog One's car lasted three days.
  
  
• The officer shot on the train was an actual New York Transit Authority policeman. He was a member of the Actor's Guild.
  
  
• First originally R-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since then, Midnight Cowboy (1969), which was originally rated X, has since been downgraded to an R-rating, technically making it the first R-rated Best Picture winner.
  
  
• The actual events of this story took place between 7 October 1961 and 24 February 1962.
  
  
• Jackie Gleason was also considered for the role of Popeye Doyle. 20th Century Fox did not want Gleason due the box-office failure of Gigot (1962).
  
  
• The French license plate on the 1971 Lincoln Mk III used to smuggle the heroin is 18 LU 13. The real life "French Connection" car, a 1960 Buick Invicta, had French plate 18 LU 75. According to Robin Moore, the Invicta was popular with drug smugglers in the early 1960s because it had a large space under the body behind each front wheel well. Most of the heroin was hidden in these spaces in the French Connection car, but some was hidden under the rocker panels, as depicted in the film.
  
  
• According to William Friedkin, the significance of the straw hat being tossed onto the shelf of the rear window in Doyle and Russo's car was that at that time it was a universal signal in New York City that the undercover cops in the car were on duty.
  
  
• Detective Eddie Egan wanted his catchphrase in the film to be "Addicts in the cellar, sellers in the attic." Director Friedkin eschewed this line, preferring the more enigmatic phrase, "Do you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?"
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #93 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• In France the last 2 or 3 digits on the license plate referring to the Département the car is from. 13 stands for Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseilles) and 75 for Paris (Paris).
  
  
• The disc jockey, Danny Stiles, can be heard in the background in one of the bars that Popeye visits.
  
  
• Having participated in the making of this film, detective 'Eddie Egan' decided to retire from NYPD and start a career in Hollywood. The NYPD, however, brought charges against him for minor errors in reporting and handling of evidence. In Egan's trial director 'William Friedkin' testified on his behalf and Roy Scheider was also present. Egan was dismissed from the police force just hours before his retirement, and his pension was taken away. The decision was later appealed in court and reversed.
  
  
• Interviewed for BBC Radio 4's Film Programme Nov 2008, 'William Friedkin' said that Paul Newman was another top choice of his to play Popeye Doyle, but producers had said that he was well out of their budget.
  
  
• Al Copeland named his restaurant chain, Popeye's Mighty Good Fried Chicken, after Popeye Doyle, Gene Hackman's character in the film The French Connection (1971). The chain that grew from the one restaurant became Popeye's Famous Fried Chicken.
  
  
• Gene Hackman received the role of Popeye Doyle after an interview with William Friedkin without auditioning, reading the part, or screen testing.
  
  
• In France the last 2 or 3 digits (3 only on oversea counties) on the license plate referring to the Département the car is from. 13 stands for Bouches-de-Rhône (Marseilles) and 75 for Paris (Paris). The order in France is alphabetically.
  
  
• A "special edition" of The French Connection features several scenes that never made the final cut of the movie. One of these scenes has actor Marcel Bozzuffi being whipped by a topless hooker in his New York City hotel room. The trivia here is that the hooker is played by actress Darby Lloyd Rains who, several years later, would become one of the earliest stars of the adult film industry in such releases as Naked Came the Stranger (1975).
  
  
• The R42 featured in the chase scene (4572) is currently running on services based out of Jamaica Yard (as of March 2009). This car, along with its mate (4573) are set to be preserved in the New York Transit Museum. The fleet is currently being decommissioned due to age.
  
  
• According to William Friedkin, Gene Hackman had a hard time saying Doyle's racist language without cringing.
  
  
• The lead role was also offered to Lee Marvin, but he rejected it because he didn't like cops. Interestingly, Marvin made his name playing a tough cop in "M Squad" (1957) and soldiers in Attack (1956) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). He explained that he always made it a point to display some sort of conflict between his character and the military or the police, even though he would be a part of it. He felt that this was not possible with "The French Connection", and therefore could not get himself to accept the part.
  
  
• William Friedkin was able to make the movie because Fox's chairman, Darryl F. Zanuck, off-handedly said he had $2 million on hand and would OK a production start if Friedkin and his production team could make the movie for that much. Zanuck also warned Friedkin that if done badly, he'd end up with another episode of the TV series "Naked City" (1958). Friedkin said later that this inspired him to make the Popeye Doyle character a combination of good and evil, because that duality was not something one saw on "Naked City". The director also credited the film Z (1969) with introducing a near-documentary quality that he applied to own his fictional project.
  
  
• The first R-rated film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, in 1971. Midnight Cowboy (1969) had an X rating when it won Best Picture in 1969, although it was later reclassified (and remains at present) an R-rated film. Between the dawn of the modern MPAA ratings system and 1971, the other Best Picture winners were rated G (Oliver! (1968)) or PG (Patton (1970)).
  
  

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