William Friedkin Discusses The Development Of The "French Connection" Car Chase (reported by Ben Kenber)

William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” was recently shown as part of American Cinematheque’s tribute to him, and he went into great detail about how the famous car chase came together. It is still one of the best chases in cinema alongside “Bullitt,” and it’s the kind Hollywood doesn’t dare do anymore.

Actually, it turns out there was never a car chase in the original script for “The French Connection,” but Friedkin felt it needed one as this was a police procedural, and the audience would need a temporary release from it. Also, Friedkin didn’t do any storyboards to prepare for it. In fact, he has never done storyboards for any of his movies because he feels that he has to see it in his mind. The shots captured on film come together from he sees at the time, and to that effect he doesn’t even use a second unit to shoot any footage. All that you see on screen in “The French Connection” comes from life as it happened in front of William Friedkin.

In coming up with the chase, he and some crew members walked down 50 blocks of New York streets to figure out how it would work best. As Friedkin kept walking, he suddenly felt the subway under his feet. Now logistically, he couldn’t do a car chase with a subway as it was underground, but it made him wonder if there were any elevated trains left in New York. The production team ended up finding one in Brooklyn, so Friedkin went to the Transit Authority to get their cooperation in pulling this off.

The first thing to figure out was how fast these trains go. Friedkin said if they went over 100 mph, they couldn’t do the chase as it would be impossible for Popeye Doyle to follow it by car. The train supervisor he talked to said the trains go at 50 mph, so what seemed impractical suddenly became possible. Not only did Friedkin want to have a car chase the train, he also wanted to crash the train for the chase’s climax. But the train supervisor he talked to said it would be too difficult because they had never had an elevated train crash or even heisted. Having heard all this did not deter Friedkin and he announced that he planned to steal the scene if the transit authority’s cooperation was not going to be granted.

As Friedkin and his crew headed for the exit, the train supervisor suddenly said:

“Wait a second. I told you it would be difficult. I never said it would be impossible!”

He told Friedkin that if he were to help him with this, then he would need $40,000 and a one-way ticket to Jamaica. His reasoning was that if the movie was to be done Friedkin’s way, he would be fired, and retiring to Jamaica was always in the back of his mind. Sure enough, the supervisor was fired, and he moved to Jamaica like he said he would, so it’s safe to say he lucked out nonetheless.

In filming the chase, the shots were picked up just as they happened in real life. There’s no way they would ever be able to film a chase like that today without prior approval from the city, but Friedkin and his crew were young and reckless, and they unleashed mayhem New York never saw coming. There were not supposed to be any accidents while filming it, but there ended up being many of them which forced the crew to fix the car after each take. I’m pretty sure they ended up using more than one as a result. Friedkin ended up saying that they did a number of things they he would never even think about doing today, and that they were very fortunate no one got hurt.

Taking all this information into account, this car chase feels even more thrilling than when I first saw it. The way it was filmed was completely insane, and that they pulled it off at all was a miracle. When Gene Hackman finally pulls that 1971 Pontiac LeMans to its final stop, the sold out audience at the Aero Theatre applauded loudly which shows how powerful the sequence remains today. “The French Connection” is now at its 40^th anniversary, and like many of Friedkin’s movies, it has deservedly stood the test of time.