William Friedkin on the Car Chase Scene In THE FRENCH CONNECTION

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  • Опубліковано 26 січ 2025

КОМЕНТАРІ • 76

  • @billdowhen703
    @billdowhen703 9 років тому +66

    A few years later William Friedkin put together the breathtaking car chase in "To Live and Die In LA".

  • @scdevon
    @scdevon 7 років тому +55

    I never get tired of hearing this story. $1.5 million was a shoestring budget even in 1971. The actors couldn't have made much at all, but if they got a percentage of the box office take after the film's release they probably did pretty well.

    • @georgescheidemann975
      @georgescheidemann975 6 років тому

      scdevon d

    • @dzanier
      @dzanier 5 років тому +3

      i doubt they did. not one of the actors, not even hackman, had reached the point in their careers where they could demand a percentage of the box office. it wouldn't surprise me if hackman got about 100,000 dollars for the movie. that wasn't bad money for the time.

  • @Wildstar40
    @Wildstar40 6 років тому +95

    90 mph over 26 blocks in a busy city with no permission. I wonder if they know how lucky they were that they did not kill somebody.

    • @bearman9033
      @bearman9033 4 роки тому +13

      i'm fairly certain that when that civilian white car slams into the side of the car that is a random dude not involved with the movie

    • @matt697n
      @matt697n 4 роки тому +4

      @@bearman9033 I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that that's the truth. I can't find the article anymore but I remember they wrote that the production had to pay a bodyshop to get the poor's man car fixed.

    • @bearman9033
      @bearman9033 4 роки тому +1

      @@matt697n I mean the director talks about it a bit but yeah they paid for the car after the movie released but I’m assuming they would have been sued otherwise. Great movie and scene glad no one died lmao

    • @CH0MSKYH0NK
      @CH0MSKYH0NK 3 роки тому +2

      @Briscoe17555 the stuntman was drunk, too!

  • @ioriorioriorio
    @ioriorioriorio 14 років тому +19

    Amazing...I've driven under the Queens el fairly drunka few times- its absolutely frightening-- did he say "90 mph"?? i have a hard time there at 30....and I was in a 70's ford similar to that pontiac lemans in the film

  • @IMangame
    @IMangame 8 років тому +22

    Great storyteller.

  • @sirxavior1583
    @sirxavior1583 4 роки тому +20

    I bet the MTA employee figured he wasn't getting anywhere in the US and wanted to go back home and retire. $40k Corrected with inflation is $250k in 2020. I bet he built a house for $50k in Jamaica and used the rest of the money to start a bushiness or retire on.

  • @JesusBehindtheWheel
    @JesusBehindtheWheel 11 років тому +56

    Bill Hickmen. One of the greatest wheelmen ever

    • @rancosteel
      @rancosteel 4 роки тому +4

      Bill Hickman was in Bullitt too!

    • @kevinclark8549
      @kevinclark8549 4 роки тому +3

      Bill Hickman was the best stunt driver I've seen bar none.

    • @azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401
      @azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401 2 роки тому

      From Bullitt to The French Connection

    • @LakeHowellDigitalVideo
      @LakeHowellDigitalVideo Рік тому

      ​@@rancosteelBullitt, French Connection AND The Seven Ups. The best stunt driver there ever was.

    • @johnschaefer2238
      @johnschaefer2238 10 місяців тому

      Hickman was good friends with James Dean. Hickman was following Dean in his Porsche with a station wagon. About a minute after Dean and Turnupseed collided Hickman got to the scene. Dean was thrown out of the car and Hickman got to Dean before anyone else and Dean died in his arms.

  • @liduck52
    @liduck52 12 років тому +14

    But the bright side is that transit guy got a nice severance package. Forty thousand in 1970 might have been 4 years pay for that guy.

  • @roberttucker805
    @roberttucker805 10 років тому +9

    Is it true that early in the chase when Hackman collides with the white Ford, that scene actually wasn't part of the script because the driver of the Ford had accidently driven on to the film shoot? I read this somewhere years ago.

    • @MrLarryDallas45
      @MrLarryDallas45 9 років тому +10

      robert tucker This is true. They didn't have permission to shoot this car chase scene. The guy that got hit, was just going about his day, & was caught up in it unfortunately. They ended up paying him to repair his car, from what I heard.

    • @MrLarryDallas45
      @MrLarryDallas45 9 років тому +5

      It was indeed a member of the public. If you click on the link that I provided above, he explains it in full detail.

    • @speeta
      @speeta 5 років тому +2

      That white car with the black vinyl top was driven by a stunt driver, executing a planned stunt. it appears a few minutes earlier in the film, again driven by a stunt driver, as Hackman stands in the middle of the street trying to flag down passing motorists, and drives right past him. That planned stunt went awry and turned out more violent and spectacular than planned but ended up in the film. www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0603-Fall-2006/Feature-Anatomy-of-a-Chase.aspx the DGA article is a reprinting of an article Freidkin wrote in 1972 for DGA's Action magazine.
      In a 2000 interview for Mark Kermode's documentary, Gene Hacknam told the story of another collision with a driver who interfered with some other shot, so that really happened, but wasn't in the finished film. In the presentation of that story, the planned-but-mistimed stunt collision seen in the film is being mixed up with the genuine traffic accident that happened in a different time and place.

  • @michaelhallas6450
    @michaelhallas6450 3 роки тому +8

    It takes balls of steel to that chase in the French Connection,it was real, they even didnt even get a permit to that chase.

  • @SixDayWar67
    @SixDayWar67 12 років тому +3

    NO matter what it was a lot of money back then...not a million but still it was an interesting factoid about the making of a great film. Its also a great film to see what NYC was like in that time period which was more grimey and dirty before Times Square was cleaned up.

  • @TheBrooklynbodine
    @TheBrooklynbodine 8 років тому +1

    I wondered about how it was filmed.

  • @DougGrinbergs
    @DougGrinbergs 2 місяці тому

    1:57 90MPH for 26 blocks - no way! 2:49 something different - arrange train for car chase scenes

  • @SixDayWar67
    @SixDayWar67 12 років тому +5

    The average blue collar worker at that time made about 50-70 bucks per week = about 2500-3500 per year.
    He got more like 10-15 years and also money in Jamaica will last you far longer than NYC. then and now.

    • @gsmiley2707
      @gsmiley2707 5 років тому +1

      Unless it's Jamaica, NY!

  • @harleyballz7683
    @harleyballz7683 7 років тому

    1:57, kinda looks sped upish, what with the really fast exhaust fumes, and you can see him stop in the scene.

  • @liduck52
    @liduck52 12 років тому +2

    Thats true but this guy was not a blue collar worker. Freidkin said the guy was the head of the transit authority.

  • @brandonkashinsky9222
    @brandonkashinsky9222 Рік тому

    26 blocks into city traffic going 90 mph an hour without stopping 😨

  • @martykeaton182
    @martykeaton182 6 років тому +2

    3:39 - :43 I’m thinking this movie might’ve prepared them for that.

  • @forenamesurname4310
    @forenamesurname4310 9 років тому +1

    www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0713m2n Continuing with his look at Oscar-winning films and what they tell us about the society that gave birth to them, Paul Gambaccini turns to the first R-rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar and one of the earliest to show the newly complete World trade towers. An early example of the new wave in American Films, The French Connection went on to win 5 Oscars and set both its leading man (Gene Hackman) and its young director (William Friedkin) on what were to become glittering careers. BBC Radio 4.

  • @074August
    @074August 15 років тому +1

    great story.

  • @RobertWilliams-mk8pl
    @RobertWilliams-mk8pl 4 роки тому +7

    New York was nice and rough around the corners back then. In ~ '76 I used to go through the Holland Tunnel at about 114-115 mph at least...regularly. I'm sure plenty of other people have done the same and faster. At that speed it becomes way to dangerous to check your speed and drive. Up until the mid '70s there was far less traffic. It certainly wasn't right and down right irresponsible. "Youth is a grade of craziness".

    • @JCDenton95
      @JCDenton95 3 роки тому +1

      old creep.

    • @stepha5926
      @stepha5926 Рік тому +1

      Old 'murican cars could do those speeds?

  • @frankdeste7941
    @frankdeste7941 Рік тому

    RIP William Franklin

  • @armandsdamanhoo
    @armandsdamanhoo 11 місяців тому

    People used to take more chances and live life to the fullest

  • @w1lmes
    @w1lmes 4 місяці тому

    THE GOAT

  • @domherbin8562
    @domherbin8562 5 років тому

    Sure you have to go fast to chase frog 2...😎
    Marcel Bozzuffi vs
    Gene Hackman /Bill Hickman 🎩👍

  • @stephenallen4625
    @stephenallen4625 2 роки тому +2

    This man is a maniac lol

  • @allanscudder
    @allanscudder 11 років тому

    albeit that that much considering what things cost nowadays.

  • @martykeaton182
    @martykeaton182 6 років тому

    2:20 - :23 I don’t blame him cause it’s too dangerous.

  • @allanscudder
    @allanscudder 11 років тому

    2500 t0 3500 a year would be many times more than that in today's money

  • @Peppermint1
    @Peppermint1 2 роки тому

    Maybe the car did reach 90 mph at some point - although that sounds excessive even if the traffic was to be blocked. I would guess most of the chase didn't go much above 40-50mph.

    • @TheBundleofkent
      @TheBundleofkent Рік тому

      I reckon it did 80-90 as he says, Friedkin isn’t a bullshitter

  • @elvispresley718
    @elvispresley718 12 років тому

    the queens l is kind of curved, isn't it? i thought the l in the movie was in brooklyn or the bronx.

    • @8avexp
      @8avexp 10 місяців тому

      That's the West End line in Brooklyn.

  • @briantorsell
    @briantorsell 6 років тому +1

    Mike Rowe sent me here...

  • @waynecassels3607
    @waynecassels3607 10 місяців тому

    So cool. Lol

  • @himynameis_2346
    @himynameis_2346 7 років тому +10

    Sup reddit.

  • @martykeaton182
    @martykeaton182 6 років тому +2

    Dislikes. Feel free to explain.

  • @audiospawn
    @audiospawn 11 років тому +1

    Sounds like he tried to take a Cracked at his manhood.

  • @RobinNightLight
    @RobinNightLight 6 років тому +8

    He speaks like Donald Trump.

  • @RjBenjamin353
    @RjBenjamin353 5 місяців тому

    A great myth

  • @GWhiz99
    @GWhiz99 12 років тому

    If Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama invited rapper/actor Common (b. Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr) to the White House, why not his “Just Wright” co-star, Dana Owens, bka Queen Latifah. In the film, he plays NBA player Scott McKnight to Owens’ Leslie Wright, his love interest. Unrelated: ray beam attack; stone cults; watch?v=NhNoZcU0N20 or Common as Turner Lucas in Ridley Scott’s heroin crime drama “American Gangster”, which had Denzel Washington as protagonist Frank Lucas, the NC crime family kingpin

  • @RivieraByBuick
    @RivieraByBuick 9 років тому

    ha, nice story. but a bit bullshit. 2.5 million budget was great deal back in those days.

    • @JohnWesleyDowney
      @JohnWesleyDowney 9 років тому +11

      +RivieraByBuick I think he said 1.5 million.

  • @TheBrooklynbodine
    @TheBrooklynbodine 8 років тому +2

    He called Gene Hackman "Hickman".

    • @acarlovonsexron1994
      @acarlovonsexron1994 7 років тому +12

      Bill Hickman was the legendary stunt driver for the chase scenes in Bullitt, The Seven Ups, and The French Connection.

    • @TheBrooklynbodine
      @TheBrooklynbodine 7 років тому +1

      OK, thanks for clearing that up.

    • @scdevon
      @scdevon 6 років тому +4

      Bill Hickman actually drove during most of the chase footage. Hickman was pure crazy behind the wheel and often drinking on top of it during filming.