Though there were vestiges of traditional Hollywood in 1971 with the releases of big musical “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and an extravagant, albeit old-fashioned, historical epic “Nicholas & Alexander,” it was the untraditional fare that dominated the year with such films as Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Klute,” Gordon Parks’ “Shaft” and John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”
Two of the most lauded and influential films of the 1970s made their debuts 50 years ago and earned places in Oscars history: Peter Bogdanovich’s black-and-white study of a dying Texas town “The Last Picture Show” and William Friedkin’s pulsating crime thriller “The French Connection.”
Both directors had made movies before, but these productions made them critics darlings and each film changed the careers of their stars. “The French Connection’ won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, director, and actor for Gene Hackman. “The Last Picture Show” prevailed for featured turns by Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson.
“The French Connection” was based on Robin Moore’s book which chronicled the exploits of Harlem narcotics squad officers Eddie Egan and Sonny Grasso as they investigate a French heroin smuggling operation in 1962. The film, adapted by Oscar-winner Ernest Tidyman, changed the names to Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle whom Hackman brought to staggering life and Buddy “Cloud” Russo for which Roy Scheider earned a supporting actor nomination. Fernando Rey was a perfect foil for Popeye as the main heroin smuggler.
The breathtaking sequence where Popeye follows an elevated train in a car in a death-defying high-speed chase is a remarkable bit of filmmaking thanks to Jerry Greenberg’s Oscar-winning editing and Owen Roizman’s documentary-style cinematography.
Hollywood initially wasn’t interested in “The French Connection.” Friedkin told me in a 2001 L.A. Times interview that he and producer Phil D’Antoni spent two years trying to get it set up at a studio. “Every studio in town passed on it. Most of them passed on it twice. We had two different scripts that didn’t work before a third script caused [Fox studio head] Dick Zanuck to greenlight the film just before he was fired from Fox.” They were given a meager budget of $1.5 million. Zanuck told the director “If you guys can make the film for that, go ahead. But I won’t be here when you finish it.” Zanuck was fired a week before production began in New York. “It was a miracle we ever got to complete the film. The studio was in chaos the time.”
Friedkin had originally wanted Paul Newman to play Popeye, but Zanuck convinced him to not go with a star. “You’ll never get Paul Newman,” Zanuck told Friedkin. “He costs too much money. Just got out and cast it with the best possible actors.” Like Hackman, a hard-working character actor who had earned supporting actor Oscar nominations for 1967’s “Bonnie & Clyde’ and 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father.” He certainly wasn’t a star in the league of Newman. But that changed with “The French Connection.” Not only did he win the Oscar, Hackman became a leading man.
“The French Connection” was shot during the winter cold over a 40-day period. “’The French Connection was actually an independent film, “said Friedkin. “Aside from the fact it was financed by 20th Century Fox, we had no contact with the studio.” Ironically, the chase sequence wasn’t in the original script. “I felt it needed it,” Friedkin said. “The producer and I, a week or so before we started shooting the film, decided to walk from my apartment toward the Battery. It was 55 blocks. Around us we heard the rumble of the train and the subway beneath our feet. That gave us the idea. Then I had to go find out if it was possible for a car to ever catch a train.”
The haunting “The Last Picture Show’ was based on Larry McMurtry’s novel about two high school buddies Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (an Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges) who are living in a withering small Texas town in 1951. Leachman, who was best known as Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” won her Oscar for her heartbreaking performance as Ruth Popper, the lonely wife of the football coach who has an affair with Sonny. Johnson, a veteran of John Ford Westerns, won his Oscar for his touching portrayal of Sam the Lion, who is the film’s conscience. Ellen Burstyn, who was also Oscar nominated, Eileen Brennan, and Cybill Shepherd in her film debut, also star in the classic.
In a 2011 L.A. Times interview, Bogdanovich told me that it was a difficult shoot. “My father died during it suddenly of a stroke.” His marriage to the production designer Polly Platt ended when he fell in love with Shepherd. “All that happened in one picture. We all went town to Texas as one person and we all came back different people.” Not only did he talk to his mentors — Orson Welles, Ford and Howard Hawks — before production began, he paid homage to them by using classic country western tunes for his soundtrack and shooting in black and white-Robert Surtees’ was Oscar-nominated for his atmospheric cinematography.
Welles, explained Bogdanovich, told him to eschew color telling the young filmmaker: “Every performance looks better in black and white. Name a great performance in color. I dare you.” Just as “The French Connection,” the film hasn’t dated. “It was like a pre-shrunken shirt,” Bogdanovich said. “It was dated already because it was a period piece, set 20 years earlier, and all the music and the movies were of that period. We didn’t use a modern score. The only thing that dates it now are the actors”.
Leachman noted in 2011 she felt Bogdanovich was more a partner than a director. “It was like you were all on one team.” The filmmaker surprised her when she discovered he didn’t like to do many takes. “When I did the last scene in the movie, I learned my lines on the way to the set. I ran through it and then did it. He said, ‘print.’ I said, ‘wait a minute. Aren’t we going to do I again?’ He said, ‘No, that’s fine.’ I said ‘No, no. Peter. I just learned it.’ He said, ‘You are going to get the Academy Award for that. I said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure.”’
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