The French Connection

Celebrating its 40th Anniversary with a new 35mm print—and with lauded star Tony Lo Bianco in person—the Cinema Arts Centre presents director William Friedkin’s gritty, high-octane, era-defining film, The French Connection (1971), listed by the American Film Institute as among the ten greatest thrillers ever made. Recreating the biggest heroin drug bust in NYC history, this breathless crime drama stars Gene Hackman in his Oscar-winning performance as Popeye Doyle, a racist, ballbusting rogue cop who pursues his quarry with an obsessive violence driven by his own boundless ego and addiction to adrenalin. Tony Lo Bianco plays Sal Boca, a modest luncheonette owner somehow able to afford endless nightclub hopping and a string of fancy cars. Ever accelerating, the movie is highlighted by its rightly legendary car-versus-subway chase, the most feverish chase scene ever filmed. USA, 1971, 104 min.