French Connection 1 & 2 (2 Disc Set)

Winner of five Academy Awards - The French Connection available in a double Blu-Ray pack with the sequel French Connection 2. French Connection: Starring: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider. WINNER FIVE ACADEMY AWARDS® - including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor. New York City detectives Popeye Doyle and Buddy Russo hope to break a narcotics smuggling ring and ultimately uncover The French Connection. But when one of the criminals tries to kill Doyle, he begins a deadly pursuit that takes him far outside the city limits. French Connection 2: Starring: Gene Hackman, Bernard Fresson. Kidnapped by heroin kingpin Alain Charnier in Marseilles, Doyle is mercilessly forced to become a junkie himself. Upon his release, Doyle must kick his habit and join forces with his French police counterpart to hunt down Charnier. Accolades: French Connection. Best Picture Oscar Winner 1971. Best Picture (Drama) Golden Globe Winner 1971. Review William Friedkin's classic policier was propelled to box-office glory, and a fistful of Oscars, in 1972 by its pedal-to-the-metal filmmaking and fashionably cynical attitude toward law enforcement. Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle, a brutally pushy New York City narcotics detective, is a dauntless crime fighter and Vietnam-era "pig," a reckless vulgarian whose antics get innocent people killed. Loosely based upon an actual investigation that led to what was then the biggest heroin seizure in U.S. history, the picture traces the efforts of Doyle and his partner (Roy Scheider) to close the pipeline pumping Middle Eastern smack into the States through the French port of Marseilles. (The actual French Connection cops, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, make cameo appearances.) It was widely recognized at the time that Friedkin had lifted a lot of his high-strung technique from the Costa-Gavras thrillers The Sleeping Car Murders and Z--he even imported one of Costa-Gavras's favorite thugs, Marcel Bozzuffi, to play the Euro-trash hit man plugged by Doyle in an elevated train station. There was an impressive official sequel in 1975, French Connection II, directed by John Frankenheimer, which took Popeye to the south of France and got him hooked on horse. A couple of semi-official spinoffs followed, The Seven-Ups, which elevated Scheider to the leading role, and Badge 373, with Robert Duvall stepping in as the pugnacious flatfoot. --David Chute