In this first entry in the new “Classic Debunked” section, I will now and again take in an established movie classic and judge its worth as a superlative piece of cinema. Nothing is sacred, and if a film has dated badly or is just plain confounding (in the worst way possible), I will say so. (One day I will have the time to articulate my attack on that holiest of silver screen romances, “Casablanca”.) If a so-called classic holds up, it won’t even appear under the “Classics Debunked” heading and get its own formal review. Let the demystification begin.
In 1971, William Friedkin’s police thriller “The French Connection”, with Gene Hackman in the role of detective Popeye Doyle, won numerous Academy Awards including Best Actor for Hackman and Best Picture and Director (note that its main competition among the nominees was “A Clockwork Orange”). Supporting actor Roy Scheider was also nominated. Today, I find it difficult to see what audiences (the film was a box-office smash) and critics (Roger Ebert gives the film ****, his top rating) saw in and liked about the film. Apparently, the film is one of the “Ones that Started It All” movies. According to which side you’re on, “The French Connection” has been cited as the ur-inspiration for “24”, the “Bourne” movies and a host of other titles mostly all better than the film itself. This establishes only that the film may have historical value, but says very little about the film itself. Just because “I Spit on Your Grave” started the female vengeance horror subgenre doesn’t mean the film itself was any good.
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