Why are some films considered classics and others are not? Obviously it is all the elements of the film combining together to take the ordinary and push it beyond expectations into extraordinary filmmaking. One or two elements alone are generally not enough to help a film become a transcendent work of art as opposed to merely commercial fare. Lush cinematography but lousy acting, or a great script but inept mise-en-scene will rarely raise a film into the pantheon of all time best movies ever. And perhaps there aren't that many films which do achieve overall greatness in the scheme of things. The AFI Top 100 is a good launching pad even if it does leave off some and include others which might not be appropriate.
In the realm of the classic crime film, though, The French Connection (#70 on the AFI list) is considered to be near the top of the game. Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is a tough, rules breaking narcotics officer who's playing a hunch that a major shipment of herion is about to hit the streets of New York City. Along with his partner, Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider), they begin following a small time hood (Tony Lo Bianco) on a twisting, dangerous path towards a French drug kingpin (Fernando Rey).
While the story is fairly standard, it is the embellishments to that make it great. In the beginning, Popeye chases an informant through the streets dressed as Santa Claus. Hackman and Scheider throw themselves into this sequence with an energy that appears near lung busting as they pump down the streets after their quarry. Another chase later on is classic surveillance footwork, with one man on one side of the street who passes off to another coming another way while someone else is waiting further down the line. Even this is played with when Popeye follows Frog One/The Frenchman onto the subway and they cat and mouse each other back and forth onto the subway car. The highlight, for many, is the full out car chasing a subway sequence. The driving is great, but it is the pulse pounding editing which really ramps this up.
All the action doesn't mean a thing without the character bits, the banter, and the sense of mind numbing police procedural details. The New York winter is as much an adversary to the cops as the drug dealers. During one of the stakeouts, Popeye gets stuck in a doorway, freezing his ass off, while the Frenchman luxuriously takes his time dining in a fine restaurant. Several times the Popeye and Cloudy get stuck in a car waiting for something to happen. If you've ever spent time in a car during the winter with it turned off, you know just how cold and miserable that can be. And while they're stuck waiting, they talk It seems simple, but this is what makes the film more immediate in its realism. This isn't Dragnet with Joe Friday working his Technicolor detail and never getting his hands dirty. The French Connection tries, and succeeds, at showing how crime is really fought.
William Friedkin's background as a documentary filmmaker is partially the reason the realism works. His use of extended takes and hand held camera work breaks down Hollywood's expectations of standard storytelling up to that point. The influence of this movie on police films and TV is not to be underestimated. In fact, the success of this film led to three other variations: The French Connection 2 (where Popeye goes to Europe and gets hooked on herion), The Seven-Ups (which features Roy Scheider in a role not unlike Cloudy), and the TV movie Popeye Doyle (starring Ed "Married With Children" O'Neill as the titular character). In many ways, though, this film and Friedkin's next, The Exorcist, would be the pinnacle of his career.
Perhaps it is also the time period which is the final influence on the greatness of this film. The 1970's were a time of risk taking and envelope pushing. Friedkin was one of the leaders of the movement, along with Penn, Altman, Coppola, Ashby, Scorsese, amongst others. The grittiness was a reaction to white washed Hollywood standards which began to erode in the 1960's. The establishment of a ratings system helped films like to be made even as they eventually began to censor them. There isn't anything that controversial by our standards today in The French Connection (and its hard to say if there was even then), but there is more freedom for the coarse language and violence which is there.
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