The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore. It tells the story of New York Police Department detectives named “Popeye” Doyle and Buddy Russo, whose real-life counterparts were Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. Egan and Grosso also appear in the film, as characters other than themselves.Read More »
Rafael Gil directed a number of films during the ’40s and ’50s. He started out co-directing three films with Gonzalo Memedez Pidal, and in 1941 he made his solo directorial debut with El Hombre Que Se Quiso Matar. ~ Sandra Brennan, RoviRead More »
Lina Wertmüller’s harrowing 1976 film stars Giancarlo Giannini as a petty crook with seven unattractive sisters to support, and it features a picaresque, World War II-era journey through a prison asylum, army service, and a Nazi concentration camp. Wertmüller is more indulgent in highbrow sadomasochism than she is real profundity, but there’s no denying that the film is powerful in its story of subjugation and survival. A climactic scene in which Giannini saves his skin at the camp by seducing its disgusting female commandant is unnervingly honest. Giannini became a ’70s international icon partially on the basis of this work.Read More »