Latest in The French Connection

They were “memorable” or “unforgettable” or even “life-changing.” Each week it seems a '70s movie is singled out for special honors by cultural historians or critics desperate to avoid reviewing a new film. This week TCM faithfully focuses its 50th anniversary spotlight on The French Connection, replete with…

Sonny Grosso, an NYPD detective who, along with partner Eddie Egan, inspired William Friedkin’s 1971 crime classic The French Connection, died yesterday in Manhattan following a long illness. He was 88. In the film, a character based on Grosso (born Salvatore Grosso) was played by Roy Scheider (Gene Hackman played his…

The film editor behind one of the most famous car chases in movie history has died. Jerry Greenberg, whose work on The French Connection won him an Academy Award for film editing, died Friday after a long illness. He was 81. The French Connection car chase featured Detective Jimmy Doyle (played by Gene Hackman)…

"In retrospect, I was wrong to shoot it that way, but there was no other way to get it done." That's how director Billy Friedkin last week summed up his famously hair-raising chase scene in the Oscar-winning 1971 film The French Connection. Friedkin was speaking before a rapt audience at the Directors Guild that had…

Casting director Louis DiGiaimo, a five-decade veteran of television and film who cast four best picture Oscar-winners and notably gave Brad Pitt his big break died on Saturday from complications following a stroke earlier this year, his family announced. He was 77. Born in Paterson, N.J. in 1938, DiGiaimo began his…

EXCLUSIVE: One of the maverick directors whose movies helped to define the 1970s as the last auteur era, William Friedkin reached back into that exalted decade to dust off Sorcerer, the 1977 film that was restored and is still being rediscovered in theaters around the world. When first released, with Roy Scheider…