Hi everybody, Tyler here. I’m standing in the middle of the Marlboro Apartment Complex
near Bay 50th Street in south Brooklyn. You might recognize this building’s entryway
behind me as the entryway to Popeye’s apartment.
Roy Scheider, earlier in the film, he comes walking up and walks through this door right
here to meet Popeye in his apartment.
So I’m at Grand Central Station right now. This is the shuttle platform—track one.
This one goes from Grand Central to Times Square and back. So this right here, these
stairs are where Popeye and Charnier come walking down into the station and this open
space is where the custard stand was. Right about there is where the juice was and Charnier
was drinking the juice and right about here is where Popeye was looking at him and eating
the candied apple. This sign is actually kind of funny because it says that the shuttle
is not wheelchair accessible, but they filmed the whole scene with a wheelchair as a dolly.
Friedkin: “The film was shot fast. The actors understood what they were supposed to do and
did it. The camera crew followed the action like they were on a documentary. All the movement
here is done from a wheelchair. We didn’t have dolly tracks, we used to push Ricky Bravo
around in a wheelchair, so even though the movement rather smooth, it’s not totally
smooth. It has more of what I call an ‘induced documentary’ feel.”
Now right here, this pillar right here is pretty much the same spot where the payphone
was where Popeye calls in to let everybody know that Charnier has left the hotel. And
right over here, this is the area right here where the train would come up and they went
back and forth on and off the train. So it’s actually a really really interesting spot
here and it looks fairly similar except the color of the pillars is different and obviously
it’s missing the really cool custard stand, which I wish was still here.
So they used a lot of guerilla filming tactics to get this scene. It would have been very
problematic to have to shut down the station and very costly, so what Friedkin did was
he got a lot of the friends in the law enforcement to kind of help do crowd control and all that
and they actually used a wheelchair to do the dollyshots, they didn’t have any specialized
lighting—all they had was the light that you see here, the halogen lights and they
managed to make do with that even though they were shooting on film. You can see, there’s
a picture where just have the hand-held camera and they just kind of went around stealing
shots as it was. So, it’s really interesting to kind of see the area in which they had
to map this whole thing out.
So it actually makes a lot of sense why they would choose this location to shoot this scene.
It’s because the shuttle actually goes to Time Square and straight back on the same train.
That way, if they’re doing a bunch of takes with Charnier getting on the train
and waving to Popeye, they don’t have to spend so much time trying to get back to the
location where they were filming. That way, he could just hop on and stay on the train
and it would come right back to where they were filming.
I thought it was a little strange that Popeye and Charnier were able to hop on and off the
train when the time between subway train doors opening and closing is usually around 10 seconds.
The shuttle train behaves a little differently. Since it only goes between two locations,
it stays at each location for about three minutes from when it arrives to when it leaves again.
So this is a really cool location, but the location I really want to take a look at is
where they filmed the chase scene. So let’s go there right now.
So this spot right behind me is where Popeye comes walking up after he loses Charnier in
Grand Central Station. He’s very upset, he just got thrown off the case and right
then he passes a woman who gets shot with a sniper’s bullet coming from this building
then he passes a woman who gets shot by a sniper’s bullet coming from this building right here.
So Friedkin wouldn’t storyboard his shots. He would actually come out much earlier on
the actual location and map out how everything was going to go. So, he would set up the blocking
of where the woman was going to be and where Gene Hackman was going to dive behind the
tree to get away from the sniper’s bullets and how he would strafe up against the side
of the wall. So, let’s actually go take a look at the wall over here.
This is actually the area where he dives to safety near a tree that shields him from the
sniper shots hitting all around here. So he runs from his cover here where the tree was
and hugs this wall right here and strafes along the side of it so the sniper can’t
hit him before jumping this rail, so he can get into the building.
Okay, so I’m at the Bay 50th station—Popeye comes running up these stairs here only to
find that the sniper is not on the same side that he’s on. This is the southbound side
and the sniper is on the northbound side. So he looks around for a little while scanning
the area until he notices him behind one of these pillars just as the northbound train
approaches. So Popeye has to flee down to the bottom as fast as he can and try and commandeer
a car, so he can chase the train.
Alright, so I’m on the D train right now. This is the front of the D train. You can-
this is actually the train that travels on this line. Popeye would be driving right under
us right now. And you can see that this looks completely different than it does in the movie.
In the movie the sides are blue there’s no front-facing or back-facing chairs.
So this is actually where the conductor is right here. And in the movie, the sniper,
he breaks into the conductors room, puts a gun to his head, and forces him to drive past
25th Avenue and keep on driving.
The transit authority refused to let an actor drive the subway train, so the conductor was
played by the actual conductor of the train.
I’m at the Transit Museum right now in downtown Brooklyn. This train right here was built
in 1963 and it’s pretty much the same model we see in the film. These trains ran all the
way through the 70s and you can see there’s lots of ads around here that kind of show
the era of the 70s and stuff. It looks pretty much exactly the same as it does in the film—the
main thing I want to look at right here is these handles right here—they don’t exist
on any of the newer trains that are out right now. Instead they have a pole that runs all the
way across for people to hold on to. And you can see that the color is a little bit different,
but it’s got the same kind of vibe.
This map right here is from the 60s and 70s when this train was on the tracks. We’re
actually right about here at the Transit Museum and down here, this is where the chase was.
So it went from Bay 50th Street up to 62nd Street—just this little stretch—and you
can see right here that it was the B line, so only the B ran on that line. Right now
only the D runs on that line, but what’s really weird is that in the film, we see an
N train clearly running on that line, so I don’t know exactly what the deal was there
or why that was on there, but what’s really interesting is how they came to use the train.
Friedkin: “So we went to a gentleman who was the head of the transit authority, ‘could
I get permission to use an elevated train and you know, dedicate it to the film and
tie it up for a period of time?’ and this guy sat there and looked at me like I was
crazy and he said, ‘I can’t let you do that!’ He said, ‘If I let you do that,
I’m gonna get fired!’ So the production manager and I got up to leave and he said,
‘Wait a minute.’ He said, ‘Maybe there’s a way.’ I said, ‘Well, what would that
be?’ He said, ‘$40,000 and a one-way ticket to Jamacia.’
And he was serious and that’s what we did.”
I did a little digging and managed to find the reason why the N train appears on the
B line. As it turns out, when they were choosing the train cars to use, the producers wanted
clean cars and the only clean cars that were available at the time were from the N line (TCM).
So this spot right here was where Gene Hackman almost hits the woman and the carriage right-
crossing the street right here and he ends up hopping up onto the curb and driving through
a bunch of stacked boxes.
So, when Popeye crashes into all the cardboard boxes that were stacked here, that was one
of the very few times it was a planned collision. How they did the scene was they had all the
police that were helping out with the production close down the side-streets, but what they
didn’t count on was all the cars that were already parked on the street. So when people
started to get up and heading off to work, they didn’t realize that there was a big
production going on and didn’t realize that there was a stunt driver driving 90 miles
an hour down the street. So, that’s where one of the main collisions that we see in
the film occurs completely by accident. That was actually just a normal civilian that was,
you know, driving their car to work.
They actually ended up using three of the same car to get the scenes right because it
kept crashing into things and kind of ruining the car.
This shot here was not filmed in the same area at the bottom of Brooklyn as the rest
of the chase scene, but instead it was shot near the top of Brooklyn quite a ways away.
They found this fence while doing location-scouting near Myrtle Avenue. Friedkin liked the fence
and wanted to include the stunt of crashing into it in the final film (DGA).
The bulk of the chase scene runs down this street right here—86th Street—following
the elevated train. Bill Hickman, who was the stunt driver, actually drove down going
90 miles an hour for 26 blocks without stopping and that one take that he did actually makes
up most of the shots that we see in the chase scene. Gene Hackman also drove down this street
for the kind of closer shots of his reactions with the camera mounted to the hood of the car.
He worked on this scene for about two weeks and the whole scene took about 21 shooting
days to complete and that includes all the stuff that they did inside the train as well
as the stuff they- the 2nd unit did down below and how they got the shots was they had a
camera car following the principle car and the principle car had a- one of those undercover
detective kinda like cherry top lights on it that would flash and blare like a siren
to let people know that a car was speeding down the road at ninety miles an hour.
They got permission to control the traffic lights for about five blocks and had the assistant
directors clear the traffic for that stretch of the road, but once they went past the five
blocks, they were out in the normal traffic with nothing to keep them from running into
civilian cars and people crossing the street beside the light and siren on top of the car.
Friedkin ran through the scene slowly about six times to get the feel of what they were
going to do before they went for it (DGA).
They used a lot of techniques that hadn’t really been done before on a movie like this.
Most notably, strapping a camera to the front bumper of the car to get some of those really
great POV shots of the car just kind of zooming down the street.
You have to remember that this was actually done pretty much guerrilla style, so there
were still a fair amount of civilian cars on the street and Friedkin actually did all
of the shots from the back seat himself because nobody wanted to do it because it was so dangerous.
Friedkin: “No, I wouldn’t do that again.”
Maron: “God, I don’t think they’d let you do that.”
Friedkin: “Well, they didn’t want to let me do that then, but I had all these cops
around me with their badges—they were off-duty cops—and they were with me when I shot the
chase in case we got busted… and it’s only by the grace of God that nobody got hurt
or killed on a film like The French Connection.”
They used a 50mm lens for the camera in the backseat to get something close to how human
eyes see, which puts the viewer right in the car with Popeye. The camera on the front bumper
was wider—a 25mm lens— to let us take in a better field of view to see all of the
dangers on the road (DGA).
They didn’t record any sound while they were filming the chase because they had the
siren on top the car, so well after the scene was filmed, soundman Chris Newman created
the sounds of the elevated train in New York and sound supervisor Don Hall created the
car and street sounds in California at the Fox studios (DGA).
To get the proper rhythm and pacing for the chase scene, Friedkin and editor Jerry Greenberg
cut the scene to the cover of “Black Magic Woman” by Carlos Santana (Wiki). If you
get a chance, watch the chase scene while listening to the song—it’s pretty interesting.
Cinematographer Owen Roizman said in an interview that he undercranked some of the shots to
18 frames per second, which made those shots appear twenty-five percent faster than normal.
Apparently, you can see the exhaust coming out of the backs of some cars at a faster
rate than normal, but it is really hard to tell (Wiki). Friedkin mentioned that for a
lot of shots, they couldn’t undercrank because you can see pedestrians walking on the sidewalk
and it wouldn’t work to speed up those shots (DGA).
Another interesting thing about 86th Street is that this is where they filmed a fair amount
of Saturday Night Fever. This pizzeria behind me is actually the same pizzeria that John
Travolta goes to at the beginning of the movie to get a couple of slices.
The point-of-view shot of the train crashing into the train in front of it was done in
reverse and undercranked at 12 frames a second to make it appear faster (DGA). The actual
shot as they filmed it would look something like this:
So, this is the end of the chase scene at 62nd Street. The train has just crashed right
over there and the sniper has just come through those doors and Popeye sees him. Sniper starts
to come down the stars and Popeye goes over to him with his gun drawn and when the sniper
sees him, he turns around and Popeye shoots him in the back.
So, this spot right here, this is where Popeye slumped over after he shot the sniper. The
sniper falls down these stairs right here and ends up right in the corner here.
And you’ll notice that this sign right here is completely different than it was back in
1971—it was, I believe the BMT—and you’ll notice that this light pole wasn’t here
in 1971 and right about here, where this car is parked, is where the old VW bus was.
So, these are the stairs that the sniper falls down. The sniper was played by Marcel Bozzuffi
who was actually a stuntman and even he was reluctant to do the stunt. He actually went
to Friedkin on the day and said that he didn’t really think that he wanted to do it, but
Friedkin ultimately convinced him to. And, as you’ll remember, he had to fall down
backwards and these stairs are really intimidating—they’re a little bit different now than they were
in 1971—now they are like completely metal, but still that’s quite a way to fall—especially backwards.
Thanks for watching! It was really amazing to see these locations in person. I hear that
the actual train cars that they used in the film have been refurbished and are now running
sometimes on either the M line or the Z line. Maybe at some point I’ll try to hunt them
down. Some of the pictures I’ve seen show that they have removed the handles and replaced
them with the bar.
I just want to take a second to thank my patrons for supporting this channel. With your contributions
I was actually able to get this lavalier microphone that’s really helped out with filming these
location videos, so thank you very much.
And for patrons, I’m going to include a little blooper reel for this video. There
were so many issues making this video—between the train coming every five seconds, a blizzard,
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