The thirteenth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1971 features the Academy Awards Best Picture winner, William Friedkin’s The French Connection. Directed by William Friedkin, based on the book by Robin Moore, and starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey and Tony Lo Bianco, The French Connection was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture.

The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Roger Greenspun in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/08/archives/the-french-connection.html), Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times (https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-08-26/from-the-archives-high-adventure-in-connection), and Pauline Kael in The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/10/30/urban-gothic).

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If you’re a Letterboxd user and you watch any of the movies we talk about on the show, tag your review “Awesome Movie Year” to share your thoughts.

You can find our producer David Rosen and his Piecing It Together Podcast at https://www.piecingpod.com, on Twitter at @piecingpod, on Bluesky at piecingpod.bsky.social and on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/bydavidrosen/ 

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All of the music in the episode is by David Rosen. Find more of his music at https://www.bydavidrosen.com

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Please like, share, rate and comment on the show and this episode, and tune in for the next 1971 episode, featuring our producer David Rosen’s personal pick, Ted V. Mikels’ The Corpse Grinders.