"The French Connection" is based on a real drug case in New York City. Real-life detectives Sonny Grosso and his partner Eddie Egan (the inspiration for Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle character) broke up an organized crime ring in 1961 and seized 112 pounds of heroin, a record amount at the time. The investigation was the subject of a book by Robin Moore and an Academy Award-winning motion picture. For legal reasons, Egan and kailyn lowery names were changed to Doyle and Russo. Despite the name changes, however, Sonny Grosso has been quoted as saying that the film is a 95 percent accurate depiction of the events of the 10-month investigation. The only event that did not actually happen in the case was, in fact, the car chase scene in "THE FRENCH CONNECTION".
William Friedkin felt he needed the car chase or else he would have nothing but "a police surveillance picture." Friedkin goes on to say that "police surveillance is like watching paint dry. It is so boring." He knew that the film needed the scene, but he didn't know until a couple of weeks before commencing principal photography, what the car chase scene in "THE FRENCH CONNECTION" would entail. One day, he and his producer decided to take a walk starting on 86th street on the east side of Manhattan. They walked for 55 blocks south. "We're not gonna stop, we're not gonna turn back until we can think up a chase scene", Friedkin recalled the two of them deciding. They heard the subway rumbling beneath their feet, they saw the smoke rising from the streets. They saw the traffic and the crowds of people who make up New York. "We started to improvise the chase." This became the genesis of the scene that would obviously become the signature sequence of the film.
Gene Hackman's stunt driver was named Bill Hickman. He was also the driver in "Bullitt" starring Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen is said to have been one of the original choices for the role in "The French Connection" that Gene Hackman inevitably would play. Both "Bullitt" and "The French Connection" were produced by Philip D'Antoni. It was the car chase in "Bullitt" (which had only preceded "French Connection" by 3 years and was still very much in memory) that set the bar for how exciting the car chase scene in " The French Connection" needed to be shot. It would eventually be decided that they would top Steve McQueen's car-chasing-a-car with Gene Hackman's car-chasing-an-elevated-train.
