What do you think? I grew up in the 70's and we were bombarded with network tv cop and detective shows, Baretta, Kojack, Police Woman, Rockford Files, and The Rookies, just to name a few. They all seemed to try to capture the intensity and excitement of this film.
I know I left a few out of the list so feel free to add some.
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I just watched THE NEW CENTURIONS for the first time in decades, and that film really holds up. A gritty L.A. crime film, but also one that looks at the interior lives of working patrolmen. It contains stellar performances by George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Rosalind Cash, Scott Wilson, and Erik Estrada.
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Whew, I feel like Methusalah! C'mon, "cop shows' had existed since the days of network radio. If you mean a program meant to be "realistic" and gritty," then the granddaddy was DRAGNET on radio, which transferred to TV circa 1951. It was followed by the likes of 87TH PRECINCT, THE NAKED CITY, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THE DETECTIVES, FELONY SQUAD, ADAM-12, et al.
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?
Very true. "Dragnet" is definitely the granddaddy of the police procedural. What TFC added to the formula, and makes it unique, is the brutality of the cops. Where Joe Friday was by-the-book, Popeye Doyle used the book as a bludgeon. There had been other versions of crooked and brutal police detectives before, but THE FRENCH CONNECTION is the first film I know of where that type of cop is the hero (or anti-hero) of the story. He chases criminals not because of the morality of it, but because it's the only thing he's good at. Doyle has no backstory or inner life, he only has the job. He's only truly alive when he's ebulliently raiding bars or slapping a perp in the face. Even his apartment building looks like a prison. The movie cop he comes closest to is probably Kirk Douglas in DETECTIVE STORY, but that hot-headed character is a moralizer with a tortured soul, and that's not Popeye.
Doyle's fictional contemporary, the vigilante Harry Callahan dressed well, drove a nice car, had a nice dinner once in a while. He never threw around the n-word or any other ethnic epithets to describe suspects, he didn't shoot other cops by accident. When Dirty Harry shoots someone they're guaranteed to be hardened ruthless cardboard criminals who make us cheer when they "get theirs." Doyle is different. In real life, he would be completely unlikable and too ugly to associate with. What makes it work in the film is his dedication to the job. Staying up too late, eating lousy food, wiretaps in warehouse basements, stamping his feet in the cold while surveilling the Frenchman is what makes him human and understandable. He's also vulnerable, but lucky enough to escape injury; that is, until FRENCH CONNECTION II.
Interestingly, Gene Hackman's approach to Popeye in FC II is somewhat different. Using the brutal elements of the original film, but removing Doyle's overt racism, Hackman made the character something of a likable sad-sack who comically founders in a foreign landscape. He still kills people, but like Dirty Harry, only the ones who deserve it.
And don't forget NYPD which aired in the late 60s; it featured on location filming and various episodes were based on actual cases.
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