Woman on bike question
Is this woman a prostitute? I'm guessing boots are a symbol that she's a hooker? wasn't sure...
shareNot sure about her being a prostitute, this copy of the script (scroll down to page 45) doesn't identify her as one:
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/French-Connection,-The.html
I think she's just a young woman, wearing boots, he saw riding a bike and he picked her up. I believe I recall him earlier in the movie spinning around and taking a long look at a woman in boots who passed him in a crosswalk. Popeye seems to have a thing for women wearing boots. Friedkin does a nice job of establishing that little fetish especially when he has the camera zoom in on the bike rider's boots. Not that women wearing boots in NYC was that unusual...
Thanks. That script is kind of disturbing... it reads like popeye forced the woman into sex.
shareI don't see that, he seemed to have jokingly given her the line "do you have a 'peddler's' (groan) license".
shareLol, just watched again I forgot there's a third instance in the movie where Popeye interacts with a woman in boots- he asks her excuse me miss where did you buy those boots? She ignores him and keeps on walking. So definitely a thing about boots... I wonder if the real Eddie Egan the character is based on ever mentioned this to anyone?
shareturtletommy, I'm sure it came from Egan who was a renowned womanizer (four children from four different women). Although the scene you're talking about is the parking lot scene where a girl trots by Doyle and he asks her where she got the boots.
I think the fun of the deleted girl on bicycle scene is that Doyle uses the same over-the-top brutish technique to pick up women as he does to intimidate suspects. I somehow have the feeling that Egan was somewhat less "charming" than Hackman plays that scene.
I meant whether Egan really had a thing for women in boots or that was something Friedkin/the writer came up with. Definitely all these scenes were fun (and very well done) and Egan was a womanizer. And not really a charming guy.
shareYeah, that's what I meant. Sorry I didn't write it. I don't think Hackman and Friedkin came up with the boot fetish themselves, probably a trait of Egan's.
shareNot your fault - it's called a script by the IMDB - but it's really a screenplay. A script would be just the dialogue with no shooting directions.
But I really wanted to thank you for the link; I didn't know it was available here.