William Friedkin

Killer Joe is hilarious and brilliant.

Deal of the Century is one of his worst, and surprisingly visually flat. Script is by Paul Brickman, who wrote the wonderful Citizens Band for Jonathan Demme and wrote/directed Risky Business and Men Don’t Leave, and I adore both of those to death

French Connection has the best soundtrack. Even better than Sorcerer. Don Ellis on fire!

French Connection really does get better with repeat viewings, i think it's closer to something like Bullitt in some ways, and Philip D'Antoni produced both. I appreciate how they almost accidentally discover this huge criminal operation. It feels closer to real police work than some other films, something it also partially shares w/Bullitt. It's almost as downbeat as TLADILA, maybe moreso. Feels more tragic.

I was very lucky to see the original 1987 cut of Rampage at the New Beverly a few years ago. Profoundly sad and distressing film

You know, without posting spoilers for those who haven't seen it, I can't think of a thriller that yanks the rug out from under the viewer the way To Live and Die in L.A. does. I mean, the first time you see it, you'll fall right off the couch.

That’s one I’ve meant to see for a long while. Gotta see if it’s streaming somewhere…

Ha, didn't know this re: Rey & The French Connection:

Fernando Rey was cast by mistake; William Friedkin wanted an actor he remembered seeing in Belle de Jour (1967), and the casting director thought it was Fernando Rey - who was hired. Only upon arriving at the airport to meet Rey did Friedkin see that it was not the actor he had been thinking of; he also learned, to his great dismay, that Rey was Spanish and spoke no French. Once at Rey's hotel (the same one he stays at in the film), Friedkin called the casting director, who realized he had confused Rey's name with that of the correct actor, Francisco Rabal. Friedkin considered firing Rey, but changed his mind once it was learned that Rabal wasn't available and didn't speak any English.

French Connection II is astonishingly underrated. The late 10 minutes are like edging to a great, well-deserved orgasm

And Rabal would turn up in Sorcerer.

Rabal's French in Belle de Jour is dreadful fwiw

That’s one I’ve meant to see for a long while. Gotta see if it’s streaming somewhere…

It ain't official but...

https://archive.org/details/7.3-to-live-and-die-in-l.-a.-1985

Yeah it's good, not discussed in that interview. Sadly not seen anything bar the big hits xxxp

French Connection II is a Frankenheimer joint, but it's good, definitely just don't recommend anyone to go in expecting anything like the first film.

Digging into the Friedkin WTF episode from '16: he originally wanted Jackie Gleason or Peter Boyle for Popeye Doyle!

xp

same with the Blatty directed Exorcist 3

hat’s one I’ve meant to see for a long while. Gotta see if it’s streaming somewhere…

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings),

I always tell people to check their public libraries for DVDs and Blu-rays.

Oh, I know it’s a Frankenheimer film. Same screenwriter who wrote his absolutely crazy and hilarious 99 and 44/100% Dead. Hackman is just as good in it.

Friedkin bribing a transit authority guy so he can do The French Connection chase, who took the money, left his job, then retired to Jamaica. No one making dreams come true like Billy Friedkin pic.twitter.com/VmOjtY4UnR

— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) April 14, 2022

Took me quite awhile to parse that he didn’t mean Jamaica, Queens.

RIP to an absolute legend. pic.twitter.com/cx0RuPZ44d

— kevin l. lee (@Klee_FilmReview) August 7, 2023

I interview him years ago, and here's what he said about Wang Chung:

I was in England, and the music from their first album was all over British radio. It was a terrific sound, very unique for pop music. I contacted them, Jack Hues, we met, and I told him we were about to make the film. I gave him the script and told him to write the music based on your impressions of the script. I didn’t want him to write the score after he had seen the film. I wanted the score to influence the picture. I would talk to him at length about each scene and the characters, and he went out and wrote a couple of hours of music and mailed it to me. So I cut the movie to the score, instead of vice versa. I think it’s different when you have someone score the film after it’s done. It’s kind of upbeat! It grew on me. They play it now at basketball games, whenever the Lakers play. Even the Chicago Bulls used some of the instrumental music for two or three seasons, as their bumper music, whenever they went to a time out. Whether they were playing the Lakers or not!

Digging into the Friedkin WTF episode from '16: he originally wanted Jackie Gleason or Peter Boyle for Popeye Doyle!

...and Jimmy Breslin, who actually got to read with the just-cast Roy Scheider.

More from my archives, about casting "To Live and Die..."

That was a kind of movie god situation. I didn’t set out to hire two Chicagoans. I had a great casting director, who had cast “The French Connection.” He brought me Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco. He was not really a casting director by profession. He wrote for the Village Voice, a theater critic, so he knew almost every actor and actress who were working around the country. He would go to plays everywhere, and he had a photographic memory. Well, after the "French Connection" he moved to France. When I wrote the script for "To Live and Die," I called him in France and asked him to come back and find all new people. So he went out and found Petersen, who was working at the Stratford Theatre Festival, in Stratford, Ontario, doing "Streetcar Named Desire." I flew up to see it and there were all these young women there, for him! His performance owed absolutely nothing to Brando’s, and I thought the guy was a real original. He had never done a movie. And then there was Johnny Pankow, who was recommended and who had also never done a movie.

"Listen.. I ripped everything outta there except the rocker panels."
"C'mon Irv, what the hell's that?!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8dKnFU5LUE

I called TLADILA the ultimate "frog boiling in water" movie, Peterson becomes the actual villain of the film in such a narratively clever and seamless fashion, it's a real crafty and smart trick. Everyone's used to the "cop/agent/etc who breaks all the rules to get his man" movie but this pushes it into absolute corruption and casts all of this guy's relationships in the film in an appropriately ugly light. You see how he infects everyone around him.

What’s amazing about To Live and Die in L.A. is that it completely flips the conclusion of its source novel but still arrives at essentially the same place. Novelist/co-screenwriter Gerald Petievich hates the opening of the film, as he thought that there was no need to show the job most commonly associated with secret service agents. I do have some reservations about that sequence, though, but they pertain to how Hollywood demonizes Muslims

I'm amazed that so many of you have familiarity with To Live and Die in L.A. when it hasn't been released on streaming in the US. It's recently available through Kino Lorber on DVD for $27, but that is a price I'm not willing to pay.

it's on youtube, at least in the uk. has been up for 2 years so seemingly nobody cares.

It's easy to find in public libraries here; that's how I saw it years ago.

What’s amazing about To Live and Die in L.A. is that it completely flips the conclusion of its source novel but still arrives erat essentially the same place. Novelist/co-screenwriter Gerald Petievich hates the opening of the film, as he thought that there was no need to show the job most commonly associated with secret service agents. I do have some reservations about that sequence, though, but they pertain to how Hollywood demonizes Muslims

― beamish13

I noticed on Wiki and my memories of Friedkin's commentary track that he claims main scriptwriting credit. I tend to forget he had a hand in writing or re-writing most of his material.

"Listen.. I ripped everything outta there except the rocker panels."
"C'mon Irv, what the hell's that?!"

all time! up there with "Picking your feet in Poughkeepsie".

TLADILA was available on a cheap "Special Edition" DVD from MGM for ages, and it was a cable staple for decades.

To Live and Die in L.A. is available in beautiful 35mm prints from Park Circus. Ask your independent cinematheque to screen it

On a shout factory Blu-ray which was released a few years ago.

As far as the opening, it's a little bit awkward and has aged poorly if only for the specific Ronald Reagan aspect, but it's absolutely fantastic as being a bit of audience misdirection regarding the William Petersen character.

The Boys in the Band (1970) was both cringey and exhilarating, and it still seems kind of amazing today.

like Cruising.

This was the post I made about it 4 years ago:

I really enjoyed seeing The Boys in the Band again. I can see why it was dismissed in the late 70s and in the 80s as representing an earlier era of self-hatred, but I think it's easier for someone gay to watch it more dispassionately now. I loved the plot of the clueless straight man dropped into the middle of a gay party. Lots of reviews have compared it to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but the over-the-top self dramatizing jokey quality of it makes it way less self-serious. The set, an apartment on East 65th St, was beautiful. And the acting, from the entire original 1968 stage cast, was for the most part really good I thought

I read somewhere that Friedkin has said it's a favorite, one of the films of his that he still likes watching

― Dan S, Friday, January 18, 2019

I'm still very reluctant to see the 2020 remake of it

TLADILA is bonkers

When I first saw it, I was probably 16 or 17. I had absolutely zero idea what direction it was headed in, so needless to say that final act was totally shocking.

“You’re working for me now.”

This was kind of funny (though not surprising, it's a classic Friedkin move, barely pushing the envelope for him):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmskzjXarYE

The Best of William Friedkin's Cruising Commentary pic.twitter.com/nZLeJew40J

— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) June 20, 2023

it's on youtube, at least in the uk. has been up for 2 years so seemingly nobody cares.

― stirmonster, Monday, 7 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Lol, so it is!

"For ages [Al Pacino] wouldn't talk about it."

"That's a good thing because he's not very eloquent."

lolz

William Friedkin talks about he works with actors; Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro in "The Hunted" and Nick Nolte in "Blue Chips". Hilarious stuff as usual. pic.twitter.com/XDBmVzJ9V0

— M.A. Bergman (@John_LeTour) August 7, 2023

Oh, The Hunted! I saw that in the theater, somehow didn’t realize it was a Friedkin joint.

I still stand by defending Cruising but, like with Showgirls, I do hope the strident opposition never evaporates

To Dan's point above, I thought The Boys in the Band held up pretty well when I checked in on it a few years back.

The Ryan Murphy remake is predictably grotesque.

One other thing I like about TLADILA is how Chance and Jim are dispatched by Masters' shitkicker nobody henchman in the exact same extremely undignified manner, just the disgusting end to a pointless quest for justice. The Departed might owe something to that film as far as the ending goes but that one's not as shocking, and it winds up with a sense of justice Friedkin doesn't entertain as a possibility. The world is cold and bleak, and all people are corruptible.