To Film and Thrive in L.A.: Three Lesser-Praised Friedkin Films Are Classics

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With the exception of a string of Francis Coppola films in the first half of the 1970s, it’s hard to imagine stronger, back-to-back, and couldn’t-be-more-different films than two directed by William Friedkin in 1971 and 1973, “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist.”

The former is one of the seminal crime films of the gritty 1970s and the latter is one of the great prestige thrillers of all time, all the stronger for Friedkin’s willingness to not shy away from the horror and scares often unseen in big-studio releases. (Projectile vomiting has not played into many Oscar nominees.)

Friedkin, who died Aug. 7 at the age of 87, had a long career, from early TV work to a handful of offbeat choices in the 1990s and 2000s. But Friedkin made a fascinating triptych of films in the decade-plus that followed “The Exorcist.”

“Sorcerer,” released in 1977, “Cruising,” released in 1980 and “To Live and Die in L.A.,” from 1985, are in their own ways as strong, varied and intriguing as “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist.”

They were not universally praised. “Sorcerer” was judged a bomb when it came out, in the weeks following “Star Wars,” and “Cruising” was hotly protested by both sides of the debate about depictions of homosexuality in the movies. “To Live and Die in L.A.” debuted at the box office behind “Death Wish 3,” and was panned by many critics aside from Roger Ebert.

It’s safe to say, though, that the films have earned increasingly favorable reputations in the years after their release.

Friedkin, reportedly a difficult man at times but one few deny was a film auteur, would have little use for praise from the likes of me and even less for the thought of posthumous laurels. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt in my mind that his career didn’t peak with his two early-1970s classics. These three later films prove that.

The title worked against ‘Sorcerer’

If anything, “Sorcerer” and “Cruising” did not benefit from the marketing campaigns to sell them to moviegoers – and in “Sorcerer,” specifically, the film’s very title did a disservice to Friedkin.

When “Sorcerer” opened on June 24, 1977, two big factors contributed to the reception it received: Audiences knew Friedkin for “The Exorcist” and the title of the new film carried unfortunate echoes – and unfortunate comparisons.

The second hurdle for “Sorcerer” is that it debuted in theaters about a month after George Lucas’ “Star Wars.”

If you were not alive and going to movies in 1977, it might be hard to imagine how “Star Wars” dominated the movie industry at that time. The science-fiction adventure made a ton of money, of course; that’s well known. But lesser known among people accustomed to the way the business operates today is that “Star Wars” and the biggest hits stayed in theaters for months, even a year. In 1980, I saw “The Empire Strikes Back” in an Indianapolis movie theater that had screened “Star Wars” for a solid year.

Add to that is the fact that movie theaters themselves were still early in their metamorphosis from single-screen or double-screen theaters to multi-screen theaters. That meant that the longer a movie stuck to screens, the fewer screens were available for other films. It’s not like “Sorcerer” couldn’t get into theaters, but it unspooled on fewer screens because so many were tied up by “Star Wars” and other releases like, ironically, “Exorcist II: The Heretic,” a sequel to Friedkin’s film but not directed by Friedkin.

“Sorcerer” grossed just over $12 million. That’s less than the $28 million for Disney’s “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo,” which opened in some theaters on the same day, “Smokey and the Bandit,” released in late May to make $127 million, and “Star Wars,” which made more than $700 million in its initial release and subsequent reissues.

Other movies besides “Sorcerer” sucked up all the box office like sponges.

Dynamite and desperation

“Sorcerer” didn’t have great commercial success and it didn’t have great critical success. Many nationally followed critics didn’t like it. Roger Ebert did, as did Vincent Canby of The New York Times. But many critics did not.

“Sorcerer,” an adaptation of George’s Arnaud 1950 French novel “The Salary of Fear” – previously made into the 1953 film “The Wages of Fear” – is something of a masterpiece, but it expects viewers to meet it halfway. The first dozen or so minutes of the film, set in Mexico, Israel and France, are without English-language dialogue, something apparently so off-putting for American audiences that Universal and Paramount, the studios that teamed to release the film, urged moviegoers to please consider giving the movie a shot and advised that the bulk of the film did have English dialogue, really, honestly.

The globe-hopping nature of the first several sequences no doubt left some wondering when the plot about this dangerous shipment of dynamite, under the care of “Jaws” and “French Connection” star Roy Scheider, would actually begin.

The answer: The heart of the plot, the transportation of the very unstable explosives over 200 miles of rough and dangerous roads in South America, begins after about an hour. In the meantime, we get to know Scheider’s character, Jackie Scanlon, a New York City criminal who robs a Catholic church under the protection of the Mafia. The scheme goes disastrously wrong and Scanlon flees the United States for South America and, under the name Juan Dominguez, works at menial jobs in an effort to stay below the radar.

Dominguez/Scanlon isn’t the only person lying low: Bruno Crèmer plays Serrano, an investment banker from Paris avoiding the law; Francisco Rabal as Nilo, an assassin from Mexico, and Amidou as Martinez, an Arab bomber. All find themselves in a small village, trying to maintain a low profile.

But the four, desperate for money and a potential way out, accept a job from Corlette (the always watchable Ramon Bieri), who works for an oil company and needs drivers to deliver dynamite that will be used to blow out a remote oil well fire.

The hitch: The dynamite is old and deteriorating, which means it is “sweating” nitroglycerin and explodes very easily. In two trucks, the four must transport the explosives through the jungle, over collapsing bridges, around swamps and somehow through a huge fallen tree that blocks the way.

Not to mention the local bandits they must survive.

Friedkin had an incredible eye for locations and performers. Scheider and the mob guys who want to kill him present a symphony of craggy faces. The gritty New York and New Jersey locales make an effective contrast with the glamorous European settings. A bride with a black eye in a church ceremony tells a story with a single shot. And the scenes set in South America drip with sweat.

The scene that some moviegoers came to see, as the trucks transporting dynamite must cross an impossibly rickety rope-and-plank bridge in a torrential downpour, remains a white-knuckle experience. It’s very nearly equaled by a later hurdle, as the transporters must carefully, carefully use some of the dynamite to clear a huge fallen tree that blocks the barely-there road.

The human side of the journey isn’t forgotten. Scheider exults when he’s certain his compatriots’ truck won’t get across the bridge. As he celebrates the possibility of being paid double shares for delivering his portion of the dynamite, there are real echoes of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and what greed does to people.

“Sorcerer” takes its title from a name painted on one of the trucks. Also painted on a truck: a crude drawing of a devil-like demon. Maybe Friedkin was teasing moviegoers with thoughts of “The Exorcist.”

Death haunts the NYC gay community in ‘Cruising’

“Taxi Driver” opened in cinemas in 1976, just four years before “Cruising,” and Friedkin’s 1980 film gives off huge Travis Bickle vibes in its opening scene, as two cops in a patrol car angrily talk about New York City and, in particular, the gay men cruising a neighborhood for partners. The cops then roust and rape two men in drag.

“Cruising” feels raw and it is. Friedkin based his screenplay on Gerald Walker’s 1970 novel, but there are echoes not only of “Taxi Driver” but also the Son of Sam killings in NYC in 1976 and 1977. The city was on edge and gay men were – and always had been – targeted for violence.

And keep in mind, Friedkin’s film feels prescient now because it predated by a year some of the earliest medical studies to publicly acknowledge the virus that would later be identified as HIV/AIDS. It wasn’t until August 1981, a year and a half after “Cruising” opened, that writer Larry Kramer first began calling attention to the epidemic.

Friedkin’s camera itself cruises through leather bars full of Lou Reed lookalikes and other striking men, clad in jeans and chaps, kissing and more. Friedkin doesn’t show a lot of emotional detachment here, letting shots play out that no doubt gave some straight moviegoers consternation. There’s such a feeling of apprehension that any man we see could be a victim or a killer.

The scenes of the killer luring men to their bloody and violent deaths in shady parks and shadier rent-by-the-hour hotels are filled with real feelings of dread. “Cruising” is a thriller and a horror movie that’s far more effective than all the “Friday the 13th” outings.

Pacino’s young cop, Steve Burns, is recruited by Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) to go undercover and “cruise” the leather bars. Why? Because he’s the right physical type and matches the previous victims, including a college professor.

Pacino plays Burns as an inexperienced officer who sees a chance to rise through the ranks to detective. But there’s something else there, too: As Burns goes deeper into the cruising scene, he finds himself becoming part of the scene. This worries him, and he tells his girlfriend, Nancy (played by Karen Allen, after “Animal House” but before “Raiders of the Lost Ark”), “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

He later pleads with her, “Don’t let me lose you.”

It’s telling – and again, predictive of HIV/AIDS – that there’s no confidence among the city’s gay community that the police will, or even want to, catch the killer.

There are a couple of moments of what might be considered levity in “Cruising,” especially when police employ a huge dude wearing only a cowboy hat and jockstrap to silently enter an interrogation room and slap Burns and a suspect out of their chairs, then exit. But most of the movie is dead serious, as befitting the subject matter.

Watching the movie now, “Cruising” feels not only dread-filled but instructive on police attitudes and the feelings of the city’s gay community.

And oh my god, what a cast of actors in supporting roles: Don Scardino, Joe Spinell, Ed O’Neil, James Remar, William Russ, Jay Acovone and Powers Booth as the salesclerk who matter-of-factly instructs Burns on the proper choice of bandanas for his back jeans pocket. Friedkin and his casting directors ably demonstrated their eye for talent.

“Cruising” is sometimes stigmatized for its very much “of the time” attitude. The next landmark film in Friedkin’s mid-career triptych finds that attitude a strong point.

To live and drive against traffic in L.A.

When my friends and I saw “To Live and Die in L.A.’ in theaters in 1985, we found it a riveting thriller that was slicker than any 1970s film but played some of the same gritty and downbeat noir notes.

In my irreverent memory, though, one scene lives: Star William Peterson, who plays win-at-all-odds Treasury agent Richard Chance, takes informant and girlfriend Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel) to bed. Peterson is backlit in a manner that puts his anatomy right out there. My friend Brian leaned over to me in the theater and whispered, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.” (That’s true, of course; the way movies have always put women’s bodies on display but not men’s bodies is a subject for another time, however.)

But that’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” in a nutshell: Friedkin took big chances with the film, which is paced and cut like contemporary-to-the-time entertainment such as “Miami Vice” and MTV but doesn’t give an inch to leave audiences feeling good about its heroes or villains.

In case you don’t have this film on a regular rewatch schedule like I do, a quick recap: Treasury agents in the Los Angeles area try to get a line on Rick Masters, an artist and master counterfeiter of American currency. Masters makes fake bills that are convincing enough that people beat a path to the door of his swanky pad to purchase it and redistribute it.

Chance is particularly driven to bring down Masters, but fellow agents Vukovich (John Pankow, a good and interesting casting choice given his sitcom background) and Jimmy Hart (Michael Greene, exuding authority and “I’m close to retirement” vibes) also take chances to bust Masters.

But no one takes more chances than Chance. After Masters and his pals kill an agent, Chance plays every angle to get close to the criminal. That involves squeezing everyone with a connection to Masters, including a hapless mule played by John Turturro.

The movie spends a lot of time with Masters as he moves through the underground, circulating his bills to contacts (the great 1980s tough guy Steve James) and taking revenge on double-crossers.

Again, Friedkin has an incredible cast, including all those mentioned as well as Debra Feuer, Dean Stockwell and Robert Downey Sr.

Friedkin purportedly made “TLADILA” in the city’s bleakest and seediest locales, particularly industrial areas where the background is filled with oil tanks or barges instead of glamorous sights.

The movie is one of bravura set pieces, none more famous than a car chase that rivals the one Friedkin staged in “The French Connection,” as Peterson and Pankow, who seriously eff up virtually every scheme they try, lead a chase down a freeway against the flow of traffic.

But other random moments of bloody violence, especially the climactic shootout that turns the narrative upside down, linger with me going on 40 years after I first saw them. So does the soundtrack by Wang Chung.

In the wake of Friedkin’s death, it’s been instructive to see snippets of interviews in which he talked about his films, including these three slightly-lesser-known films – and how could any films not be lesser known than “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist?” The director was always himself – argumentative and dismissive and wildly entertaining – and plainly proud to be remembered for so many great films.

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