It’s the dead of winter. As Santa Claus rings his bells on a pavement in Brooklyn, a hot dog vendor wanders into a bar. That’s when the commotion begins. A drug dealer with a knife bursts out of the door. Santa and the vendor both try to stop him but he scarpers. They chase him down the street, eventually catch him on a patch of wasteland and gleefully beat him up.
This is how we encounter Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) in William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971). He may be dressed as Father Christmas but he is an undercover cop with a volcanic temper. The fast food seller is his detective partner, Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider).
