The French Connection and the Mystery of Hello

 


The French Connection, the movie starring Gene Hackman as a sadistic New York police officer, isn’t exactly chock full of blood and gore. But its tense, fast-paced car chase through real city streets still packs a big thrill. And when you consider that this film was made in 1971, before modern computer effects were available, the car chase is all the more impressive.

The film was inspired by real events, including a massive drug bust in which New York police broke up the heroin network of Corsican gangster Paul Carbone and shattered his supply chain. The movie was directed by Ernest Tidyman (who also wrote Shaft), and the screenplay was based on a factual account by Robin Moore (of The Green Berets). The director of photography is the great Conrad L. Hall, who has shot some of the most spectacular car chases in film history.

Aside from the chase scene, The French Connection is a very tense drama that’s anchored by the performances of Hackman and Ray Liotta as the corrupt mayor who’s out to get Carbone. The story also benefits from some fine writing and editing, especially the script’s dialogue, which is crisp, literate and witty.

The mystery of “hello” has been a puzzle since the early days of the telephone. Two contemporaries of Edison credited him with the phrase, but his own words are unclear. Five years ago, Allen Koenigsberg, a Brooklyn College professor who has a passion for old phonographs, began searching for clues. He scoured archives at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in lower Manhattan, and finally found an unpublished letter of Edison’s from Aug. 15, 1877, sent to a Bell exec.

It seems likely that the letter is the The french connection the pornostarz album origin of the phrase, as it was used in an experiment with a cylinder-based answering machine. Koenigsberg published his findings in The Antique Phonograph Monthly. He also gave a talk about his research to the Society of the Silent Era in Manhattan and is now publishing a book called The First Hello.

While the brand may be turning out its lights, French Connection founder Wayne Marks hasn’t given up on the label that he launched in 1982. His recently relaunched homeware collection and plans for expansion in China and India suggest that the designer isn’t yet FCUKed.

Back in the Nineties, French Connection’s arresting FCUK branding tapped into the logo-laden zeitgeist. Simple T-shirts emblazoned with the word, or its many permutations, went perfectly with combat pants and a girl-power pout, or parkas and a scowl depending on your personal fashion leanings. As fashion moved from combative to more staid, though, the brand’s marketing waned.

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