The Connection (1961) User Reviews

Staged, grungy, bleak, experimental, and despite it all quite entertaining.

[Ham_and_Egger · 8/10 · 8 July 2006]

A remarkably tense and anxious little film about a group of junky musicians "waiting for their man" in a New York flophouse loft. They're joined by a documentary film crew (just a director and a cameraman) whose goal seems to be some sort of cinéma vérité about the life of junky musicians who wait in flophouse lofts.

After a few introductions, and comical "act natural" type instructions from the documentary director, the characters take turns addressing the camera. They nervously rant, philosophize, and insult each other, interrupted occasionally by improvised jazz from several legitimate musicians in the cast (most notably pianist Freddie Redd and tenor sax player Jackie McLean). The anxiety they feel as they wait for their fix is brilliantly conveyed by both the actors and the director (this time I mean the real director, Shirley Clarke, not the actor portraying the documentary director, got it?)

Much of this conveyed anxiety comes from the fact that the film is a strange and slightly unsettling mix of stark realism and stage acting (it is a filmed version of a play from the New York theater scene of the day). This is an unusual film and it honestly takes some getting used to, though probably less now taking into account the glut of nauseatingly self-conscious "mockumentaries" and hyper-stylized "reality shows" we are plagued with today.

The Connection is something different, matching edgy subject matter with edgy film-making the producers were working very much without a net. Consequently some might think it ends in disaster, I think it's a highly interesting experiment that's well worth watching.

I much preferred the play

[insomnia · 8/10 · 11 April 2007]

Jack Gelber's play, "The Connection" ran in London not long after its run in New York, with the same cast and same musicians. The film follows the play faithfully: it couldn't really be any other way. I much preferred the play, mainly because of its immediacy and its intimacy as the action unfolds right before your eyes, especially when the 'connection' arrives', and one by one, the players disappear into the bathroom. I don't for one second believe that the actors actually injected themselves, but on stage, the feeling is that they were doing just that. Don't get me wrong, Shirley Clarke's film of Gelber's play is a brilliant testament of how to make a film about a bunch of guys sitting around in one room (most of the time), waiting for their 'connection', without becoming bored or jaded. In fact, the film is on some levels, better than the play. For a start, if you are a fan of jazz and Jackie McLean in particular, you got to see lots close-ups of the band in full flight. Shirley Clarke was/is, one of the many underrated film directors around. If you liked "The Connection" (though 'like' isn't really the correct verb here), her documentary, "Portrait Of Jason" is another gem to seek out.

We Dig It

[davidcarniglia · 8/10 · 28 October 2020]

An early reality show. A guy films a bunch of heroin addicts lurking around in a buddy's apartment as they wait for their dealer. Leach (Warren Finney) is the tenant, Jim's (William Renfield) the director, and the others are Solly, Ernie, Sam, Harry, and J.J. (Jerome Raphael, Garry Goodrow, Jim Anderson, Henry Proach, and Roscoe Lee Brown. Then there's four musicians, the dealer, Cowboy (Carl Lee) and his companion Sister Salvation (Linda Veras).

Based on a play, there's basically just one big room for all the guys' conversations and soliloquies. More or less each guy talks to the camera: "I steal, but only from people I don't like." The hip culture is in full swing, so to speak. There's no lack of "cats" who "dig" this and that, despite the "squares". Atmosphere is enhanced by the musicians, who jam now and then. The discussions and commentary are bounded by admiration on the one hand, and insults on the other. That is to say, this is a group of friends; there's rivalries, jealousies, and just plain stories.

If we didn't know why they were there at Leach's, they could be going to a game, a dance, or just partying. The very commonness, even banality, of their monologues helps establish an almost comfortable familiarity. Tension is in the room, as they're all cringing to one degree of another for a fix. "This cat is corroded, man" The music sort of dissipates the heavy stuff.

About halfway through, Cowboy and Sister Salvation show up. That sparks another jam session. The bathroom acts as a sort of portal, as we see one after another of the guys come and go from there, sporting an odd look or attitude. Finally, Cowboy emerges from it too. He's the most histrionic of the lot. He knows he's the center of attention: he goes into a sing-song sort of beat poetry: "the locomotive and the Lord save us." The guys are more interested in Cowboy's "potent medicine." He literally fixes them up in the bathroom.

The juxtaposition of Cowboy's drug dealing with Sister Salvation's preaching is suitably absurd. In effect, Cowboy can be whoever he wants to be; in this situation, he holds all the cards. At one point, he taunts the room by telling them that there's a police station close by. A particularly wretched scene shows the otherwise clean Jim get fixed up; he gets sick, and is otherwise miserable. Sister tells Cowboy that she's going to die soon "you are not alone" she repeats, as Cowboy lets her out. Jam time.

Everyone perks up except Jim. He takes his camera back, as Cowboy listens to Leach complain that he didn't get off on the stuff. I would take that as a hint that there's nothing positive about what they're doing. The music is a palpable experience; the drugs do nothing but give misery by doing without. "Is this all there is to it?!" wonders Jim, just as Leach reiterates that he feels nothing. On the other hand, others are saying the stuff is very good. We watch a roach crawl up a wall as a story's told; another way of canceling out the cool factor.

Jim tells Cowboy that hes supposed to be "the hero of the film". Surprisingly, we get a confession from Cowboy, that his life sucks too "I'm sick of you be-boppers!" With all that said, Leach still complains that he's the only one who missed out on the high. Reluctantly, Cowboy agrees to fix him again--more music accompanies. This time we see the whole process with the needle; undercut dramatically by the jazz tune. He collapses, dead?

People start leaving, as they set Leach in a bed. Well, he's still alive. Almost unfortunately so, "don't worry, Sam, he'll probably live...whatever that means." Someone knocks, comes in, plugs in a radio; we hear a jazz tune. That's it, the end.

Although it seems that nothing goes on here--a dealer comes to get a bunch of guys high--there's a tremendous range of moods and emotions, more or less building from a sense of eager anticipation to variations on contented euphoria and blase indifference. It takes a lot of talking and posturing to get from one point to another, but in a tangible sense almost nothing has happened.

Except, that is, for Jim and Leach. Jim takes the plunge into the drug experience, and is anything but satisfied; Leach spends most of the movie disappointed, as though he's missing out on something. His greed almost kills him. Cowboy's the most interesting character. He has a vague contempt for the other guys, but it turns out that, although his role is different, he's just as stuck in their underground lifestyle.

A very edgy, innovative film. Depressing too. These guys seem to realize that they don't have much too look forward to, but will insist that things are almost okay.

Interesting companion to "Traffic"

[bev1945 · 21 March 2001]

I first saw this movie in 1963 by hassling the cashier into selling me a ticket though I was under 18. I can't remember what I expected, but it was so interesting to me that I came back with a couple of underage friends--and got in again. This is a very sophisticated film not only for its time, but for now. There is no surprise ending or plot twist, but the use of the film-within-a-film allows the characters to relate to the outside world even though all the action takes place within one studio apartment. And what they have to say makes as much sense now as it did then. This is a film that could be re-shot with a minor change of clothing style and would look and sound cutting edge.

While "Traffic", in its glossy, artfully edited, mainstream way, explores the glossy, mainstream life of at least some drug traffickers, "The Connection", in its gritty, black-and-white, hand-held way, explores the gritty, hand-held life of at least some of the customers.

I would recommend this film for anyone who is interested in serious exploration of the drug culture. For people who think "Trainspotting" too mainstream--or at least too narrow in approach. "The Connection", too, is narrow, but it helps round out the picture begun by "Traffic" and"Trainspotting".

9/10

[desperateliving · 9/10 · 22 January 2005]

This is a very difficult film, austere and hard, but after about ten minutes you can calibrate yourself to its rhythm, which is slow -- or, not so much slow as not fast, with extremely long takes in a one-room setting. The film, which is about a group of jazz musicians waiting for "the connection" (heroin) in an apartment, is essentially a filmed piece of experimental theater; it's very interesting, I think, and valuable for its honest portrayals of blacks (not all of the characters are black, but those who are are allowed to give equal amounts of monologues to the camera). The film itself, which is a product of the beat culture, is an experiment in subtle documentary satire -- the film is a film that's being made by a documentarian and his camera assistant; the documentarian becomes involved in the "film" himself by interacting with the musicians, trying to get them to act naturally for the camera by saying he's one of them, that he "reads" them. (The film is also a kind of Method film in the sense that the performances are strained and melodramatic -- the main character who owns the apartment has a boil that makes him scream at a few points -- and that everything is about the documentarian retaining emotional truth.) As the documentarian gets involved with the group (and after the connection arrives, with a female religious preacher in toe), the film feels almost like a public service announcement. It's a really fascinating document. 9/10

Interesting as the grandfather of the mockumentary genre

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 10 February 2023]

This is an arthouse drama about a group of heroin addicts hanging around an apartment in Harlem, waiting for their connection to arrive with the day's fix. The characters monologize about their pathetic lives, while a few of them play jazz music. The film is presented as a documentary being filmed by a director (William Redfield) and his cameraman (Roscoe Lee Browne, in his debut). Featuring Warren Finnerty, Jerome Raphael, Jim Anderson, Barbara Winchester, Henry Proach, and Carl Lee. Shirley Clarke directed this film version of a play which structurally resembles the later mockumentary genre, only without the humor. The subject matter and the presentation ensure that this will have little appeal outside of the arthouse crowd, as most audiences will find this tedious, self-indulgent and of minimal entertainment. I applaud the effort and the intent, but the end product isn't something I'd want to revisit.

When you're on the bottom,the only way is down.

[ianlouisiana · 9/10 · 25 March 2007]

In junkie mythology there was a clear connection between heroin and jazz music,the long - discredited belief held by second rate players that if they shot up they would be as good as their heroes who,as it happens were brilliant improvisers long before they started using,and not the other way around as their emulators told themselves.For example,alto player Jackie Maclean,a follower of Charlie Parker,took H in an effort to play more like his hero despite Bird's active discouragement. In "The Connection" Mr MacLean blows fierce Parkerisms knowing full well that heroin in real life robbed him of articulation and logical musical thought. I remember when the play opened in London the musical press held up its hands in horror despite knowing that a goodly number of British modern jazzers were victims of a tragic and wasteful culture. "The Connection" could not be said to encourage drug taking any more than "Trainspotting" a generation or so later. Addicts have a squalid and meaningless existence in any recognisable sense of the term and this is well realised in the movie. Anyone who has taken any type of drug will know that time flows at a different rate from people on the planet earth,the mind becomes befuddled subject to the very occasional flash of amazing clarity and the actors convey this state of mind very accurately. The "film within a film" conceit distances the viewer from the pointlessness and boredom of the average junkie's life and it can be viewed with rather more detachment than might otherwise have been the case. The actors are acting at "acting" until they get used to the presence of the camera when they revert to concentrating on their sole purpose in life,waiting for The Man. "The Connection" is a fine portrayal of life outside the mainstream of American society in all its sordid bleakness.Here there is none of the artificial glamour of "designer drugs",these are people living on the verge of oblivion,not models and pop - stars,rich and smug with the knowledge that they are above the law. When you're at the bottom in this movie,the only way is down.

Great take on An always taboo subject

[creegan222 · 7/10 · 9 June 2020]

This fine film may contain a bit of over acting as mentioned in other reviews here...but what do you expect from obvious non-actors, and obvious non drug users, but at least they got ppl who had been around the culture albeit the inner circle where all one would see ir notice were individuals who had gotten to the point their behaviors could not be contained. The best junkies are the ones who but once in a while are caught outside their own skin. But once again kidos for attacking such a taboo subject in 1961(!). Favorite moments are the nodded out "turned on"' director, the impatient horn player who has gotten to the point he has sold everything including the one thing that makes him whole-his instrument, and the great portrayal how the music changes once the players get high. Despite everything there are many many truancies in the connection's characters as every actor involved...like Stories of police brutality, Sleeping the day away, impatience waiting for the cowboy character, and many other moments that keep the viewers attention while not leaving the same room. Kudos. PS. Noone seemed to mention they figured out what was in/on leach's neck. Certainly not a boil. Try an abcess. Theres your spoiler. Cheers

Shirley Clarke's Jazz

[cmomman1988 · 6/10 · 25 September 2018]

Pros: Glad I saw this film on TCM, glad the film is preserved and restored, cool jazz music Cons: Bleak portrait of NY junkies (I know, but how do you not feel sorry for these guys?)

Bizarre and Tedious

[evanston_dad · 4/10 · 16 April 2019]

"The Connection" gets some points for pushing the envelope for its time, but my goodness what a tedious movie it is.

The end credits reveal that the film was based on a play, which did not surprise me in the least. It's set in one room and follows a bunch of junkies while they're waiting for their dealer to arrive so they can get their next fix. There's a movie director and his cameraman in the room filming the whole thing, so the film we are watching is really the film within the film. Each character gets a moment to monologue about something, but everything is delivered in the same sweaty, rambling style so that it all blends together and no one character is really distinct from another. Meanwhile, a few of the guys improvise jazz in the background for nearly the entire length of the film, which becomes insanely irritating about mid-way through. I think the idea is that it's all supposed to be so cinema verite that we aren't sure what's real and what's not, but the dialogue sounds so scripted, and the acting is so unbelievable, that we never for a moment are fooled into thinking this is anything but fiction.

Grade: D

The Connection (1961)

[FoundFootageFanatic · 6/10 · 26 February 2023]

A director and his cameraman film the interactions of an apartment full of drug addicts as they wait for their dealer to arrive. When he does, the addicts persuade the director to try some, too, which he does as a way to gain a deeper understanding of their world. Eventually the high causes him to become one, too. He gives up on the film, leaves the cameraman to finish, and goes to join the other addicts as they sit there high and do nothing.

I read about this one on Wikipedia yesterday and thought it sounded interesting. It's the oldest one in a big FF list, from 1961. Why not?

I liked it! I think it captures how heavy-duty addicts get locked into a daily cycle of abuse. It shows the mood swings, physical neglect, the withdrawals. There's this feeling of hopelessness the whole film. Heroin completely rules their lives. What a sad situation they're all in. I kind of wanted to feel pity, I think.

All the different characters were interesting and believable and it was well made.

I do consider this found footage. The Director didn't die, but he became incapacitated (by the drugs) and quit and gave the project to his cameraman. It's close enough!

Honestly, I could watch this again. It was good! I'm surprised by how much I liked it.

Torture

[SealedCargo · 1/10 · 19 May 2008]

I am not a heroin addict but having seen enough and read enough I know that when you really need a fix - - it's like being tortured within. Now whether or not this movie intended to be in itself like a method actor and torture the audience just as the characters are being tortured by waiting for their fix, I am not sure, but in that it works, it is torture, it is horrible, it is staged, and the acting is over-the-top and too obvious. I sought after this film because it stars Warren Finnerty who plays the "Rancher" in "Easy Rider", and I was always amazed at how he was so good in that role, it didn't even seem as if he were acting. I had to see him in something else, and that something else is this movie where he overacts and does a Brando impression that was downright silly. I also wanted to see William Redfield who played "Harding" in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", and in this he plays a square director filming junkies, and his acting might be worse than Finnerty. An actor named Gary Goodrow is also in the cast, and he's usually a comedic actor and he played a junkie like Paul Lynde would play a coke head. This movie needed a John Cassavetes or Vic Morrow or Dennis Hopper or Timothy Carey, and also needed to seem more real and to have dialog that mirrored real people talking, not a bunch of actors trading off monologues. It was like watching a bunch of method actors trying too hard to be real, and in doing so, it comes across contrived and totally unbelievable. It was like watching a troupe of actors rehearsing, and badly at that. Simply horrendous. The jazz music, played by real musicians, was quite good though.

Dated, stagey but still good

[adverts · 19 August 2003]

I don't know why anyone would call this realistic. It looks and feels like a play...the "acting", the overblown dialogue (almost Odets-like), etc. And unless you were a junkie in 1961, how would you know if it's realistic? And Sister Salvation? How could that possibly be real?! Noone is that clueless.

It's obviously dated for many reasons....the "lingo", the lack of serious profanity, the odd discussion of homosexuality.

Still, the film hooks you in...and I'm not exactly sure why. I guess it never really slows down. The camera tricks are cool, the band is great, some good dialogue. And the acting and characters are interesting, if not realistic.

Worth seeing...

The Horseman Cometh

[st-shot · 5/10 · 17 October 2020]

Avant garde filmmaker Shirley Clarke's first feature length depicts eight inner city heroin addicts waiting for dealer "Cowboy" to deliver the goods. Filming and underwriting the moment JJ Dunn (Clarke alter ego?) bargains with the junkies to do his bidding as he creates his fictionalized reality but is undermined by his cameraman and cajoled by the participents into a taste.

Based a play by Jack Gelber, Clarke retains the jazz band to drape the nod in background music and perpetuate the stereotype to keep things percolating among the assembled degenerates as well as director Dunn who is funding the entire project including the heroin. All the participants have to offer though are tales of self pity and resentment with an occasional grimy "profoundity" to spit out over a near two hour running time. Clarke to her credit makes no attempt to soften this self destructive lot but the viewer being asked to remain in the same room over those two hours with this crowd is one trying and annoying experience. Controversial in its day, The Connection has not aged well. The shock of topic and depiction then has become a shrug today.

In Defense...

[tuco-14 · 24 June 1999]

I'd like to clear up this jazz/heroin confusion (ignorance) that may stop you from watching this great film. Leach is the connection to Cowboy, and Cowboy is the connection to a dealer. The IMDb plot summary says that Cowboy is bringing "the connection" back to Leach's house, but he is really just bringing heroin. The fact that some of the people waiting for heroin are jazz musicians doesn't mean all jazz musicians were addicts, although most of the good ones were. With that said, I would advise any bee-bop fan to watch this film just for the amazing, and sole, footage of Blue Note heavies Jackie McLean and Freddie Redd. You will most likely also like the free-jazz directorial treatment of what was originally a stage play. The film also deserves credit for it's honest portrayal (in 1961!) of heroin addiction, neither glamorizing nor condemning it. The only problem I had was the slightly over-theatrical styles of some of the actors. Overacting did become the Leach character, however: "OHHH, MY BOIL!!!" If you liked "The Incident" or "The Pawnbroker," you'll like this one.

A film way before its time

[ebh · 5 February 2000]

And what a stupid comment by a previous viewer. "Are all jazz musicians heroin attacks?" C'mon, there isn't a trend here, and perhaps you don't like jazz because you have no taste in music. Anyway, Shirley Clarke's cinema verite'style is put to the test , as we witness some sleazed-out New Yorkers in their subterranean dwelling, as they await their heroin "connection" -the mysterious Cowboy, played by Clarke's real-life lover, Carl Lee.

Cowboys

[tedg · 13 October 2005]

Regular readers of my comments know I study folding, and I suggest that it is a deep concern for many filmmakers going back many decades. Most of my viewing these days comes from reader suggestions.

This is one, and very interesting. Group it with "The Saragossa Manuscript" as an early experiment, probably influential. Crude and obvious, but of historical interest.

I will describe it because it is hard to find.

Ostensibly it is a documentary drama, filmed of then contemporary jazz musicians (man, dig?) in a seedy apartment. They are there for their pooled money to turn into a pooled high, then pooled music. The thing is framed by a device: the film is made by two people, the director and a photographer. During the film, the director has his first hit of heroin, and presumably succumbs to it thereafter. The movie starts with a statement by the photographer that the director has abandoned the project and he (the photographer) has assembled it for us.

In what we call the real world, this is a play about this film-making. So to begin, it is a film about a play (a very obvious play) about a film about a "real" drama. A theory of theater at the time was that such abstraction and acknowledgment of the medium would allow the form of the reality to shine through.

It is the theatrical equivalent of an architectural notion that you can see in the Paris Museum called Pompidou, where all the structure is more than exposed, exposed in a way so obvious it is supposed to be invisible.

You may buy this. I certainly did when I was an architect in this era until I actually designed a building using it.

The difficulties of making this work are enormous.

You can see those problems here. Cowboy is the agent who brings the high. He arrives in pristine white, an articulate black man who used to be a musician and now is a savior. He brings an old woman, a salvation army warrior from 70 years earlier, incidentally 70 years old and worried about her burial.

For this, you need extremely clean images, touchstone dialog (where you jump from pad to pad without muddying yourself), and actors who understand all the folds and can inhabit them all.

This has none of that. These are street performers after the manner of "The Living Theater" which eschewed just the kind of thinking this project demands.

What we end up with is a bunch of actors with empty lives without layers who give us a layered story about a bunch of musicians with empty lives because they left layers behind.

You'll probably want to watch "Hurly Burly" for something like this done well, or this for historical interest.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

WAITING FOR GODOT on junk

[wlgme · 11 June 2017]

And, man, it's a drag. You dig?

No spoiler alerts needed here. No action takes place in this ham-handed movie (unless the popping of a boil passes for action), and even worse, there's no character development - not unless you count the back story of the abused farmer's son, which isn't worth counting.

It's cliché, too. Cowboy, the drug dealer, is a stereotypical one - glib, cynical and sinister. At least, he's supposed to be all of those things. But movie fans have seen them done far better by Ricardo Montalban in LET NO MAN WRITE MY EPITAPH and Darren McGavin in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, the latter being a movie infinitely superior to this untalented Beat waste of celluloid.

Speaking of WAITING FOR GODOT, let me pass along the true point of that bizarre exercise in futility. (These thoughts aren't my own - I take them from a brilliant article which I read years ago in the Encyclopedia Britannica.) Samuel Becket's inspiration goes back to what Aristotle said about tragedy, that its allure is in the relief, the catharsis, which one feels after viewing horrifying events on the stage. So Becket decided to give playgoers a relief from their own humdrum, pointless existence by depicting futility rather than tragedy. In other words, the play isn't merely a statement about the modern age - it's an anodyne for it.

A similar dynamic is at work in THE CONNECTION, and that's practically its only redeeming feature - escaping it is such a relief!

Admittedly, THE CONNECTION's single set, a rundown apartment, is convincing; however, the effect is spoiled by the lack of changing shadows outside the windows, and more so by the absence of sirens from police cruisers and fire engines, an omnipresent fact of life in Manhattan.

Finally, as a side note, light doesn't travel at "186,000 miles per second per second." Per-second-per-second is a unit of acceleration, not velocity. Hopefully, the playwright was aware of this fact when he put those words into Leach's mouth, but I suspect otherwise. The Beats were never much on science, however much they may have liked to riff about it while high.