After following Egan around for a week, however, Hackman realized that the character's casual brutality was simply the theatrical way Egan rattled suspects. ("A lot of what Egan did," Friedkin explained later, "was bravado in order to seize control and make sure that all of these suspects, most of them dealers and often users of heavy drugs, would do what he told them to do.")
22. That part of the story was broadly fictionalized in director John Frankenheimer's 1975 sequel, "The French Connection II," with Hackman and Rey reprising their roles. Friedkin claimed Jehan was being shielded because of his history as a resistance fighter during World War II.
23. Egan's exploits inspired several other projects, including the 1973 Modern Family" patriarch Married... With Children."
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