William Friedkins career is a study in contradictions. A liberal intellectual by nature who made two of the most notorious works of queer cinema The Boys in the Band 1970 and Cruising 1980 hes long been one of the gay communitys demons. Seemingly innocent comedies like the Sonny and Cher vehicle Good Times 1967 and that loving paean to vaudeville, The Night They Raided Minskys 1968, were soon followed by brutal policiers The French Connection, 1971 and nihilistic gorefests The Exorcist, 1973. Friedkins vision is broad enough to support both the popular hackwork of Robin Moore or William Peter Blatty, and the highclass high jinks of Harold Pinter. The trick is that, for the most part, Friedkin shows little fidelity to his sources.Readers of The French Connection wont recognize that book in the movie, just as his version of Cruising mostly jettisoned the original story.

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