To Live and Die in L.A.

Secret Service agent Richard Chance goes after Rick Masters, the counterfeiter who killed his partner, and commits crimes doing it. There is no moral axis here; the difference between the good man and the bad one is a badge. The famous sequence is the wrong-way freeway chase, which took six weeks to shoot. Friedkin got the idea after nearly dying in a car crash in 1963, and challenged stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker to beat The French Connection. John Pankow's panic in the scene is real. At the test screening, studio executives objected to the protagonist being killed halfway through. Friedkin shot an alternate ending in which both agents survive and get transferred to Alaska, previewed it, and kept the original. Made for 6 million dollars with then-unknowns including William Petersen and Willem Dafoe, Petersen was offered the lead after reading half a page. It took 17.3 million domestically. Wang Chung wrote the score, and the film builds its whole surface out of that synthesiser sound. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and the chase now appears on lists alongside Bullitt and The French Connection. Who it is for: viewers who like morally filthy eighties crime films. Who it is not for: anyone who wants to identify with the hero. The film will not allow it and works hard not to.