Free Republic

Staring at your local multiplex’s lengthy roster of superhero and science fiction movies, it’s easy to forget what an enormous sea change “Star Wars” created in Hollywood in 1977. The new breed of movies were built around family-friendly themes, happy endings, orchestral scores, and dazzling special effects. Out went a string of dark films with murky plots where the grizzled antihero inevitably died at the end. ‎ One of the last of the latter group of films was William Friedkin’s “Sorcerer,” which “Star Wars” utterly demolished at the box office. As a result, it’s a film that was almost completely...

Buddy (Roy Scheider) is the leader of the Seven Ups, an elite undercover police unit that specializes in busting organized crime figures for long sentences (7 yrs and up). Risky work, but when a fake undercover unit begins kidnapping local mobsters for ransom, the job gets a lot more dangerous... Directed by Phillip D'Antoni. Co-starring Tony Lo Bianco and Richard Lynch. 720p print quality.

Director William Friedkin couldn't have been on more of a hot streak: "The French Connection," released in 1971, won five Oscars, and "The Exorcist," released in 1973, won two Oscars. In 1977, he released a movie he would later call the best of his career: "Sorcerer." But "Sorcerer" was a bomb, grossing only $6 million worldwide — short of its $21 million budget — and receiving tepid initial reviews. The existential thriller follows four criminals from around the globe as they accept a lucrative but deadly contract to transport gallons of explosive nitroglycerin across a South American jungle. The film...

Sen. Barack Obama does come from the Chicago school of politics, where historically voter turnout has been unusually high for residents of certain graveyards. And he has been unusually successful raising money. Now, he's raising money by raising the dead. The Times' campaign finance expert Dan Morain has found Obama campaign records reporting a $50 donation by Roy Scheider, who lists his occupation as actor and his home as Sag Harbor, N.Y. Remember him from many great movies, including "The French Connection" and "Jaws" and the immortal line: "You're gonna need a bigger boat"? According to the campaign records, Scheider...

Roy Scheider, a stage actor with a background in the classics who became one of the leading figures in the American film renaissance of the 1970s, died on Sunday afternoon in Little Rock, Ark. He was 75 and lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y. Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said. Mr. Scheider’s rangy figure, gaunt face and emotional openness made him particularly appealing in everyman roles, most famously as the agonized police chief of “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg’s 1975 breakthrough hit, about a New England...