CREDITS THE FRENCH CONNECTION, 1971 dir: William Friedkin Gene Hackman Roy Scheider Fernando Rey

The doomed detective (though you need to read the script to find out thatís what he is – the movie offers no clue) follows ëFrog Oneí, Charnier (Buñuel regular Fernando Rey) and Marcel Bozzuffi through the streets of Marseilles at the beginning of the film.

From here on in, though, itís New York, with just a brief glimpse of DC. The lowlife bar where ‘Popeye’ Doyle (Gene Hackman) gets plastered is on South Street at Market Street at the foot of Manhattan Bridge on the Lower East Side.

The toll bridge, where Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) is tailed, is the Triborough Bridge to Randall’s Island at the east end of 125th Street. At seven in the morning, ‘Popeye’ and ‘Cloudy’ Russo (Roy Scheider) stake out famed Kosher deli Ratner’s Restaurant, 138 Delancey Street (seen also in Boiler Room) on the Lower East Side at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, and once a hangout for gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. Ratner's closed its doors in 2002, but its rear area was relaunched as – erm the Lansky Lounge. Sadly, that too has now closed.

Russo first bumps into Charnier, ‘Frog One’, at the entrance to the Roosevelt Hotel, East 45th Street at Madison Avenue. The midtown deco Roosevelt also features in Boiler Room, Maid in Manhattan, Quiz Show and Oliver Stone's Wall Street.

Frog One’s hotel was the Westbury, 15 East 69th Street at Madison Avenue on the East Side. It's closed down, and has been converted into condominiums. He gives Popeye the slip by ducking into the fancy flower shop, Ronaldo Maia Flowers, a couple of blocks away at 27 East 67th Street at Madison, and slips away with the on-off routine on the subway at Grand Central Station.

Sal and Charnier meet up in Washington DC, in front of the Capitol Building.

Popeye’s home is the Marlboro Housing Project, on Avenues V, W and X off Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn, where Frog Two takes pot shots at him.

He requisitions a passing car and begins the movie’s famous chase sequence at Bay 50th Street Station. The car chase filmed (over five weeks) beneath the Bensonhurst Elevated Railway – 26 blocks (count ’em) of Brooklyn’s Stillwell Line from Bay 50th Street Station along Stillwell Avenue, into 86th Street and finally right into New Utrecht Avenue, ending at 62nd Street Station, where Frog Two gets shot.

The chase was filmed, unusually and not entirely legally, at full speed, with real pedestrians and traffic, though there are five staged stunts too.

French TV celeb Devereaux stays at the Doral Park Avenue Hotel, now the 70 Park Avenue Hotel, 70 Park Avenue at 38th Street in the Murray Hill district. Sal picks up the drug-stuffed car from the hotel’s underground car-park just around the corner on 37th Street.

It’s back to the Triborough Bridge for the final drug deal and shoot-out on Wards Island, where Sal’s brother works.

HARD COPY: For the details of the filming locations of 1,600 of your favourite movies, check out The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations. 464 pages of fascinating facts, illustrated with over 1,000 original photographs.