The Honeymoon Killers

Year of Release:  1970
Director:  Leonard Kastle
Screenplay:  Leonard Kastle
Starring:  Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Marilyn Chris, Doris Roberts
Running Time:  108 minutes
Genre:  Crime

Raymond Fernandez (Lo Bianco) is a con man who meets women through lonely hearts adverts and fleeces them out of their money before running off.  His latest victim is sullen, nursing administrator Martha Beck (Stoler), who tracks him down and the two genuinely fall in love, and she joins him in his scams, posing as his married sister.  However, Martha's jealousy of Raymond's victims soon leads to murderous consequences.

This is based on the true story of Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, the "Lonely Hearts Killers" of the 1940s, and while the basic plot ad the lurid title might promise lurid thrills, this is a bleak, downbeat and gritty film, shot in grainy black-and-white on a very low budget, with an incongruous soundtrack taken from the works of Gustav Mahler.  It has an almost documentary like realism, and feels like a precursor to films such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) as well as numerous true-crime docudramas.  The central couple are never entirely monstrous, as horrible as their crimes are, there is a thread of humanity to them, and their love is believable.  However their victims are presented sympathetically, their vulnerability and loneliness, as well as the horror of their deaths makes the relatively restrained violence much more harrowing than many more graphic films.  The film is very well cast with great performances, especially from Shirley Stoler as the dead-eyed Martha Beck.  There is also a strong vein of very dark humour running throughout.
The film was originally set to be directed by Martin Scorsese, who was fired early into production, although some sequences that he directed remain in the film.  Apparently, he was fired because he was moving too slowly.
This film has attracted a cult following since it's release and, in 1980, legendary French director François Truffaut named it as one of his "favourite American films".

Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco are The Honeymoon Killers       

The French Connection

Year of Release:  1971
Director:  William Friedkin
Screenplay:  Ernest Tidyman, based on the book The French Connection by Robin Moore
Starring:  Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi
Running Time:  104 minutes
Genre:  Thriller

New York City police detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman) and Sonny "Cloudy" Russo (Scheider) investigate a huge international heroin smuggling operation being run out of Marseille by wealthy Alain Charnier (Rey). 

This is one of the most influential cop thrillers ever made.  Inspired by true events it's filmed in a semi-documentary style with a jittery, constantly moving camera on the wintry streets of New York and dialogue that sounds like snatches of overheard conversations.  The filmmakers strived as far as possible for realism.  Police detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso (the real-life models for the characters played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider) were constant presences on set, and the film does spend a lot of time on the minutiae of police work.  The detectives spend most of the time standing in the freezing cold, or huddled in cars and dingy subterranean offices transcribing wiretap tapes, interspersed with sudden bursts of action.  A lot of viewers at the time found the film very confusing (a MAD magazine parody was called "What's the Connection?"), but that kind of storytelling is more familiar now thanks to TV shows such as The Wire (2002-2008).  Gene Hackman turns in a great performance as the generally pretty repellent racist, lecherous, boorish and violent "Popeye" Doyle. 
The film features some spectacular action sequences, including a justly-famous car chase  sequence, which is one of the best ever put onto film.  If you are a fan of thriller, and have not seen this one, it is definitely a must-see.

      Gene Hackman and friends make The French Connection