The Connection

First of many performances which alone justify making the film, pianist Freddie Redd’s composition, with alto sax hero Jackie McLean, Mike Mattos and Larry Ritchie, bass and drums, William Redfield the filmmaker, Shirley Clarke actually directing, from Jack Gelber’s play and screenplay, in The Connection 1962.

The director character (William Redfield as Dunn) all-but giving up, addressing his cameraman JJ (unseen Roscoe Lee Browne), Warren Finnerty as host heroin-addict Leach, musician Jackie McLean as himself, and the documentary premise explained, in director Shirley Clarke’s The Connection, 1962.

Challenging from the start, Shirley Clarke directs from Jack Gelber’s experimental play and screenplay, Roscoe Lee Browne the voice of cameraman character, Burden, the opening address to camera by Leach (Warren Finnerty) the de facto host of the junkies waiting to score, in The Connection, 1962.

It’s now clear that Leach (Warren Finnerty) and his fellow heroin-addict guests are being directed by a barely-seen documentarian, musicians Mike Mattos, Freddie Redd, Jackie McLean and Larry Ritchie as themselves, Jerome Raphel as Sully, Garry Goodrow as Ernie, in Shirley Clarke’s The Connection, 1962.