But while Hackman and Nicholson\u2019s stars remained ascendent into the new millennium, Scheider\u2019s sank just as the \u201880s dawned. Whether due to the legacy of bad decisions (he\u2019d turned down Robert De Niro\u2019s role in The Deer Hunter<\/em> and Gregory Peck\u2019s in The Omen<\/em>), advancing age (he was already over forty by the time he became a leading man), or just a change in cinemagoers\u2019 tastes (the \u201880s defined as they were by the blunt force machismo of Stallones and Eastwoods), his brief time at the top was confined completely to the \u201870s. He kept acting all the way up until his death in 2008, but the last thirty years of his career were defined by B-movie doldrums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the \u201870s were truly halcyon days for him. His first big role of the decade was as the mellower partner of Hackman\u2019s renegade cop in The French Connection<\/em>. Two years later, he scored his first lead in The Seven-Ups<\/em>, which is often regarded as a spiritual sequel; both have Scheider (playing a character based on the same person), a phenomenal car chase, and a grimy NYC in common. Additionally, The Seven-Ups<\/em>\u2019 director, Philip D\u2019Antoni, was The<\/em> French<\/em> Connection<\/em>\u2019s producer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In The Seven-Ups<\/em>, Scheider heads a group of undercover cops, targeting criminals likely to get jail terms of \u201cseven years and up,\u201d that get embroiled in an intra-mob kidnapping war.It\u2019s a mercilessly taut film, with little time dedicated to exposition or character-building; in his first lead role, Scheider had little to back him up but his own nascent movie-starness. It\u2019s notable that in such a pacy production, we spend precious early minutes just watching Scheider, taking him in, as he paces the sidewalk waiting to start the Seven-Ups\u2019<\/em> latest mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The discrepancy between his physicality and his presence is what makes Scheider such an endlessly watchable actor. Although at five foot nine he was actually average height for an American man, he would often read short on camera. To look at, he\u2019s all angles and straight lines; the flat knife of his twice-broken nose, his rangy limbs sharp and unyielding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in contrast to Hackman\u2019s volcanic abrasiveness in The French Connection<\/em>, Scheider leads from a warmer place. Like many of his \u201870s counterparts, he was neither macho nor suave. He felt<\/em> things \u2013 and not just anger, either. You think of his Chief Brody in Jaws<\/em>, who spends far more time terrified and out of his depth than even vaguely in control, or of his Joe Gideon in All That Jazz<\/em>, whose eyes gleam with guilt throughout the whole duration, and Scheider\u2019s ability to emit fragility is readily apparent. Just from his appearance, he suggests a life fully lived \u2013 the broken nose came from a past as a boxer \u2013 but that brought with it an empathy, an understanding. Wherever you\u2019d been, chances are he\u2019d been there too, and he understood. Life made the Hackmans of the world hard, but it softened the Scheiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Seven-Ups<\/em> understands the inbuilt, rough-around-the-edges warmth that comes with Scheider\u2019s presence, and uses it to complement the film\u2019s overall leanness. We don\u2019t need any big speeches to show us how much he loves his men, it\u2019s all there in his looks of quiet concern; an instruction to one of them to stick with another as he tails the bad guys \u2013 \u201cLet him know he\u2019s not alone\u201d \u2013 is about as openly affectionate as his dialogue gets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scheider\u2019s all-too-human vulnerability also gives The Seven-Ups<\/em>\u2019 epic car chase a different flavor than The French Connection\u2019s<\/em> iconic centerpiece. For almost ten solid minutes, he flies around NYC in hot pursuit of the villain that killed his friend, causing as much collateral carnage as Hackman in the earlier movie. But whereas The French Connection\u2019s<\/em> chase ends with Hackman shooting his<\/em> villainous quarry to death, The Seven-Up<\/em>s ends with Scheider\u2019s escaping, as his car collides into an on-coming truck, almost decapitating him. The frenetic action literally screeches to a halt as we watch the truck driver leap out and (rather improbably, considering the severity of the accident) help a shaken Scheider to his feet. He may have lost the battle, but the war wasn\u2019t over yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That image of him, beaten-up but moving ever forward, would come to define the rest of his career. Even during his few years of huge success, nothing would come easy (he had to fight off almost every leading man in Hollywood for his last great role in All That Jazz<\/em>); when that success was frustratingly, irrevocably in the rearview mirror, he kept plugging on anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And knowing the wasteland that was waiting right around the corner for him gives his brief spell at the top even more of a resonance. After all, few of us get to enjoy a long time in the sun, and Scheider was<\/em> us. That\u2019s why \u2013 for a brief, glorious while, at least \u2013 we couldn\u2019t look away.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/seven-ups2-1024x667.jpg\")
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