Director:
Don Siegel
Year: 1968
Rating: 6.0
Year: 1968
Rating: 6.0
I came across a few episodes of the 1972 TV
show Madigan starring Richard Widmark. There were only six episodes made
over two years. TV movie of the week sort of thing. I watched the first episode
and though it wasn't really that good - Madigan running down two muggers
- muggers back in 1972 in NYC were a dime a dozen, I liked the setting -
the streets of New York City - the grime and the Sabretti hot dog stands.
It put me in the mood to see this. It is directed by Don Siegel who after
twenty years of directing in basic anonymity was about to go on a hot streak
thanks to Clint Eastwood (though a few of Siegel's films have since attained
classic status such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Killers and The
Big Steal). His film after this was Coogan's Bluff with Clint followed shortly
with Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled and of course Dirty Harry in
1971. Madigan I would say needed a little more of the focus, villainy and
toughness of Dirty Harry.
When the film is following Detective Madigan (Widmark) and his partner Harry Guardino it is a taut suspenseful police film but the script - taken from the novel The Commissioner by Richard Dougherty - shifts the focus all over the place lessening any sense of tension or build-up until the final excellent climatic few minutes. One of the scriptwriters was the legendary Abraham Polonsky (Body and Soul, Force of Evil) but he had been caught up in the horrendous Red Scare and had been blacklisted for seventeen years.
Madigan and Rocky (Guardino) go to pick up Benesch (Steve Ihnat), a person that Brooklyn wants. He is in bed with a girl and looks amiable enough to go with them but then uses the naked girl as a diversion, pulls a gun and takes the cop's guns and gets away. The Commissioner (Henry Fonda) gives them 72 hours to bring him in. If the film had stayed with that it would have been great but it goes off in pointless directions - Fonda having an affair with a married woman, one of his high ranking men possibly being corrupt, Madigan and his issues with his wife (Inger Stevens), an old flame of Madigan's putting him to bed and a father who thinks the cops were rough with his son. Siegel didn't make the same mistake with Dirty Harry. A terrific cast though - not mentioned Sheree North, Don Stroud, James Whitmore, Susan Clark and Raymond St. Jacques.
When the film is following Detective Madigan (Widmark) and his partner Harry Guardino it is a taut suspenseful police film but the script - taken from the novel The Commissioner by Richard Dougherty - shifts the focus all over the place lessening any sense of tension or build-up until the final excellent climatic few minutes. One of the scriptwriters was the legendary Abraham Polonsky (Body and Soul, Force of Evil) but he had been caught up in the horrendous Red Scare and had been blacklisted for seventeen years.
Madigan and Rocky (Guardino) go to pick up Benesch (Steve Ihnat), a person that Brooklyn wants. He is in bed with a girl and looks amiable enough to go with them but then uses the naked girl as a diversion, pulls a gun and takes the cop's guns and gets away. The Commissioner (Henry Fonda) gives them 72 hours to bring him in. If the film had stayed with that it would have been great but it goes off in pointless directions - Fonda having an affair with a married woman, one of his high ranking men possibly being corrupt, Madigan and his issues with his wife (Inger Stevens), an old flame of Madigan's putting him to bed and a father who thinks the cops were rough with his son. Siegel didn't make the same mistake with Dirty Harry. A terrific cast though - not mentioned Sheree North, Don Stroud, James Whitmore, Susan Clark and Raymond St. Jacques.