Madigan
Encyclopedia
Madigan is a 1968
American thriller film directed by Don Siegel
and starring Richard Widmark
and Henry Fonda
.
The screenplay, originally titled Friday, Saturday, Sunday, was adapted by two writers who had been blacklisted in the 1950s, Abraham Polonsky
and Howard Rodman (here credited under the pseudonym
Henri Simoun), based on a novel titled The Commissioner.
Siegel was a genre director known at the time for taut action films like The Lineup
(1958) and Hell Is for Heroes
(1962). He later directed six of Clint Eastwood
's films, including Dirty Harry
.
, police detectives Dan Madigan and Rocco Bonaro break into a sleazy apartment and arrest Barney Benesch, a hoodlum wanted for questioning by a Brooklyn precinct. Momentarily distracted by the suspect's nude girl friend, the two detectives are outwitted by Benesch, who escapes with their guns.
When it is discovered that Benesch was wanted for homicide, Madigan and Bonaro are reprimanded by Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell. Aside from this new problem, Russell is troubled by other matters: his married mistress, Tricia Bentley, has decided to end their relationship; a black minister, Dr. Taylor, is claiming that his teenaged son was subjected to brutality
by racist policemen; and proof has been established that Russell's longtime friend and associate, Chief Inspector Kane, has accepted a bribe to protect a hangout for prostitutes.
Irritated by the fact that Madigan and Bonaro broke the rules by working for another precinct, Russell gives the two men 72 hours to arrest Benesch. Despite the deadline, Madigan tries to spend some time with his wife, Julia, who is socially and sexually frustrated as a result of her husband's dangerous and time-consuming job.
The commissioner confronts Kane with the bribe evidence. The inspector was trying to help his son out of a jam. He offers to turn in his badge but resents Russell's outrage at how he could have done such a thing, asking the commissioner what he would know about being a father.
Benesch shoots two policemen with Madigan's gun. The detectives finally get a lead through bookie Midget Castiglione, who puts them in touch with Hughie, one of Benesch's pimps. Tracing the fugitive to a Spanish Harlem apartment, Madigan and Bonaro bring in a police cordon and order the killer to surrender. When he refuses, the two detectives rush the building and break down the door. In the exchange of gunfire, Madigan is fatally wounded before Bonaro can kill Benesch.
Russell tries to comfort Julia, but she accuses him of being a heartless administrator. As the commissioner leaves with Chief Inspector Kane, he is asked about Dr. Taylor's situation and other pressing matters at hand. Russell tells him that these are things they can address tomorrow.
(1968) and Dirty Harry
(1971).
. The series ran as part of the NBC Mystery Movie
series, sharing its timeslot with several other programs. It only lasted a single season, producing 6 episodes.
1968 in film
The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
American thriller film directed by Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
and starring Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
and Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
.
The screenplay, originally titled Friday, Saturday, Sunday, was adapted by two writers who had been blacklisted in the 1950s, Abraham Polonsky
Abraham Polonsky
Abraham Lincoln Polonsky was an American film director, Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter, essayist, and novelist blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s, in the midst of the McCarthy era.-Early life:...
and Howard Rodman (here credited under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Henri Simoun), based on a novel titled The Commissioner.
Siegel was a genre director known at the time for taut action films like The Lineup
The Lineup (film)
The Lineup is a 1958 American film version of the police procedural series that ran on CBS radio from 1950 through 1953 and on CBS television from 1954 through 1960, directed by Don Siegel...
(1958) and Hell Is for Heroes
Hell Is for Heroes (film)
Hell Is for Heroes is a 1962 war film directed by Don Siegel and starring Steve McQueen. It tells the story of a squad of American soldiers, who in the fall of 1944 must hold off an entire German company for approximately 48 hours along the Siegfried Line until reinforcements reach them.-Plot:Squad...
(1962). He later directed six of Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's films, including Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
.
Cast
- Richard WidmarkRichard WidmarkRichard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
as Det. Daniel Madigan - Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
as Commissioner Anthony X. Russell - Inger StevensInger StevensInger Stevens was a Swedish-American movie and TV actress.- Early life :Inger Stevens was born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an insecure child and was often ill. When she was nine, her parents divorced and she moved with her father to New York City...
as Julia Madigan - Harry GuardinoHarry GuardinoHarry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city...
as Det. Rocco Bonaro - James WhitmoreJames WhitmoreJames Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...
as Chief Insp. Charles Kane - Susan ClarkSusan ClarkSusan Clark is a Canadian actress, possibly best-known for her role as Katherine on the American television sitcom Webster, on which she appeared with her husband, Alex Karras.-Personal life:...
as Tricia Bentley - Michael Dunn as Midget Castiglione
- Steve IhnatSteve IhnatSteve Ihnat was a Czechoslovakian-born actor and director. He immigrated to Canada when he was five years old, and later became a United States citizen.-Early life:...
as Barney Benesch - Don StroudDon StroudDonald Lee Stroud is an American actor and surfer who appeared in many films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and has starred in over 100 films and 175 television shows to date.-Early life:...
as Hughie
Plot
In New York City's Spanish HarlemSpanish Harlem
East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem and El Barrio, is a section of Harlem in the northeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. East Harlem is one of the largest predominantly Latino communities in New York City. It includes the area formerly known as Italian Harlem, in which...
, police detectives Dan Madigan and Rocco Bonaro break into a sleazy apartment and arrest Barney Benesch, a hoodlum wanted for questioning by a Brooklyn precinct. Momentarily distracted by the suspect's nude girl friend, the two detectives are outwitted by Benesch, who escapes with their guns.
When it is discovered that Benesch was wanted for homicide, Madigan and Bonaro are reprimanded by Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell. Aside from this new problem, Russell is troubled by other matters: his married mistress, Tricia Bentley, has decided to end their relationship; a black minister, Dr. Taylor, is claiming that his teenaged son was subjected to brutality
Brutality
Brutality or brutal may refer to:* Brutality , an American death metal band* Brutality , a 1912 film* Brutality , a finishing move in the video game Mortal Kombat* Brutalist architecture, an architectural style...
by racist policemen; and proof has been established that Russell's longtime friend and associate, Chief Inspector Kane, has accepted a bribe to protect a hangout for prostitutes.
Irritated by the fact that Madigan and Bonaro broke the rules by working for another precinct, Russell gives the two men 72 hours to arrest Benesch. Despite the deadline, Madigan tries to spend some time with his wife, Julia, who is socially and sexually frustrated as a result of her husband's dangerous and time-consuming job.
The commissioner confronts Kane with the bribe evidence. The inspector was trying to help his son out of a jam. He offers to turn in his badge but resents Russell's outrage at how he could have done such a thing, asking the commissioner what he would know about being a father.
Benesch shoots two policemen with Madigan's gun. The detectives finally get a lead through bookie Midget Castiglione, who puts them in touch with Hughie, one of Benesch's pimps. Tracing the fugitive to a Spanish Harlem apartment, Madigan and Bonaro bring in a police cordon and order the killer to surrender. When he refuses, the two detectives rush the building and break down the door. In the exchange of gunfire, Madigan is fatally wounded before Bonaro can kill Benesch.
Russell tries to comfort Julia, but she accuses him of being a heartless administrator. As the commissioner leaves with Chief Inspector Kane, he is asked about Dr. Taylor's situation and other pressing matters at hand. Russell tells him that these are things they can address tomorrow.
Critical response
Reviews for Madigan were among the best of any film Siegel had directed. Critics praised its urban grittiness and straightforward style, and audiences responded to its excitement and tautness. Siegel would go on to direct other successful cop movies, including Coogan's BluffCoogan's Bluff (film)
Coogan's Bluff is a 1968 American Universal film directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Don Stroud, and Susan Clark...
(1968) and Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
(1971).
Collaborative Clash
- Serious clashes between Siegel and producer Frank Rosenberg marred the production. Rosenberg was a studio veteran who considered himself the boss of the project; as far as Siegel was concerned, once the cameras rolled, Siegel was boss. The very first day of the shooting schedule set by Rosenberg, for example, called for a highly emotional and poignant scene that comes at the end of the film, in which actress Inger Stevens berates Henry Fonda for the death of her husband. To make things more difficult for Stevens' concentration, she was also scheduled to shoot wardrobe tests throughout the day. Stevens approached Siegel almost in tears. The director apologized, suggesting, "When you're playing this painful scene with Mr. Fonda, think of the loathing you feel for Frank Rosenberg, who is responsible for this ridiculous schedule." In the end, Siegel wrote, "Miss Stevens gave a startling portrayal, truly magnificent and brave."
- Rosenberg also reportedly interfered in tiny, annoying ways, as in the shooting of Henry Fonda's first scene. The actor walked into a room where Susan Clark was lying on a bed and said, "You can open the other eye now, I made coffee." Siegel said, "Print it," but Rosenberg, who had been watching, demanded that it be re-shot because Fonda didn't say "the" coffee. "It changes the whole meaning," Rosenberg insisted. When an angry Siegel refused to reshoot it, Rosenberg later had Fonda record the "the" and looped it into the final cut.
- The most significant clash came over the location for the action-packed ending. Most of the picture had been shot on location in New York, but for the finale the company moved to Los Angeles. New York was getting to be too dangerous: Widmark and Guardino's car had been attacked by a gang in HarlemHarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, and the prop man had been mugged. Rosenberg picked a location in L.A. that Siegel found to be unimaginative and virtually unusable. Siegel himself then discovered a location that was perfect and looked very much like New York, but Rosenberg still insisted that his choice be used. Siegel went over Rosenberg's head to Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal. He made his case, showed photos of both locations, and Wasserman agreed that Siegel's choice was best. - Henry Fonda echoed these accounts of Rosenberg. Attracted to the project because his part as the police commissioner was so three-dimensional, he found that Rosenberg toned down much of the character's depth in the screenplay. "He just wouldn't listen to anything," Fonda said. "He fancied himself a writer and rewrote scenes which we'd try to change on the set, but eventually he'd make us dub it the way he had written it, putting single words back in. The rest of us on the set got along beautifully. It was still a good picture because of what Don did with it."
- "Don's tough," said Richard Widmark. "He could have slid over the ending we wanted. He could have said, 'Let's shoot it and get it over with.' It was the end of the picture and we were all tired. But no sir. He fought like a bastard. A director can't operate on the idea that everyone has to like him. If he does, somewhere along the line reality is going to hit." Widmark called Siegel one of the three best directors he ever worked with, along with John FordJohn FordJohn Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
and Elia KazanElia KazanElia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
. "He's efficient, organized, quiet, and in total command. You never feel any loose ends. And he has taste."
Television series
In 1972, Widmark reprised the title role (literally bringing the character back from the dead) for the NBC television series MadiganMadigan (Television series)
Madigan is an American TV Series based in the film Madigan, starring by Richard Widmark as Sgt. Dan Madigan. The show aired in September 20, 1972 by NBC Mystery Movie- Plot :...
. The series ran as part of the NBC Mystery Movie
NBC Mystery Movie
The NBC Mystery Movie is the general name of an American television series, produced by Universal Studios, that was broadcast by NBC from 1971-77...
series, sharing its timeslot with several other programs. It only lasted a single season, producing 6 episodes.