Madigan [Blu-ray]

Director: Don Siegel Don Siegel

Overview

Two New York City detectives are send to capture a killer in Spanish Harlem. Detective Madigan (Richard Widmark) and his partner Bonaro (Harry Guardino) set out to pick up Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat), who has run out on a murder indictment from Brooklyn. The duo traces Barney to a seedy hotel where the wanted man is in bed with a nude female. Distracted by the female, Barney gets the drop on the two cops, steals Madigan's service revolver and escapes. Police Commissioner Russell (Henry Fonda) is livid, and gives the cops three days to apprehend the criminal, threatening to bust them down to pounding a beat in the Bowery. Madigan has trouble at home with his wife Julia (Ingar Stevens), who despises police work and implore her husband to spend more time with her at home. The Commissioner has trouble of his own by carrying on an adulterous affair. He also discovers his best friend, Chief Inspector Kane (James Whitmore) has been taking bribes to keep mum about a house of prostitution. The hard boiled, overworked Madigan and his faithful partner follow the killer all over town and back to Spanish Harlem. By now Barney has killed two cops with Madigan's revolver, and holes up in another seedy dive for a dangerous standoff with police. Sheree North also stars as Madigan's former flame and croons the tune "You Don't Know What Love Is".

Product Details

Release Date:	11/12/2019
UPC:	0738329230968
Original Release:	1968
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:41:00
Sales rank:	25,737

Special Features

Audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson; TV spots; Theatrical trailer; 1920x1080p

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Henry Fonda	Commissioner Anthony X. Russell
Richard Widmark	Det. Daniel Madigan
Harry Guardino	Det. Rocco Bonaro
Inger Stevens	Julia Madigan,Capt. Ben Williams
Susan Clark	Tricia
James Whitmore	Kane
Michael Dunn	Midget
Steve Ihnat	Benesch
Sheree North	Jonesy
Raymond St. Jacques	Dr. Taylor
Bert Freed	Chief of Detectives Hap Lynch
Harry Bellaver	Mickey Dunn
Frank Marth	Lt. James Price
Lloyd Gough	Assistant Chief Inspector Earl Griffin
Virginia Gregg	Esther Newman
Henry Beckman	Patrolman Philip Downes
Woodrow Parfrey	Marvin
Dallas Mitchell	Detective Tom Gavin
Lloyd Haynes	Patrolman Sam Woodley
Ray Montgomery	Detective O'Mara
Seth Allen	Subway Dispatcher
Kay Turner	Stella
Tonia Machinga	Rosita
Rita Lynn	Rita Bonaro
Robert Granere	Buster
Conrad Bain	Hotel Clerk
Ed Crowley	Man at Precinct
John McLiam	Dunne
William Bramley	O'Brien
Scott Hale	Ambulance Driver
Philippa Bevans	Mrs. Hewitt
Diane Sayer	Doreen
Gloria Calomee	Policewoman Doris Hawkins
Albert Henderson	Lt. Strong
Abel Fernandez	Detective Rodriguez
Robert Ball	Prisoner
Bob Biheller	Man
Ollie O'Toole	Man
Al Dunlap	Man
Pepe Hern	Man
Tom Rosqui	Man
Sean Kennedy	Man
Bob O'Connell	Man
Mina Martinez	Woman
Kathleen O'Malley	Woman
Elizabeth Fleming	Woman
Madeline Clive	Woman
Nina Varela	Woman
Kate Harrington	Woman
Al Ruban	Kowalski
Lincoln Kilpatrick	Patrolman Grimes
Ralph Smiley	Captain
Don Stroud	Hughie
Frank Martin	Lieutenant James Price
Richard O'Brien	Det. O'Brien
Paul Sorensen	Man
Don Costa	Composer

Technical Credits

Harry Kleiner

Abraham Polonsky

Howard Rodman

Henri Simoun

Don Siegel	Director
Frank P. Rosenberg	Producer
Harry Kleiner	Screenwriter
Abraham Polonsky	Screenwriter
Howard Rodman	Screenwriter
Waldon Watson	Sound/Sound Designer
George Webb	Sound/Sound Designer
Henri Simoun	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Don Siegel recognized gold when he saw it -- he reportedly had misgivings when producer Frank P. Rosenberg first asked for him as the director of Universal's adaptation of Richard Dougherty's novel The Commissioner because the two had clashed in earlier years on the series Arrest & Trial, but the book and the screenplay, written by Howard Rodman (who ultimately took the pseudonym Henri Simoun) and revised by longtime movie blacklistee Abraham Polonsky, offered too good a chance to make an exciting location-based police thriller. Siegel succeeded and then some, creating a movie that functioned on two levels, with two separate but interlocking story lines: a violent story about police officers on the streets of New York, and the drama of senior police commanders and their own life-and-death decisions. The city of New York, as much as the leading actors, was the "star" of the film. Although part of the movie was done on a Hollywood backlot and soundstage, there was enough New York shooting and enough of the pulse and rhythm of those streets to give the movie extraordinary verisimilitude, so that, at times, it feels as if one is watching a documentary. Cinematographer Russell Metty, whose career went back to the 1930s, used the widescreen Techniscope image to brilliant advantage, capturing the constriction of New York's tenements and the wide expanses of skyline with equal facility. What Siegel and the writers never quite licked was the edict of the studio management that the film focus on Richard Widmark's Detective Madigan rather than on Henry Fonda's Police Commissioner Russell, who was the central character of the book. Siegel put everything he had into Widmark's scenes and embraced a dramatic arc that encompassed Madigan's story, but the unifying element of the movie remained Fonda's character, whose story was as central to the finished film as Widmark's. What's more, Fonda's scenes with Lloyd Gough, Woodrow Parfrey, Susan Clark, and James Whitmore were extremely powerful, a match for Widmark's scenes with Harry Guardino, Michael Dunn, Inger Stevens, and Sheree North. There are also excellent supporting performances by Dunn, Whitmore, Don Stroud, Henry Beckman, Ray Montgomery, and, most surprisingly, Harry Bellaver (best remembered from the TV show Naked City) as an alcoholic tipster. Sharp-eared viewers will be able to pick up little remnants of Polonsky's classic work from the 1940s, especially in the scene in which Whitmore's character is confronted with the transcription of the shakedown. "All the rest is conversation," he remarks, a phrase from Polonsky's script for Robert Rossen's Body and Soul (1947), starring John Garfield. The presence of ex-blacklistee Lloyd Gough (who, in that earlier movie, uttered that line) as Assistant Chief Inspector Earl Griffin, is another "in" reference to Polonsky's past. Not everything about the movie is perfect. In real life, first-grade detective, the rank held by Madigan and Bonaro, is an extremely elite rank within the NYPD, coming with the equivalent of lieutenant's pay and a lot of respect, and is impossible to achieve without the good graces of the commissioner's office, so it is difficult to believe Russell's antipathy toward Madigan. It's also far-fetched that a pair of such men could make such a botch of a routine job or that the chief of detectives (Bert Freed) would be quick to hang them out to dry. But those flaws (and the fact that Madigan and Bonaro are allowed to confront Benesch without wearing bullet-proof vests) aside, Madigan is a brilliant film. In fact, it ended up being two great movies in one, telling two separate, full sets of stories woven around characters who are only seen onscreen together in the final sequence. Interestingly, in addition to spawning a short-lived series with Widmark in the 1970s, the movie served just as much as the dry run for the series Kojak, another Universal production.