Madigan (1968)

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Richard Widmark as Detective Dan Madigan and Harry Guardino as Detective Rocco Bonaro are not exactly in their chief's good books. But needless to say, they both manage to pull through in style.Despite its lack of originality, director Don Siegel's big-budget "Madigan" (1968) was a popular police drama with both critics and public cheering wildly!Siegel's astute use of real locations as well as his top-of-the-form cast had audiences cheering. The plot had several noirish features, but Siegel kept the action keyed at such a fast tempo, these elements actually made little impression.Also making little impression on both cheering critics and audiences was one-time super-popular sex bomb, Sheree North, billed as "Jonesy", somewhat way down the cast list! I didn't spot her at all. I will have to watch the movie again!

Richard Widmark(Madigan) & Harry Guardino play two police officers who lose their gun to a murder suspect(Steve Inhat). They are then given a short period of time to catch him, and retrieve his gun, before it is used in the commission of a crime. Madigan must also deal with his home problems involving his bored and neglected wife(played by the beautiful Inger Stevens) Henry Fonda plays the police commissioner who must deal with the hard-headed Madigan, and other issues that threaten the safety and reputation of the city.Moderately interesting yarn has good performances and direction, though a somewhat tedious and familiar story, though the ending is a surprise. Later inspired a brief TV series.

A muddled film that reminds me of Frank Sinatra vehicle "The Detective" released the same year. Both movies augment tough, realistic, location-shot police procedural material with stagy drama from their cops' personal lives, and both attempt to deal with adult sexual issues in a frank & forthright manner. And they both largely miss the mark: the personal drama doesn't integrate well with the action-oriented police-work, and the sexual frankness is awkward and badly dated. That said, this movie does have its pleasures.Widmark is very good, if a bit too old for the part. He brings an element of volatility to his character, and makes Madigan's seeming contradictions (nasty one minute, compassionate the next) wholly credible.The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Watch for the wild, hammy, but engaging bit parts played by Michael Dunn as a shady little person informer, Don Stroud as a petulant, sleazy pimp, and Steve Ihnat as the crazed killer. The scenes with these three characters are some of the sharpest in the film, little set pieces that really bring the proceedings to life.Fonda's role is a tougher assignment. His character is an intimidating, implacable moral absolutist, a man of few words who processes events internally. In the course of the film he runs into a variety of moral dilemmas, and has to make decisions about them. So how would an actor communicate what's roiling within this character? Beats me, because Fonda didn't do it. He walks through every scene stone-faced, and his decisions seem utterly random. He played this so understated that no statement is made at all.And the less said about the personal drama love interest scenes the better. Though Inger Stevens and Susan Clark do their best with their thin roles, this stuff kills the pacing of the main story threads. Stevens role as Madigan's wife is there largely to give the story's ending some emotional kick, but it just ain't happening.The climactic shootout scene at the end is brutal and utterly convincing. Siegel could do compelling action scenes with the best of them. This little bit of the movie is truly great.So yeah, it's a flawed film, but die-hard fans of crime & police drama, Siegel, and/or Widmark should check this out anyway.

The NYC police commissioner has given two policemen two days to bring in a fugitive. The cast is excellent: Fonda as the by-the-book commissioner, Widmark and Guardino as the not-by-the-book detectives, Stevens as Widmark's lovely and neglected wife, and Whitmore as Fonda's assistant and long-time friend. Siegel creates a gritty atmosphere in this companion piece to "Dirty Harry," with Widmark's title character having a lot in common with Clint Eastwood's maverick cop. However, while the film is well made, it is nothing more than a routine police drama. Widmark parlayed this role into a short-lived TV series of the same name a few years later.