User reviews

Benefitting from the location shooting in New York of the Sixties, Madigan is a fast paced police action thriller. Richard Widmark and Harry Guardino are a pair of veteran NYPD detectives who get the tables turned on them by a suspected killer they were trying to bring in. They've got 72 hours to find him or face the consequences. In addition to losing suspect Steve Ihnat, Ihnat also relieved them of their police weapons.

You get the feeling that both Widmark and Guardino are past their prime and maybe ought to be coasting towards retirement with desk duty. The way Ihnat gets the better of them in the movie has to be seen to be believed and I won't say more.

Widmark and Guardino are both good in their parts, but the acting honors have to go to Steve Ihnat in this film. He is one the most maniacal killers ever brought to the silver screen and you won't forget him after seeing Madigan. Tragically he died four years after this film was made and a great career was cut short. Besides this film, Ihnat is probably best known for another maniacal portrayal on a Star Trek episode where he's a convict who takes over a futuristic prison and wants to use the Enterprise as a getaway vehicle.

The film is based on a novel entitled The Commissioner and that title part goes to Henry Fonda. In the films of Henry Fonda he says he was tricked into this film. As you might gather the character of the NYPD Police Commissioner is the central one in the novel and it was on that basis that Fonda took the part. Didn't turn out that way, but Fonda stuck it out, partially because he admired Widmark as a player having worked with him previously in Warlock.

Madigan being directed by Don Siegel is a forerunner of the more famous Harry Callahan character that Siegel directed Clint Eastwood in the first of the Dirty Harry films.

The action doesn't slow for a second even in the scenes not involving the pursuit of Ihnat because of the tension Siegel creates. And of course the character created by Ihnat.

Detective Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Detective Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino) enter a squalid Manhattan apartment building to pick up Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat), who is wanted for questioning on a case in Brooklyn. When Benesch manages to take Madigan and Bonaro's guns away and escape, Police Commissioner Anthony X Russell (Henry Fonda) tells them that they have 72 hours to get Benesch back, or else.

Out of all of the Don Siegel-directed films I've seen to date, this was the biggest disappointment. The film begins and ends with fantastic action sequences--well directed, well shot, with a nice, gritty feel, but in between the film felt overlong, overly complex, and far too soap-opera-like for my tastes.

It could be due to Madigan being adapted from a novel, but Abraham Polonsky and Howard Rodman's ("Henri Simoun" here) script includes so many different threads, most of them inconsequential to the outcome of the film, that it almost begins to lose coherence in the middle. It's a bad sign when the major arc of the story is completed, but characters still have to engage in a number of "But what about so and so?" verbal tags at the end of the film to try to satisfy the audience.

It feels almost as if Madigan is made for two entirely different crowds--one, fans of gritty crime action films, and the other, fans of realist dramas cum soap operas. I can't imagine the former caring about most of the material in the middle (unless it had a pay off towards their genre), and I can't imagine the latter being interested in the action scenes. Most of the material in the middle, although it has some more than admirable dialogue and decent performances, hinges on a complex web of personal and professional relationships--various romantic affairs, questionable relations between the police and citizens, and so on. It all comes to naught in the end. Also not helping is Henry Fonda's odd aloofness. Again, it might work if it had some other payoff, but it doesn't.

Still, the positive aspects were good enough to not bring my score below a 6. The film might also play better on a second viewing, where you better know how to adjust your expectations as it goes along. On a first, uninformed viewing, the beginning is likely to gear you up for a great, suspenseful and witty ride, leaving you disappointed in the middle, until you finally adjust and then you're awakened again with action at the end.

Directed by Don Siegel who had a foot firmly planted in classic Hollywood and who was also a trailblazer in modernizing American action films, "Madigan" serves the perfect bridge between the two. Co-written by Abraham Polonsky, who'd previously been on the Hollywood Blacklist for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, the film follows two different NYPD police officers. One is Madigan, a tough no-nonsense detective played by Richard Widmark trying to catch a killer, and the other is the straight-arrow police commissioner, Henry Fonda, who's balancing justice, politics, and an extra-marital affair. The film was based on a book titled "The Commissioner" and Fonda's character was the original focus of the story, but the producers instead changed the focus to Widmark's Madigan character, so the film unfortunately ends up a an odd combination of two different stories. Both Fonda and Widmark's stories involve them having to balance their work-life and home-life, but neither of those story elements seemed all that interesting. The most interesting part of the story concerned Widmark and his partner, Harry Guardino, on the trail of criminal Steve Ihnat. Watching Widmark and Guardino push the boundaries of acceptable law enforcement in their investigation makes this film an interesting bridge to director Don Siegel's controversial and highly influential vigilante cop film "Dirty Harry" he'd make a few years later. Siegel also makes great use of NYC locations that give ether film added grit and realism, much like we'd later see in William Friedkin's "The French Connection" and Siegel's use of San Francisco in "Dirty Harry." Siegel also skillfully demonstrates his own directional action sequences chops with a memorable showdown in the film's finale, which features with three characters in tight quarters, all with John Woo-style double-fisted pistols in each hand. Overall, "Madigan" features an old style police detective story (with a nice plot nod to Kurosawa's "Stray Dog") that abandons the stylistic German Expressionist roots of American film noir and instead takes the genre into new more realistic and gritty of territory, even if those stronger elements get somewhat undone by dull and unoriginal subplots involving the marital lives of Madigan and the commissioner.

Madigan is memorable for its final, climactic gunfight. This is the closest the cinematic art will ever come to reality unless someone actually captures a real life up-close-and-nasty gunfight on film. Widmark and Guardino vs. Steve Ihnat in about 4 seconds of absolute mayhem, with tragic results.

By the way, I saw this film in an Army hospital in 1969, while recovering from being wounded in Vietnam. It was projected on a bedsheet hung in the middle of a ward. The image showed through clearly, so I (and half the audience) watched it from the back side of the sheet; all lefts and rights were reversed!

A fine, harshly realistic Don Siegel film from the late 60's with Richard Widmark superb as Madigan. Steve Ihnat (from THE CHASE) is also a perfect twisted and aggressive villain with able support from Harry Guardino. The lovely Inger Stevens is touching in one of her last roles before her untimely demise.

A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Steve Ihnat (who died too young). Don Siegel made a lot of good films and this is near the top of the list. One of the pro-cop films before Dirty Harry blasted it open. Once again, Inger Stevens will break your heart near the end of this and she never looked more beautiful in her all too short career. Well worth anyone's time.

Madigan is directed by Don Siegel and adapted to screenplay by Abraham Polonsky and Howard Rodman from the novel The Commissioner written by Richard Dougherty. It stars Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Susan Clark, Harry Guardino and James Whitmore. Music is scored by Don Costa and cinematography by Russell Metty.

Plot finds Widmark as Detective Daniel Madigan, who along with his partner Rocco Bonaro (Guardino), loses a suspected murderer who also makes off with their guns. Causing embarrassment to Police Commissioner Anthony Russell (Fonda), who is hardly a fan of Madigan's methods, they are given 72 hours in which to locate the escapee and bring him in. But as the two men go in search of the crim, Commissioner Russell has various other problems to address, both at work and with matters of the heart. Last thing he needs is a volatile Madigan screwing things up...

Based on a book called The Commissioner, a film originally titled the same, and the most interesting story thread in the picture is that of Henry Fonda's Commissioner! Then why is the film called Madigan, who is an interesting character that really is only second fiddle in this particular Don Siegel orchestra? It is one of the odd and frustrating things about the piece, the story is complex enough without being unsure who to focus on, a shame because Widmark, Clark, Fonda and Whitmore are doing sterling work for their under pressure director (Siegel was constantly fighting with producer Frank P. Rosenberg).

The themes at play are deliciously enticing, infidelity, police corruption, family strife, friendship, loneliness and identity etc etc, threads are dangled and given thoughtful dialogue passages. But hang on! Wasn't there a murderer on the loose at the beginning of the film? Half way through the piece I had forgotten about Steve Ihnat's crim that opened up proceedings, surely that can't be right? Film looks terrific at day time, though, where Metty's bold Technicolor photography really gives the New York locations a sense of 70s wonder (I know it's a 60s movie but it feels very 70s, and in a good way as well), though Costa's score is far too blunderbuss for narrative themes.

It's a mixed bag, a film you just know should be better considering the talent in front of and behind the cameras. Ideas at core are strong and worthy of filmic adaptation, while the last quarter is electrifying and crowned by a classic foray into film noir territory. But really this is recommended as just above average entertainment for the cop/crime movie fan. 6/10

This is a very good film--full of excellent acting and a pretty interesting story. Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda are both wonderful actors in the movie and their stories run parallel during most of the film--having almost no interaction in the film. Harry Guardino, Inger Stevens, James Whitmore and others provide some superb support and the film is very entertaining. In many ways it's like a 1960s take on Film Noir, though with slightly less "gritty" dialog and a lot of late 60s sensibilities (a bit of nudity and graphic language that at first took me by surprise). Now this isn't to say that the film is needlessly gratuitous. I just had a hard time, at first, hearing some of the swearing coming out of the mouths of some old-time actors. Additionally, and this did NOT improve the film for me, there were some soap opera-like elements thrown in that often didn't work. Having widower Fonda sleeping with a married woman who had kids just seemed sleazy and didn't at all fit with the character they had created. He prided himself on his decency and integrity, but this didn't seem to make much sense. However, the tension between Widmark and his wife, Stevens, did work pretty well, as you could certainly see how being a detective could really be tough on a marriage.

All in all, this was a very good film that seemed a little like DRAGNET, the TV show POLICE STORY and a soap opera all rolled into one. Good stuff that is well worth seeing, though I'd hesitate to let younger kids view this DVD.

This is a very "late '60s" detective drama, and if you're in the mood, it will hit the spot.

What struck me, and it has not been picked up by other posters, is the very visible difference between the majority of the scenes, shot on authentic NYC locations, and a few scenes straight from the Universal backlot, on urbanistically nonsensical streets with no gutters.

The studio shot scenes (and the school-of-Lalo-Shifrin score) increase the impression that you are watching a first class TV movie. It all makes you hungry for a dinner in a foil tray.

Definitely entertaining, in a period way.

Spanning a weekend in the career of the titular cop, Richard Widmark doesn't always play by the rules. When he tries to make an arrest, but the man steals his gun and escapes, it's a bit embarrassing. The police commissioner, Henry Fonda, is righteous and doesn't approve - but he has two skeletons in his closet. First, he's having an affair with a married woman, Susan Clark; second, his close friend James Whitmore, the chief inspector, was caught on tape taking a bribe. Meanwhile, Dick has marital trouble with his shallow, needy, immature wife, Inger Stevens. She's been a cop's wife for decades, and she still complains that he has to work late and can't escort her to a party!

Richard Widmark really carries this movie. Henry Fonda is his usual lackluster self, Inger Stevens is laughably bad, and the production values feel like a canceled 1970s tv series. Actually, it could have been turned into a series, since there were so many plot lines involving different characters as well as an abundance of crime in New York that could have carried out season after season. If you're a Widmark fan, you can try this movie to see what he might have done with the Tony Rome movies. If you're not, you're better off skipping it. Cop dramas of 1968 weren't generally very good, save No Way to Treat a Lady and The Boston Strangler.

A decent exploration of the maverick detective theme that Siegal would examine more successfully in "Dirty Harry." Richard Widmark is terrific in the title role, and the cinematography, along with some of the dialogue, is top notch. The film runs into problems, however, with the subplot involving police commissioner Henry Fonda, as well as Madigan's difficulties on the homefront with wife Inger Stevens. Had the emphasis remained on the manhunt conducted by Madigan and his partner (Harry Guardino), it could have been a classic. Instead, too much time is devoted to talk, and as any Siegal enthusiast knows, action is what he did best. The later TV series, again starring Widmark, is superior.

A fine, harshly realistic Don Siegel film from the late 60's with Richard Widmark superb as Madigan. Steve Ihnat (from THE CHASE) is also a perfect twisted and aggressive villain with able support from Harry Guardino. The lovely Inger Stevens is touching in one of her last roles before her untimely demise.

A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Steve Ihnat (who died too young). Don Siegel made a lot of good films and this is near the top of the list. One of the pro-cop films before Dirty Harry blasted it open. Once again, Inger Stevens will break your heart near the end of this and she never looked more beautiful in her all too short career. Well worth anyone's time.

The end of an era. Cops in suits with narrow ties and fedoras, worn inside and out, day and night. Lincoln sedans with rear suicide doors. Women in bright colours, hats, and fully made up stay at home wives. The bad guys and near criminals in mauves and plush velour at the edge of the beatnik fringe. Dial telephones, typewriters, carbon paper, no computers, cops using phone booths and carrying dimes, cigarettes and booze everywhere, adultery, a near drunken sexual assault, all 60's stuff at the end of an era. Widmark is too old to have both a hot wife and an ongoing pleutonic relationship with a nightclub singer. He is also a nice guy one minute and physically threatening an old lady the next or kicking down a door without a warrant. He can't carry off the bad cop and rule breaker role. There is a subplot with police corruption and the straight laced commissioner learns too bend a little with advice from his married girlfriend. There is a second subplot with a potential racial police incident with a black suspect. The finale is pre-SWAT teams with the two detectives breaking through a door armed with two handguns each in a shootout reminiscent of a B western. Forget the plot, with its many flaws, and focus on the New York and the sixties look and feel

MADIGAN (Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Harry Guardino 1968) Directed by Don Siegel, who was to give us Dirty Harry a couple of years later. I've always avoided this film in the past, as I suspected it would be like many other cop films of the period and play like an over-long TV drama. In the event I enjoyed it, despite it ...er ...looking like an over-long TV drama. On the good side we have Richard Widmark's excellent performance with the equally good Harry Guardino as his buddy. On the very good side we get Henry Fonda, who turns in a cool, measured piece of acting as the ramrod-straight Commissioner with more than enough on his plate. Overall it's a bit episodic as the main plot concerning a simple manhunt is interrupted by side-stories and domestic goings-on, but still the film remains highly watchable. My main gripe is the over-use of incidental music. The big-band jazz-based music by Don Costa is very good, but it pokes its nose in when there should be silence and intrudes very loudly at times. Many films of this period seemed somewhat overloaded with music, so I suppose it was just of its time.

Landing in theatres two years before "Airport", this seems, at times, to be a template for the later, more glossy film. Where "Airport" dealt with the myriad problems of the airport manager and one of the pilots (including the halting of a deranged bomber), this film covers the myriad problems of a police commissioner and one of the detectives (including the capture of a deranged killer.) It also has the similar elements of a secret affair with a younger girl and a dissatisfied, social-climbing wife. Widmark even looks through a curtain the way Dean Martin did during one sequence. All that's missing is Helen Hayes in a tweed coat and a brown hat with a pom-pom! (This comparison actually sheds less favorable light on "Airport" since IT came later and was clearly inspired in it's direction and format by this film.) Widmark plays the title role, a detective who, with his partner Guardino, allows an unbalanced killer to steal his gun and break free from custody. The pair have 72 hours to bring the guy in or face reprimands. This does not sit well with Widmark's bored wife Stevens, who has been planning to make a splash at a party which falls during this 72 hour period. Presiding over the department is Fonda, who is worried that a long-time cohort (Whitmore) has gone dirty and who drowns his sorrows in the cleavage of young, married Clark. The story threads take place separately until, like "Airport", they converge at the end. The film opens excitingly enough with a showdown leading to an NYC rooftop. Location work throughout adds to the aura of the film. Widmark and Guardino (in the last glory days when detectives still wore suits, ties and HATS!) make an intriguing pair of cops, with Guardino coming off especially authentically. (In a less authentic moment, the film asks the audience to believe that a woman pushing 30, and in bed with the suspect, is really jailbait.) Things quickly get bogged down when Widmark comes home and has to deal with the lovely, but shrewy Stevens. Her role is horribly cliched by today's standards. Maybe it was less so then. Still, Stevens manages to inject some degree of empathy along the way and even gets to wear one of those sky-high, late '60's hairdos that defy gravity. Meanwhile, Fonda wrestles (tiresomely) with his doubts about Whitmore, all the while maintaining a stoic, one note expression and seemingly walking through the film. His icky relationship with Clark (35 years his junior!) provides neither titillation, nor insight into his character. Clark's role is pretty thankless and she still has some unaccounted-for residual British accent leftover from her studies in England prior to this. There are small, but solid turns from various other character actors including North as a torch singer and Warren Stevens as a bachelor on the make. Stroud gives a hammy, bizarre performance as an informant, but even he is outdone by Ihnat as the killer. Ihnat's loud, inexplicably salivating character is never adequately explained and is under-presented to the point where his apprehension isn't as climactic as it ought to be. Incidentally, the ending of this film could not be more telegraphed. Clues are dropped in the audiences lap, one after another, like breadcrumbs as the climax approaches. In all, it's a slick, visually interesting film with some good acting, tempered by some vague scripting, alternately hammy/wooden portrayals and a layer of rigor mortis over it. It came at a time when police dramas had one foot in the "Dragnet" door and the other pointing towards "Dirty Harry". The conglomeration of the two approaches isn't always a comfortable one.

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.

An interesting cast that include a couple of my favorites made me enthused about watching the VHS of this in '90s, several decades after seeing it in the theater when it came out. Boy, what a disappointment. Despite the cast, I found it to be somewhat boring. Only the beginning and the last 10 minutes of the film had any action. You'd expect more out of a tough crime story.

The rest of the time was spent with soap opera material such as unhappy police wives, or the now-cliché good cops get harassed by their boss, the key cop is a corrupt one and the lead cop is totally misunderstood. Oh man, have we seen a lot of this crap since this film came out!

No, this turned out to be an overrated film.

Detective Daniel Madigan (the excellent Richard Widmark) is very efficient and experienced, but also has no ethics. His partner, Detective Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino), and him go to a hotel room for the simple arrest of the small-time bandit Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat). Madigan is reckless and in a lack of attention on Benesch, he reacts, takes the guns of the detectives and escapes. When back to the precinct, they receive the information that Benesch is a killer. Commissioner Anthony X.Russel (Henry Fonda), a very rigid and moralist man, gives a schedule of three days maximum for the detectives to arrest Benesch. Yesterday it was the first time that I watched this excellent police-drama movie. In the present days, this movie is politically incorrect: Madigan has no ethics, most of the characters have affair with lovers, smoking is `in', the interrogation is rough without human rights, and this is one of the greatest points of this film, since it is very real. Further, Don Siegel does not need car chases, explosions and other special effects to hook the attention of the viewer. The direction, screenplay and performance of the actors and actresses are more than enough to satisfy the viewer. The characters are very well developed and the scenes are very realistic. Again, an excellent police-drama movie recommended for those who like police story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): ` Os Impiedosos' (`The Unmerciful')