MADIGAN: Blu-ray (Universal, 1968) Kino Lorber

Good roles for aging, but still great stars were exceedingly hard to come by in 1968; the last gasps of the old-time Hollywood establishment still refusing to entirely depart their once seemingly indestructible kingdoms; the new order, buffeted by a creative unrest to do things ‘differently’ than their predecessors, and, the thorough implosion of the industry’s self-governing code of ethics, leading to pictures with less plot, more action, and increasingly, more tasteless – if strangely appealing – situations. Glamour was therefore decidedly passé, and unlikely to return as the byproduct du jour. Interestingly, the noir crime thriller, all but wiped out after 1949 by the plush and padded gigantism of mid-fifties picture-making, and its post-fifties fallout, weighed down in fewer-made but even more elephantine ‘road show’ spectacles of varying genres, effectively marked its reemergence mid-decade with 1966’s Harper, 1967’s Point Blank, and, 1968’s The Detective, to star – respectively – Paul Newman, Lee Marvin and Frank Sinatra; arguably, three of the biggest names in showbiz, with one major note of distinction. The classic crime pictures, collectively lumped under the banner as ‘film noir’ – a movement, not a genre – were usually cheaply made, B-budgeted B&W thrillers with few A-listers to partake of the exercise. Comparatively, the neo-noirs from the mid-sixties were given considerable cash and talent to float them to profitability at the box office. And the fashionable streak showed no signs of diminishing with director, Don Siegel’s Madigan (1968) – a gritty drama tricked out in the trappings of a conventional crime caper but set in the bowels of New York’s decidedly low-rent district.  Madigan stars Richard Widmark, whose screen persona had miraculously morphed from playing squinty-eyed psychopaths (Kiss of Death, 1947) and repugnant racists (No Way Out, 1950) into a fallow period of adjustment, and then, even more miraculously, a resurgence on the other side of the proverbial fence, as forthright and honorable figures of fixed integrity in pictures like The Alamo (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and, How the West Was Won (1962).

Madigan straddles a chasm in Widmark’s bipolar capacities as an actors’ actor. For although Dan Madigan is a New York detective out to rid this decaying metropolis of yet another heinous killer, he possesses a streak of vengeance that leans toward the vigilante, soon to become the purveying ‘norm’ of seventies’ anti-heroes in movies like Klute and Shaft (both made and released in 1971). It must be noted that Madigan was conceived under duress; an all-pervading friction between producer, Frank Rosenberg (who considered himself ‘the boss’) and Siegel, who rightly surmised that once the cameras were rolling, only his opinion mattered. Whether from spite or just plain lack of logic, Rosenberg scheduled the first day’s shoot to include photographing of the last scene in the movie, depicting an embittered Julia Madigan (Inger Stevens) reigning down her contempt for Commissioner Anthony X. Russell (Henry Fonda) over the death of her husband. To complicate the shoot, Stevens was also required to report earlier in the same day for wardrobe tests, leading to a conflict that stressed the actress to the point to distraction. Reportedly, Siegel told Stevens to channel her abject frustration and contempt for Rosenberg into the scene yet to be played, adding later, “Miss Stevens gave a startling portrayal, truly magnificent and brave.” Producer and director also came to loggerheads over a scene where Russell enters a room, encountering the half-naked Tricia Bentley (Susan Clark) lying in bed, uttering, “You can open the other eye now. I made coffee.” Rosenberg demanded this scene be reshot as Fonda had forgotten to add the word ‘the’ in front of ‘coffee’. When Siegel refused, Rosenberg ordered the line redubbed in post-production to include ‘the’ word. But the most significant conflict arose over Siegel’s decision to overrule Rosenberg’s choice of location for the climactic ‘chase’ sequence.

While most of Madigan was photographed in New York, plans for the finale were relocated to Los Angeles after a car carrying Widmark and co-star Harry Guardino (Det. Rocco Bonaro) was brutally attacked by gangs in Harlem. After a property man was violently mugged, Madigan prepared to shoot its climax in L.A. – alas, on a location hand-picked by Rosenberg that Siegel thought utterly un-New York like. Having found an alternative more suitable, but rejected by Rosenberg, Siegel went over his producer’s head to Universal Studio chief, Lew Wasserman who concurred with Siegel’s choice and green-lit the change; a very bitter pill for Rosenberg to swallow.  And Siegel was, by no means, the only person to have his difficulties with Rosenberg. Henry Fonda would later suggest the producer had distilled his initial interest in the project by making wholesale changes to his character that truly watered down his impact. “He just wouldn't listen to anything,” Fonda later recalled, “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.” In the end, it was Siegel’s temerity that impressed everyone the most, and made for a salvageable work environment. “He could have slid over the ending we wanted,” Widmark reasoned, “…but no sir. He fought like a bastard…and he has taste.” Widmark would later suggest Siegel was one of only three directors he considered ‘worth’ working for – the other two being, John Ford and Elia Kazan.

Based on Richard Soughherty’s ‘The Commissioner’, and shot almost entirely in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem, Madigan is a skillfully assembled actioner with a real slam-bang and thoroughly unanticipated finale – the death of its central character. In hindsight, the picture’s moral ambiguity points to the more complex and ‘incomplete’ crime/drama offerings yet to follow it - Dirty Harry (and its sequels) and The French Connection (both made and released 1971). Madigan’s screenplay, co-authored by Howard Rodman (who opted for the nom de plume, Henri Simoun, because he disliked the movie so much) and black-listed writer, Abraham Polonsky, is a potpourri of time-honored edicts about God’s lonely man; the seemingly tarnished ‘white knight’ to have been knocked from his charger, bloodied but unbowed, and mercilessly refusing to give in, whatever the consequences. The picture exists largely in a den of moral turpitude in which only the villains are clearly delineated as ‘bad’; the rest, settled into the mid-range mire of an interminable purgatory by their own design. Madigan’s Achilles Heel, as example, is that he will not give up the ‘good fight’, but especially when goodness has absolutely nothing to do with it! He and Det. Rocco Bonaro are sent to apprehend Barney Benesch (Steve Uinhat), a thug hiding out in a rundown flat. Too bad Benesch is in bed with a naked woman when the cops break down the door. Distracted by a pretty face (other appendages optional), Madigan and Bonaro allow Benesch his escape.  

Understandably, this does not sit well with Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell who chastises his men, then puts them on 72-hours’ notice to hunt down Benesch and deliver him to justice. Madigan and Bonaro could respect a man like Russell, if only Russell had enough respect for himself. Alas, he has become romantically inveigled with the voluminous Tricia Bentley. Russell’s colleague, Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitemore) is also not above taking bribes to keep various brothels open. And Russell is also forced to contend with the formidable, Dr. Taylor (Raymond St. Jacques), a black minister whose activist son has been ruthlessly assaulted by racist cops. On the home front, Madigan is under constant pressure from his socialite significant other, Julia who chronically prods him to seek employment in a profession that is not only safer but better suited with her ideas of their social caste. Despite his looming deadline, Madigan tries to assuage Julia’s socio-sexual frustrations by spending more time with her. Unbeknownst to Julia, however, Madigan has already taken up with rumpled nightclub chanteuse, Jonesy (Sheree North) who knows he only has eyes for Julia, but continues to allow herself to be used as his ‘friendly port’ whenever their home life becomes too intense – requiring a momentary separation.  

Confronted by Russell with evidence of his bribery, Kane confides he was trying to help his own son out of a jam. Kane offers his resignation, but bitterly resents Russell's moral outrage. After all, what would the Commissioner know about fatherhood? In another part of the city, Madigan escorts Julia to a gala for the department at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. Alas, Julia’s hopes for a memorable evening together are dashed when Madigan announces his plans to leave her at the soiree while he skulks off to work on his case. Keeping Julia happy falls to Captain Ben Williams (Warren Stevens), who rather insidiously preys on her insecurities to get her tipsy, and then, attempt a seduction. At the last possible moment, Julia resists and withdraws. It’s no use. Whatever he is, Julia loves Madigan. Meanwhile, the elusive Benesch resurfaces, killing two cops with Madigan’s gun. Infuriated, Madigan and Bonaro get a badly needed tip-off from bookie, Midget Castiglione (Michael Dunn), who implores them to look up the pimp, Hughie (Don Stroud). Tracing Benesch to a seedy apartment, Madigan and Bonaro set up a police cordon and call for his surrender. Refusing, Benesch holds his position while Madigan and Bonaro rush the building. Alas, time has run out for Madigan. In his exchange of gunfire, he is fatally shot before Bonaro manages to kill Benesch. Accusing Russell of being a heartless administrator, Julia storms out of his office a dejected train wreck. Reassessing her indictment of him, Russell is joined by Inspector Kane – neither having quit or been fired. Kane now inquiries about Dr. Taylor’s situation and other pending cases. To all his queries, Russell merely shrugs, suggesting the loose ends will be addressed in some distant concept of a ‘tomorrow’ likely never to come.

Very much employing Madigan as his own statement piece to correlate the similarities between an ineffectual and marginally corrupt law enforcement with the escalation in violent crimes afflicting New York City circa 1968, director, Don Siegel has, in hindsight, created one of the stellar time capsules from this decidedly unflattering period in the Big Apple’s metropolitan tapestry. Madigan – the movie - lays bare a cesspool of social depravity, overtaken the post-fifties optimism/post-sixties ‘flower-power’ love-ins for humanity at large. There is no love lost between the characters who populate Siegel’s hard-hitting and edgy actioner and Siegel’s sentiment for a society at large, having veered wildly out of control, but on its own terms, to have entirely fallen off its moral axis. Indeed, it is difficult to interpret whether art is imitating life here or the other way around. Richard Widmark’s approach to Dan Madigan is tinged with a glint of personal regret. It makes for a fascinating character study. But mostly, he plays the unrepentant policeman as an avenging junk yard dog, too woefully invested in the particulars of his single-minded revenge to truly give a damn about his own life. It is an uncompromising portrait to be sure, and one for which Widmark – an actor of many faces and acting styles – seems so perfectly born to have played. Despite changing times and tastes, Madigan remains a step ahead of the average crime/thriller/drama – the polarizing and popularized main staple in Hollywood for a time. Exposing urban blight and decay as the concrete manifestations of each character’s self-imploding lack of judgment, the picture startles us with its powerful imagery, lensed to perfection by Russell Metty’s extraordinary camerawork.

Madigan was a huge hit for Universal; so much, that in 1972, the studio elected to literally resurrect the character as a reoccurring part of NBC’s Wednesday Mystery Movie franchise. Widmark returned. But television’s budget restrictions and rather mediocre writing ensured Madigan was again, not long for this world. After only a single season, of which Madigan filled a meager six episodes, the character and franchise quickly and quietly vanished from view, seemingly to be forgotten. Viewed today, Madigan – the movie is a great piece of cinema, thanks to Don Siegel’s unrelenting and purposeful pursuit of perfection. And now, after far too long an absence, Madigan comes the Blu-ray, via Kino Lorber’s alliance with Universal. Before getting excited, let us preface this review by suggesting again, it’s Universal – a studio unapologetic about dumping their past on home video with little to zero upgrading done on original elements before slapping them to disc. Kino is at the mercy of Uni. So, to find most of Madigan looking adequate to just a hair above base-line acceptable is, frankly, a pleasant surprise. In 1080p, the Panavision image looks quite film-like with good solid colors, better than anticipated contrast, and a light smattering of grain, indigenous to its source. There are one or two instances of light speckling, but otherwise, the image is impressively free of age-related artifacts. The 2.0 DTS mono shows off Don Costa’s underscore with clean dialogue to boot. We will give a shout out to Kino, for splurging on a new audio commentary from historians, Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. This triumvirate of well-informed fellows really get into the nitty-gritty of things. We also get a theatrical trailer and TV spots.  Bottom line: Madigan is a solid actioner with a lot of guts. While it has dated – considerably – Siegel’s finesse and Widmark’s central performance keep the picture fresh. While not entirely a quality affair, Uni shows mid-grade competence here. The Blu-ray looks solid enough, if hardly perfect. Recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

2