Taglines: …the savage story of a city stripped naked!
Madigan movie storyline. In New York City’s Spanish Harlem, 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, though unknown to her he has a girl on the side, Jonesy, a nightclub singer. (Though she’s sexually frustrated as well, and Madigan tells her he only loves Julia.)
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.
Madigan takes Julia to a fancy dress ball for the department, which includes getting to stay at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. She’s excited and happy until she realizes he’s going to ditch her early on and go back to work. Knowing Julia was looking forward to dancing, he leaves her in the hands of Captain Ben Williams, who uses the opportunity to get her drunk and seduce her—he nearly succeeds, but she can’t go through with it.
Madigan is a 1968 American neo-noir crime drama thriller film directed by Don Siegel (as Donald Siegal) and starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Susan Clark, Michael Dunn, Steve Ihnat, Don Stroud, Sheree North and Raymond St. Jacques.
The screenplay—originally titled Friday, Saturday, Sunday—was adapted by two writers who had been blacklisted in the 1950s, Howard Rodman (credited here under the pseudonym Henri Simoun) and Abraham Polonsky. It was based on the 1962 novel The Commissioner by Richard Dougherty, a former New York bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times who had served in the 1950s as a deputy New York City police commissioner for community relations.
Siegel was a genre director known at the time for taut action films like The Lineup (1958) and Hell Is for Heroes (1962), as well as the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He later directed five films starring Clint Eastwood, including Dirty Harry.
Madigan (1968)
Directed by: Don Siegel
Starring: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Susan Clark, Michael Dunn, Steve Ihnat, Don Stroud, Sheree North, Raymond St. Jacques
Screenplay by: Howard Rodman, Abraham Polonsky
Production Design by:
Cinematography by: Russell Metty
Film Editing by: Milton Shifman
Set Decoration by: John P. Austin, John McCarthy Jr.
Art Direction by: Alexander Golitzen, George C. Webb
Makeup Department: Larry Germain, Bud Westmore
Music by: Don Costa
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: March 29, 1968
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