Metrograph

Richard Widmark is NYPD Det. Daniel Madigan in the first of Siegel’s two New York City–set cop operas to be released in 1968, a considerably more sober and realistic affair than his Coogan’s Bluff, shot in the streets of Manhattan in cool shades of cobalt blue and steely gray and based on a hard-nosed police procedural thriller by journalist and department insider Richard Dougherty. Catching flack from his Commissioner (Henry Fonda), who’s got problems a-plenty of his own at work and at home, Madigan and his partner (Harry Guardino) have 72 hours to track down a killer as, toggling between the Fonda and Widmark characters’ storylines, Siegel gives a comprehensive look at one long, fraught weekend in the life of the force, from front office to pavement. (It should be noted that, with a script by formerly blacklisted screenwriters Howard Rodman and Abraham Polonsky, Madigan is far from an uncritical paean to the boys in blue.)

Print courtesy of the Joe Dante, Jon Davison, Tim Hunter Collection at the Academy Film Archive

Distributor: Universal