An Acting Lesson in "Madigan"
by Chris Fujiwara

Don Siegel gets credit as a skillful craftsman of taut action films. Even those who rate him most highly value him mainly as a master of the mechanics of such generic setpieces as shootouts, standoffs, chases, and heists. Repeated acquaintance with his films reveals, however, that their shape and design depend no less on nuance, shading, behavioral details, the pace and rhythm of dialogue, and shifting patterns of interaction than on Siegel's control of the logistics of action scenes.

The acting in Siegel's Madigan (1968) is at a consistently high level: every moment, down to the smallest pieces of work by bit players, is imaginative and amusing and contributes to the strained, stretched atmosphere so well conveyed by the film. Moreover, the acting contributes to a view of humanity as a network of needs — a constant theme of the film. Everybody in the film needs somebody. Even the psychopathic killer, Benesch, betrays himself through the "peculiar sexual habits" that make him dependent on other people. Benesch's nemesis, police detective Dan Madigan, is unable to express his need for his wife (an inability that drives her to the brink of a fling with one of her husband's colleagues) but enjoys a less complicated relationship with a former mistress, to whom he goes for comfort, coddling, and a place to sleep. The police commissioner tries to keep his department strictly rulebook-driven and imagines that his personal relationships with his married mistress and his long-time friend belong to different spheres from his professional life.

In Madigan, performance creates meanings that the dialogue doesn't convey directly. A revealing example of this occurs early in the film, when the Commissioner (Henry Fonda), in his office, receives a visit from Earl (Lloyd Gough), a subordinate in charge of internal affairs. During the investigation of another policeman, Earl recorded a phone conversation that indicates that the Chief Inspector is providing services to a gangster, and Earl has given the tape to the Commissioner.

Powerful subtextual references are at work in this scene, pointing back to the Hollywood blacklist and the ruinous practice of informing. The fact that the script for Madigan was written by Abraham Polonsky, a blacklist victim, might not, perhaps, be enough by itself to support this interpretation. The casting of Lloyd Gough as Earl makes the scene's reference to the blacklist unmistakable, however. Gough was also blacklisted — prior to the release of the film for which he is probably best remembered, Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952), in which he played the rapist-killer who is the target of the hero's vengeance (hence Gough's lack of billing in that film). Gough also appeared in Robert Rossen's Body and Soul (1947), written by Polonsky, and, after making Madigan, would play a part in the film that marked Polonsky's return to direction, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969). In Madigan, Gough's presence suggests that in turning over the incriminating tape to the Commissioner, Earl has committed an act that should be compared with the actions of the blacklist-era informers.

The Commissioner's attitude toward Earl as defined in Fonda's performance, together with the awkward, uncomfortable relationship between the two men, articulated through Siegel's staging and découpage, determine our view of the situation. When Earl enters, the Commissioner pointedly fails to acknowledge Earl's "good morning," and throughout their conversation, the Commissioner avoids looking at him. Instead, the Commissioner is preoccupied with objects: the reel of tape that he removes from his briefcase and places in front of him, the coffee cup from which he sips with ostentatious daintiness. While Earl speaks, the Commissioner gets up and goes to the window, forcing Earl to look at his back as he says, "I felt it was my duty to bring this matter to your attention, Commissioner." The mise en scène thus questions the word "duty" and makes it incredible as a justification of Earl's action.

Continuing in his movement around the room, the Commissioner stops in front of a painting on the wall. At this point, Earl produces from his briefcase a typed transcript of the tape recording. The Commissioner says sharply, "You haven't made a duplicate and filed it, have you, Earl?" On this line, for the first and only time in the scene, the Commissioner looks (down) at Earl. Before Earl leaves the office, he pauses at the door to express his regrets that "it had to be the Chief." Again, the Commissioner (who has resumed his place at the desk and is again engaged with his coffee cup) says nothing.

The implied condemnation of informing is stronger in what is seen than in what is said. The Commissioner's attitude may even seem paradoxical: doesn't he, in fact, consider it a good thing for corruption within the police department to be reported, and hasn't Earl taken the right steps by informing him personally? The Commissioner's attitude expresses more than just regret that his friend, the Chief, has turned corrupt; it expresses a contempt for the person who has found out and reported the corruption — a contempt that appears excessive and unjustified, since we know nothing about what kind of man Earl is, except for the information we learn in this scene.

The inconclusive nature of this information comes partly from Gough's performance. If Gough had merely wanted to get back, through this role, at the likes of the person who named him and halted his Hollywood career, he could have made Earl obviously unsympathetic — sycophantic, too pleased with himself, or openly malicious. But Gough is too much of an actor for that. Instead, his Earl presents himself as mild and inoffensive. In this lies the more subtle criticism of the character: from the beginning of the scene, as Earl stands stiffly at the door and waits to be invited to sit down, Siegel and Gough accentuate the deliberateness of Earl's self-presentation, hinting that it could be read as inauthenticity. The actor's indirect criticism of the character is expressed also in the character's slightly embarrassed, apolgetic behavior. This embarrassment is, however, ambiguous: it might express Earl's own awareness that he is engaged in a dirty business, but it might also be an attempt to retain dignity and self-respect in the face of the Commissioner's obvious contempt, while still registering the humility necessary in dealing with his superior.

The performances of both Gough and Fonda are involved with objects. The Commissioner's briefcase, the reel of tape, the coffee cup; Earl's briefcase and the transcript: these objects identify the preoccupations of the characters. Moreover, since the Commissioner refuses any direct relationship with Earl, except through the exchange of speech, and except in the single, sharp look down at Earl at the moment when he issues an implied criticism, the two men seem to relate to each other mainly through each other's objects. As he is about to leave, Earl reaches toward the reel of tape on the desk, but the Commissioner smoothly snatches it away and puts it in his desk drawer along with the transcript.

To the Commissioner, Earl becomes nothing more than an object, and he leaves Earl no power to express himself, no power to be, except through his objects: this is why, at the end of the scene, as Earl stands in front of the door, the briefcase he holds under his arm is so prominent in the frame, and it's behind the protection of this object that Earl feels able, for the only time in the scene, to express something of his true attitude toward the Commissioner: when the Commissioner ignores his expression of regret "that it had to be the Chief," Earl, seeing he will get no response, says "Thank you, Commissioner": for the first time in the scene, a slight edge of surliness in his voice is evident. We recognize in Earl, in his last moment on screen, someone who knows that he is right — and who is therefore dangerous.

In this, he is the mirror image of the Commissioner, who will be forced by the events of the narrative to question his own unyielding insistence on applying a rigid dualism of right/wrong to all situations, and to realize that this insistence is isolating, alienating, and dehumanizing. A later scene, in which the Commissioner meets Dr. Taylor, a prominent Black minister, also uses a mirror structure to introduce this thematic pressure. Dr. Taylor has come to demand the punishment of two policemen who, he claims, wrongfully and inappropriately questioned his son about a crime of which the son was innocent. The scene underlines the similarities, both physical and behavioral, between Fonda and Raymond St. Jacques, who plays Dr. Taylor: their chilly and reserved manner, their directness of gaze, their leanness, and their controlled way of using their bodies to imply great accuracy and strength. Because of these similarities (to emphasize which Siegel uses complementary medium close shots and closeups of the two men), we can recognize in Dr. Taylor the negative consequences of the Commissioner's own obsession with justice.

Near the end of the scene, the Commissioner summons the Chief (James Whitmore) to confirm the details of the case. The Chief's presence allows the scene to point out the stakes of the Taylor matter and what it represents. During the Commissioner's final speech to Dr. Taylor, as the Commissioner speaks of his "one rule, one standard" policy and explains that his policemen "are expected not only to enforce the law, but to live under it themselves," Siegel cuts away to shots showing the Chief's private discomfiture at these words that prick his conscience. The performances are rigorously controlled. In the closeup of the Commissioner, Fonda has merely to shift his eyes slightly to his left to aim his entire monologue at his friend. In the shots of the Chief, Whitmore merely looks away pensively and cocks his head to one side, suggesting not that he is thinking about the Commissioner's words, but that he is trying to find something to do while not thinking about them.

Another scene in the film shows how the shifting directionality of looks creates not only meaning but rhythm, tempo, and feeling. In this scene, Detectives Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Bonaro (Harry Guardino) emerge from a building. Madigan, in an effort to track down a potential source of information, has just been reduced to bullying a middle-aged female secretary (Virginia Gregg). Madigan looks disgruntled; he raises his hat over his brow and leans over a railing. Bonaro follows Madigan outside, staring at him fixedly. Madigan turns toward his partner. Both men then look away from each other, and Madigan, for the first time in the shot, speaks: "Now we're down to frightening old ladies."

Bonaro's stare at Madigan, as he follows him out of the building, is full of reproach. Because he is behind Madigan, Bonaro doesn't see what we see: his partner's self-reproach (expressed in his disgruntled look and his gesture with his hat). Bonaro's stare is, thus, a question, a search for understanding. The glum face Madigan turns toward Bonaro satisfies this quest. Now Bonaro can turn away, because he understands that his partner feels guilty: but as Bonaro starts to turn, he pauses almost imperceptibly in his movement. This slight pause is the moment of understanding, the moment when Bonaro registers what Madigan feels. The quick movement of Harry Guardino's face does not merely signify the constant sympathy between the two men; it is this sympathy, just as the blame and doubt that were present before, as Bonaro first left the building behind Madigan, existed only in his stare.

Bonaro and Madigan can look at each other and reassure each other with their silent understanding. On the other hand, the single look the Commissioner shoots at Earl, and the shifts of the eyes with which the Commissioner aims his speech about standards to the Chief, are looks that punish, separate, and leave their recipients isolated and adrift (the Chief visibly has nothing to do with his look, nowhere to direct it; Earl looks at the Commissioner and sees that his look is not returned). The acting in Madigan brings to life a dimension of meaning, conflict, and crisis that is implied, but not stated, in Polonsky's script, demonstrating that the formal complexity of Siegel's films is no less bold and exciting in their dialogue scenes than in their action highpoints.

Chris Fujiwara
© FIPRESCI 2006

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