Don Siegel Movies

Here's the setup: Psychiatrist brothers Frasier and Niles Crane (Kelsey Grammer andDavid Hyde Pierce) hoping to make millions of dollars decide to collaborate on a self-help book. Here's the topic of the book: sibling rivalry. Guess what happens next? Just guess. Well, maybe you didn't guess that one of the plot complications involves a severe case of mutual writer's block. Once again, canine actor Moose is afforded on-screen credit for the role of Eddie the Dog. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jinxed is an apt name for this disastrous project which, sadly, turned out to be Don Siegel's final film. The film takes place in Reno, where blackjack dealer Willie Brodax (Ken Wahl) becomes an innocent victim of a broken-down gambler named Harold Benson (Rip Torn). Such is Willie's luck that when he sees Benson sit down at his blackjack table, he realizes that he will soon be out of a job. Benson is also giving his girlfriend Bonita Friml (Bette Midler) a difficult time. When she notices Willie and sees how Bensen is putting him through the wringer, she begins to fall for him and gets him involved in a scheme to kill her boyfriend. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

No one can escape from Alcatraz, right? Try telling that to lifer Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood). This Donald Siegel-directed nailbiter is a reenactment of Frank Morris' 1962 attempt to bust himself and two other cons out of The Rock. Eastwood, as Morris, tilts with nasty warden Patrick McGoohan for a while, befriends several fellow prisoners, and picks the guys with whom he'll make his escape. Among his break-out buddies are the Anglin Brothers (Fred Ward and Jack Thibeau), with whom he'd served in other lockups, and several others who've got their own special reasons to despise the sadistic McGoohan. Filmed on location at the newly renovated Alcatraz, Escape From Alcatraz was another box-office winner for the Eastwood/Siegel combo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Don Siegel took over the directing chores from Peter Hyams on this taut cold war action film, based on the novel by Walter Wager. With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union thawing, old KGB hard-liner Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) activates a group of Americans who were brainwashed twenty years earlier to blow up United States defenses when a passage from a Robert Frost poem is recited to them. When bombs go off at an abandoned United States defense installation, the Kremlin realizes that they have a rogue KGB agent on their hands who is trying to re-ignite the cold war. To stop him, the Russians send out KGB agent Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson). Accompanying him is KGB double agent Barbara (Lee Remick). As the two agents try to stop Nicolai from starting World War III, they find time to fall in love with each other. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Michael Caine stars as an espionage agent whose young son is kidnapped. Complicating matters is the fact that the kidnappers (John Vernon and Delphine Seyrig) are Caine's own colleagues. They want to secure Caine's aid in rounding up a diamond smuggling ring, and they don't care who they have to hurt to do so. He agrees to go along, all the while searching for his missing son. Janet Suzman co-stars as Caine's estranged wife, who is compelled to join him in his search. Helmed by veteran filmmaker Don Siegel, The Black Windmill is based on Seven Days to a Killing, a novel by Clive Egleton. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "fascist" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood, in a role meant for Frank Sinatra) is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When hippie-esque psycho Scorpio (Andy Robinson) goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico (Reni Santoni) are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor (John Vernon) and Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," opines Harry in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again. Directed in violent and efficient fashion by Don Siegel, with a propulsive score by Lalo Schifrin, Dirty Harry was the fourth Siegel-Eastwood collaboration after Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), and The Beguiled (1970). Critics at the time strongly objected to the heroic image of a cop's violations of a suspect's Miranda rights, forcing Siegel and Eastwood to deny that they were right-wing reactionaries. All the same, Dirty Harry proved to be highly popular and spawned four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

The Beguiled is a Freudian mood piece from the team of actor Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel. Eastwood plays Corp. John McBurney, a wounded Union soldier during the Civil War, who takes refuge in a prim-and-proper Southern girl's school run by Martha Farnsworth (Geraldine Page). Chauvinistic, insensitive and conceited, McBurney takes full advantage of the women by bedding each successively -- and then learns the true meaning of "a woman scorned." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

It's a seemingly peaceful spring morning in New York City -- graduation day at the Police Academy -- and Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell (Henry Fonda) is looking forward to giving a speech to the new officers. But all isn't well: Russell's been given apparently incontrovertible evidence that his oldest friend, Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitmore), is shaking down a bar owner, and a black minister (Raymond St. Jacques) is claiming that his son was brutalized when he was picked up for questioning in a rape/assault case. Then Russell gets a call informing him that two first-grade detectives, Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino), allowed small-time hood Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat) to get the drop on them, steal their guns, and escape while they were trying to pick him up for questioning at the request of Brooklyn detectives -- and Benesch is now a suspect in that earlier murder in Brooklyn. Madigan has other problems, including the fact that the commissioner -- his ex-captain -- doesn't trust him, always believing him to be a loose cannon who has taken advantage of the badge in accepting favors and cutting corners where peoples' rights were concerned. Madigan also has a beautiful, upwardly mobile wife (Inger Stevens) who loves him but can't abide all the time his job takes him away from her or crimps her socializing; and he has never fully gotten over Jonesy (Sheree North), a saloon singer he knew before he was married. Madigan and Bonaro are given 72 hours to bring in Benesch and begin beating the bushes for leads. They get help from "Midget" Castiglione (Michael Dunn), a bookmaker and an old enemy of Benesch's, and a nervous, long-haired punk named Hughie (Don Stroud). While the clock ticks away on Madigan's and Bonaro's careers, the commissioner must decide how to deal with Kane, whose father -- also a police officer -- was like his own, and he must also fathom how a four-star chief could be involved with anything as tawdry as pressuring a tavern owner. Russell genuinely believes that there must be "one standard, one rule" for any member of the department, but in the course of this one weekend, he finds this notion shattered by what he discovers about Madigan, King, and himself. Meanwhile, Benesch is still on the loose, acting like a complete psycho and a threat to anyone who crosses his path. Russell's and Madigan's paths finally cross personally, as the detective proves -- and the commissioner discovers -- just how good a cop he is. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

A prime early example of how to make a truly worthwhile TV movie, Stranger on the Run is a tough, minimalist western in the tradition of the theatrical oaters of director Anthony Mann (one of whose favorite actors, Dan Duryea, has a supporting part in Stranger). Michael Parks is painfully convincing as a sadistic 1880s railroad detective who has a curious notion of fun and games. Upon catching drifters who hitch rides on the trains in his Southwestern jurisdiction, Parks allows the "criminals" one hour head start in the desert, with horse and supplies; then he and his deputies track the men down and kill them. Parks' latest victim is hard-bitten ex-convict Henry Fonda, who has come to town to deliver a message to his cellmate's sister. Fonda proves to be more of challenge than Parks is accustomed to, a fact that gives this brutal little tale its teeth. Anne Baxter costars in this superior TV-movie outing. Stranger on the Run's multilayered teleplay is by Reginald Rose. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Don Siegel directed this intensely pessimistic re-make of Robert Siodmak's 1946 film noir masterpiece The Killers, based upon a story by Ernest Hemingway. As the story opens two professional looking men in business suits -- Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager) -- push their way into a school for the blind and terrorize a secretary until she reveals the whereabouts of Johnny North (John Cassavetes). When Charlie and Lee trace Johnny to an automobile repair class, Johnny just stands there as the two men gun him down. Afterwards, Charlie wonders why Johnny just stood there, accepting his death. He also starts to wonder about his hefty paycheck for the murder and rumors that Johnny was involved in a million-dollar heist. He decides to pay Johnny's old friend Earl Sylvester (Claude Akins) a visit at his auto shop in Florida. Earl recalls the summer day long ago when former race car driver Johnny caught the eye of the rich and beautiful Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson). Johnny has been preparing for a race, but Sheila's attentions sidetrack him. The day of the big race, Earl notices that Sheila is visited by a group of rich gangsters, headed by Browning (Ronald Reagan, in a very surprising performance). During the race, Johnny is involved in a terrible crash, effectively ending his racing career. However, it seems Browning is arranging a mail heist and hires Johnny to drive the getaway car. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Resentful over having to wait on her invalid Uncle Simon (Cedric Hardwicke) hand and foot, Barbara Polk (Constance Ford) perserveres only because she expects to inherit the old man's fortune. But Simon, a famed inventor, has a surprise in store for Barbara after he shuffles off his mortal coil. In order to claim Simon's legacy, Barbara must now service a talking robot -- who sounds and acts just like Uncle Simon. Robby the Robot of Forbidden Planet fame makes one of his several Twilight Zone "guest" appearances. Written by Rod Serling, "Uncle Simon" first aired November 15, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tensely directed by Don Siegel, Flaming Star is the grittiest of Elvis Presley's post-Army films. Elvis plays Pacer Burton, a half-breed youth in the old West, torn between loyalty to the whites, as represented by his father (John McIntyre), and the Indians, represented by his mother (Dolores Del Rio). A series of brutal Kiowa raids, and the subsequent reprisals by the white settlers, sorely test Pacer's fortitude. Though offered moral support from his loved ones, Pacer is forced to work things out himself. The film was based on a novel by Clair Huffaker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A rustic drama set in the early 20th century, Hound Dog Man is the simple story of a young man, Spud Kinney (Dennis Holmes) constantly in hot water for disobeying his mother (Betty Field). The lad should be watching the family farm, but he falls in with his older brother, Clint (pop music's teen heartthrob Fabian), and his reckless buddy Blackie Scantling (Stuart Whitman) who take him hunting in hillbilly country. The boy falls in love with a beautiful mountain girl (Carol Lynley), while Blackie has his own fling with another attractive hillbilly maiden, Nita Stringer (Dodie Stevens), and then becomes mixed up with an older, married woman, Sussie Bell (Margo Moore). Not much else happens, but perhaps not much else is needed. This leisurely little film represents the film debut of Fabian, who not unexpectedly sings several songs (some written by another teen idol, Frankie Avalon). Lynley and Whitman would team up again several years later for the much underrated Shock Treatment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi