Don Siegel

If films like Dirty Harry and Riot in Cell Block 11 are any indication, director Don Siegel has bit of an anti-establishment streak in him. That said, his negative, or nuanced views on how institutions are run is in no shape or form a gut reaction against politics or power players just for the sake of it. His films, however realistic or intended to entertain through action, lean heavily on the principle that things can be done better.

With enough similarities and differences to make each film stand apart in their own right, Robert Siodmak’s version of “The Killers” is better in almost every way.

Part I. 1971 was an incredibly violent year for movies. That year saw, among others, Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack, with its half-Indian hero karate-chopping rednecks; William Friedkin’s The French Connection, its dogged cops stymied by well-heeled drug runners; Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, banned for the copycat crimes it reportedly inspired; and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw …

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion.  As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture. One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and …

We love crime movies. We may go on and on about Scorsese’s ability to incorporate Italian neo-realism techniques into Mean Streets (1973), the place of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) in the canon of postwar noir, The Godfather (1972) as a socio-cultural commentary on the distortion of the ideals of the American dream blah …

Crime in the Streets Directed by Don Siegel Written by Reginald Rose U.S.A, 1956 Magic can be created on a studio set. Today, in 2012, filmmakers, critics cans fans alike take great pleasure in watching films which are said to have been filmed on location. Said decision to shoot a picture in a real world …

The Big Steal Directed by Don Siegel Screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring U.S.A. 1949 What does it is matter if one possesses a powerful, booming voice if one cannot use it to the full extent? Robert Mitchum, Hollywood legend and an actor whose voice could sound like that of a giant when pulling those vocals chords …

Under-appreciated throughout much of his career, with his early work made up of catch-as-catch-can projects, his credits meandering from Westerns (The Beguiled, 1971; The Shootist, 1976) to science fiction (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956), war stories (Hell Is for Heroes, 1962), period pieces (The Verdict, 1946), crime stories (Dirty Harry, 1971; Charley Varrick, 1973), …