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Biography: Don Siegel

Coming out of a musical family and trained as a stage actor, Don Siegel became one of the most respected directors of action films in Hollywood. He began his career as a film librarian and advanced through the editing department at Warner Bros., where he frequently directed transition and linking footage in the early '40s, making two Oscar-winning short films during this same period. Siegel became a feature director in 1946 with an offbeat mystery called The Verdict, starring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. His second film, the much-underrated Night Unto Night, proved so difficult a subject -- as a psychological drama about a dying man (Ronald Reagan) and a suicidal woman (Viveca Lindfors, who was then Siegel's wife) -- that its release was delayed for more than two years. During the early '50s, Siegel made his reputation as an efficient, reliable, often inspired maker of action and crime films, most notably Riot in Cell Block H and Private Hell 36 (both 1954). His ability to transform difficult or lackluster script material into original, memorable, often startling motion pictures was established with 1955's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of the most unsettling, popular, and profitable science fiction films of the decade. Siegel thrived for the next 15 years in relative obscurity (although he made one of Elvis Presley's finest films, Flaming Star) until the late '60s, when he began his association with Clint Eastwood. His Eastwood vehicles included Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled (both 1970), and the phenomenally popular and controversial police hriller Dirty Harry (1971). The actor and future director was just rising to fame after his success in Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, and Siegel's recognition rose commensurately with Eastwood's popularity. He became something of a mentor to Eastwood and made a cameo in the actor's directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (1971). Siegel's other '70s films included John Wayne's final movie, The Shootist (1976), and the Cold War hriller Telefon (1977). He made another cameo appearance as a taxi driver in Philip Kaufman's Body Snatchers remake in 1978 and directed Eastwood one last time in 1979's Escape From Alcatraz. Retired from films since the early '80s, Siegel died of cancer in 1991. Eastwood wrote a forward for his autobiography, A Siegel Film, which was published posthumously in 1993. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide less

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Movies (36)
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The Lineup (1958)
Cast: Eli Wallach Raymond Bailey
Tags: Film Noir Crime Thriller Crime
Length: 86min
A steamship docks in San Francisco, and as one of the passengers, Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey), is waiting for a cab after clearing customs, a baggage handler suddenly grabs one of his cases and throws it into a taxi, which takes off. In the...
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The Gun Runners (1958)
Cast: Audie Murphy Eddie Albert
Tags: Adventure Adventure Drama
Length: 83min
The third and (as of 2005) the last film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story -To Have and Have Not, The Gun Runners was as topical as this morning's news when it came out in 1958. Audie Murphy plays Sam Martin, a charter-boat skipper based in...
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Spanish Affair (1958)
Tags: Drama Thriller
Length: 95min
A jealous man is confronted with his worst fear in this hriller. Merritt Blake (Richard Kiley) is an architect from the United States who is invited to work on a project in Spain. Since he cannot speak Spanish, Blake is in need of an interpreter, and...
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Crime in the Streets (1956)
Cast: John Cassavetes
Tags: Crime Drama Drama Crime Juvenile Delinquency Film
Length: 91min
Frankie Dane (John Cassavetes) is the leader of the hornets, a local street gang that has had its share of rumbles and other trouble with the police. When one of his members is fingered to the police by a neighbor (Malcolm Atterbury) for having a gun,...
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An Annapolis Story (1955)
Cast: Sam Peckinpah
Tags: Melodrama War Drama Drama War
Length: 81min
The faces are new and the settings up-to-date, but otherwise An Annapolis Story is the tried-and-true "two guys and one girl" formula. Filmed on location at the titular Maryland naval academy, the story centers upon two sibling cadets, Tony (John...
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Baby Face Nelson (1957)
Cast: Mickey Rooney Cedric Hardwicke
Tags: Crime Biopic Gangster Film
Length: 85min
Fittingly directed by Illinois native and bad-guy filmmaker Don Siegel, this action-packed film stars Mickey Rooney as the unflinching, trigger-happy member of the infamous Dillinger gang that besieged the Midwest circa 1933. Rooney is Lester "Baby...
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Private Hell 36 (1954)
Tags: Crime Drama Drama
Length: 81min
Private Hell 36 was one of the last feature-length efforts by Filmmakers, a company created by producer Collier Young and his then-wife Ida Lupino. Young and Lupino also wrote the script for this grim crime melodrama, wherein two detectives Cal Bruner...
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Cast: Don Siegel
Tags: Sci-Fi Horror Science Fiction Alien Film
Length: 80min
Don Siegel's classic exercise in psychological science fiction has often been interpreted as a cautionary fable about the blacklisting hysteria of the McCarthy era. It can be read as a political metaphor or enjoyed as a fine low-budget suspense movie,...
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Count the Hours (1953)
Cast: Teresa Wright
Tags: Drama Crime
Length: 76min
Director Don Siegel keeps the events in Count the Hours moving so quickly that no one has time to ponder the film's huge lapses in logic. MacDonald Carey stars as a defense attorney Doug Madison who races against time to save migrant ranchhand George...
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Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
Cast: Frank Faylen
Tags: Prison Film Drama
Length: 80min
The best film of Don Siegel's career to date, this surprisingly intelligent B-picture describes the dramatic arc of an organized rebellion at Folsom prison. The inmates, who are sick of living conditions which include rundown cells, brutal guards,...
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Don Siegel

Biography: Don Siegel

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