イーストウッドの映画
その時点では、シーゲルが彼のキャリアをどのように進めているのかは明らかではありませんでした。多くの映画監督が長編作品に戻ることなくテレビに出演していました。マディガン（1968）の特徴は、間違いなく1960年代の最高の警察手続きでした。リチャードウィドマークは、殺人犯を捜している探偵の肩書きの役割で絶賛されたパフォーマンスを提供しました。また、警察のコミッショナーとしてのフォンダとマディガンの妻としてのインガースティーブンスも注目に値します。 1968年、シーゲルはクーガンズブラフも指揮しました。クーガンズブラフは、セルジオレオーネ監督と「スパゲッティウエスタン」シリーズで海外で長年働いた後、アメリカの聴衆とクリントイーストウッドを設立しました。その古典的なアクション映画製作において、イーストウッドは逃亡した殺人犯を引き渡すためにニューヨーク市に送られた簡潔なアリゾナ州の代理人を描写しました。不確実なモラルを持つ反逆者は、シーゲルの映画で一般的なキャラクターになりました。彼の次のプロジェクトでは、ウィドマークが再び登場したガンファイターの死（1969年）のロバートトッテンに取って代わりました。しかし、SiegelとTottenの両方の名前が映画から削除され、その映画は、監督が所有する作品の標準的な偽名であるAllen Smitheeのクレジットでリリースされました。
Siegel then reunited with Eastwood for a series of movies. Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) was a rather whimsical western with Eastwood as a cowboy who rescues a prostitute pretending to be a nun (Shirley MacLaine) from three would-be rapists; it was based on a Budd Boetticher story. Next was The Beguiled (1971), an unusual psychological drama set late in the American Civil War. Eastwood played an injured Union soldier whose arrival at a girl’s boarding school in the South leads to tension and ultimately murder. The Gothic film was initially rejected by American audiences, though it proved popular in Europe. Later in 1971, however, moviegoers in the United States turned out in droves for Dirty Harry, which was probably Siegel’s best-known picture (though not necessarily his most admired). It catapulted Eastwood to superstardom as the quintessential antihero of the 1970s; he played Harry Callahan, a tough San Francisco policeman hunting a serial killer. Some critics decried the violence, but Dirty Harry led to four profitable sequels, though none was directed by Siegel.
Siegel next made Charley Varrick (1973), a top-notch thriller with Walter Matthau playing a small-time robber on the run from a hit man after unwittingly stealing Mafia money during a bank heist. Siegel ventured into espionage with The Black Windmill (1974), which starred Michael Caine as a spy whose son is kidnapped. However, the director seemed uneasy with the genre, and the ending was disappointing. Siegel rebounded wth The Shootist (1976), an elegiac western that was the last film made by John Wayne, who played a gunslinger dying of cancer; Wayne would die from cancer-related complications in 1979. The cast—James Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Richard Boone, Hugh O’Brian, and John Carradine, among others—was particularly noteworthy, and some call that film Siegel’s finest achievement. Telefon (1977) was not in the same league, but Siegel (who took over from Peter Hyams) still managed to craft a solid, if complicated, espionage drama, which offered a memorable performance by Charles Bronson as a KGB agent.
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) was stronger, a prime vehicle for Eastwood based on real-life inmate Frank Morris’s 1962 escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. Although perhaps longer than necessary, the film gains power from its starkness. Siegel’s final two films were box-office failures. In Rough Cut (1980) Burt Reynolds played a suave jewel thief; Siegel was the last of several directors to work on the production. The comedy Jinxed! (1982) featured Bette Midler as a singer who conspires with a blackjack dealer (Ken Wahl) to kill her gambler boyfriend (Rip Torn). Siegel retired thereafter.
Siegel’s autobiography, A Siegel Film (1993), was published after his death. The book’s foreword was written by Eastwood, who regarded Siegel as a mentor. In addition to helping establish him as an iconic actor, Siegel strongly influenced Eastwood’s directorial style.
