What are your favorite Don Siegel movies?

mine:

CHARLEY VARRICK (1973) - this film is such a pleasure to watch right from that sexy title sequence. it is to find films like Charley Varrick that I watch American movies. I loved it from the beginning itself. The small town milieu. The long and deserted highways. Clear blue skies. People who live in trailer parks. The whorehouses. I can imagine Tarantino being inspired by this film when he wrote Michael Madsen's character and the scenes in his trailer for Kill Bill 2. The score by Lalo Schifrin was intense. I loved the title sequence and the way the score was used to create tension. But what happened in the last 20 minutes? A dark and intense heist thriller suddenly turned into a big budget Hitchcock film. I did not see that coming at all. But even then, a very enjoyable heist film. It is almost like a thieves procedural.

THE BEGUILED (1971) - a true classic. one of CLINT's best roles. it is also sexy as hell with geraldine chaplin longing for a female cuckold threesome with CLINT and another woman.

ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979) - love the opening scene with clint looking with horror at the looming alcatraz in the distance to which he is being taken by boat. it is not a perfect script. but SEIGEL's direction is brilliant. the thunder just when clint is first locked into his room. deliberate misdirection when the guard check's clints bed. we are thinking he is going to discover a dummy.

THE BIG STEAL (1949) - The film is about an army man (Robert Mitchum) who is accused of stealing money. While trying to hunt down the real thief in Mexico, the army man meets and falls in loves with the thief's fiancé (Jane Greer) while also being chased by another man. The film was made a couple of years after Mitchum and Greer united in Out of the Past (1947).
Unlike the tragic Out of the Past, The Big Steal is a fun film that offers some beautiful visuals of and car chases set in the Mexican countryside. Mitchum looks young and cool while Greer is rather matronly. For me, it was mainly a film of place more than anything else. The arid and slightly run down Mexican countryside and the beautiful hotels distracted my attention away from the repetitive cat and mouse games between the four characters and their interactions with amused Mexican police officials. You did not experiment much with the film's look or editing. We are mostly treated to static camera angles while fast cuts are used frugally. The film does not overstay its welcome and ends at 71 minutes.
I discovered some interesting trivia on IMDb - Originally, Lizabeth Scott had agreed to play the female lead. However, she bowed out after Mitchum was convicted for smoking marijuana, afraid it would hurt her career.

THE LINE UP (1958) - The film begins with a bang as a car crashes into a policeman and then the driver crashes the car into a post. The police uncover a plot where heroin is placed in idols/curios brought home by unsuspecting tourists. Then the action shifts to Wallach and his mentor who arrive in town to recover the heroin from the tourists. I like the way you shot Eli Wallach's introduction scene with a dolly out of him reading a book about English grammar in a plane. But his role was a bit hard to digest. I mean why would they send a psycho like him to collect all the drugs? But it is all good far fetched entertainment. His creepy misogynistic mentor. Their alcoholic driver. The lonely housewife who falls for Wallach. The writer (Sterling Silliphant) really packed it in despite the movie's short length (82 minutes). The film mostly uses real life locations around San Francisco. I did not like the choice of camera angles during some of the tense moments like when Wallach threatens the Chinese servant at a house where he goes to recover the heroin. But the long car chase towards the end is worthy of a big budget film.

i have not watched INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and dont remember much of THE SHOOTIST not a big fan of TELEFON despite its great subject.