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| Clint Eastwood strikes a humorous tough-guy pose on this poster for Don Siegel's Dirty Harry |
QUICK REVIEW:
Detective Harry Callahan from the San Francisco Police Department hunts the Bay area's feared, lunatic Scorpio serial killer.
Dirty Harry is a true classic: A groundbreaking crime actioner and one of the all-time great San Francisco movies. It contains lots of concepts that were later recycled; from the pay phone instructions (reused in Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)) and the chilling stadium at night scene (reused in The Fan (1996)) to the out-of-control bus scene (reused in Speed (1994)), - and that's not even mentioning Clint Eastwood's (Gran Torino (2008)) title hero, the hard-punching 'Dirty' Harry Callahan, who has been emulated in a vast number of films, besides becoming a franchise figure (Eastwood has starred in four sequels) and a trademark character throughout Eastwood's career, who in a way got 'his' last film in the masterpiece Gran Torino, which is not officially about Dirty Harry, but in a way seems to be the character's swan song anyway. The screenplay is written by Harry Julia Fink and Rita M. Fink (Cahill (1973)) and Dean Riesner (The Enforcer (1976)) with uncredited contributions from John Milius (Apocalypse Now (1979)) and Jo Heims (Play Misty for Me (1971)).
Dirty Harry is extremely entertaining and well-made by master filmmaker Don Siegel (Escape from Alcatraz (1979)), and Eastwood, who, impressively, did all of his own stunts in the film, rocks in it. - A number of older, more experienced stars at the time were offered the part; Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne and Burt Lancaster, who all turned it down. - Luckily for everyone, I think.
Andrew Robinson (Hellraiser (1987)) also gives a hair-raising, unforgettable great villain's performance as the Scorpio madman, who was modeled on the authentic Zodiac killer, later portrayed in David Fincher's great Zodiac (2007).
Related reviews:
Don Siegel: Charley Varrick (1973) or, The Last of the Independents
The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller
Coogan's Bluff (1968) or, Dopes and Hippies, Beat It!
Watch the film's original trailer here
Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 35.9 mil. $ (US only)
= Huge hit
[Dirty Harry was met with protests by angry feminists and has become an oft-cited example when debating vigilante or brutal police work. Roger Ebert denounced the film's "fascist moral position." But movie audiences loved it, and it became the 5th highest grossing film of 1971. Unfortunately, I can find very few figures about the film's performance internationally.]
What do you think of Dirty Harry?
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