Having established himself as a huge box office name in the spaghetti westerns starting with A Fistful Of Dollars Clint Eastwood moved seamlessly into police thrillers as Detective Harry Callaghan. The first film in the series was Dirty Harry which established the character and created a market into which Magnum Force, The Enforcer and Sudden Impact was fed.
The film was set around the pursuit and ultimate capture of a crazed Sniper called Scorpio played with suitable wild-eyed madness by Andy Robinson. As we see Callaghan pursue him we see Callaghans personality develop as almost as pathologically criminal as those he pursues. The difference being he is on the side of law and order. Callaghan inevitably incurs the wrath of his superiors but sets for all time the classic but-he-gets-results versus go-by-the-book dilemma.
Callaghan goes well beyond the usual minor rule bending and wills the criminals to take him on. Having cornered one hood he sees his gun is almost within reach. In a classic moment of the cinema he asks the hood to consider whether he has used all his ammunition, to consider that this weapon Callaghan has is a Magnum 44, the most powerful handgun in the world. Finally he asks him Do Ya Feel Lucky? Having wisely determined he did not the hood still tells Callaghan he has to know and Callaghan squeezes the empty trigger whilst pointing the gun at him.
It is an excellent film in which the tension is built up throughout as Callaghan pursues Scorpio. The director was Don Siegel and the film is fiercely and savagely honed to be a tight pacey thriller. Sadly the film did also establish the genre of the vigilante type movie such as Death Wish in which excessive violence is justified in a crooked way. Only the discerning could intellectually justify the difference between the 2 series of film. Callaghans indifference to the victims of his police brutality is shown and the audience is invited to share that indifference.
The climax comes when Callaghan finally corners Scorpio and sets about torturing him and eventually shooting him. Scorpio mistakenly believed he was a lucky punk and this time Callaghan knew that this would be his choice and had the available bullet in the chamber of his Magnum to satisfy his and the audiences lust for justice.
The film was dedicated in tribute to the police officers of San Francisco who had fallen in the line of duty. Dirty Harry is an excellent film but whether it is a fitting memorial is debatable. An end to the cycle of violence is always the best memorial not ratchetting it up.
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 1989 - Action/Adventure - Director: Rowdy Herrington - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Patrick Swayze, Ben Gazzara, Sam Elliott, Kelly Lynch
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
"Dirty" Harry Callahan was one of the first screen characters to embody contemporary fears ... more
about crime--and the uncompromising response to it that much of the audience would liked to have seen. Clint Eastwood's laconic rogue cop became an instant scree...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: good role for Eastwood & direction from Don Seigal, thought provoking, good action Disadvantages: violence slightly stylised, poor picture/sound quality, feels dated
![The Dirty Harry Collection [DVD] [1971]](http://images.ciao.com/ide/images/icons/no_pic_generic_S1.gif "The Dirty Harry Collection [DVD] [1971]"){kind=icon}
![Dirty Harry [Box Set]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/103221851.jpg "Dirty Harry [Box Set]")
Oct 13th, 2001
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