Year of Eastwood #25

Dirty Harry (1971)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Don Siegel

Movies just don’t get any bigger than Dirty Harry - the film was a phenomenon in the early 70’s and spawned four sequels. In the 60’s, family entertainment was the rule in entertainment as Americans still flocked to see musicals, but Eastwood’s Paint Your Wagon effectively killed off that genre. During the next decade there was a dramatic shift in the realism of American cinema. Films featured crime, violence, and rebellion against authority in a way that audiences cheered for the underdog.

Clint is Inspector Harry Callahan, but you can call him Dirty. Why? Because the San Francisco police department calls on Clint for every dirty job in town. Clint is the original maverick cop, playing by his own rules and constantly in trouble with his incompetent bosses. He gets away with it because he gets results. In his spare time, Clint stops bank robbers during his lunch break and punches out, I mean, rescues roof jumpers.

But Clint has met his match in the Scorpio killer. A crazed, serial killer who likes to pick off victims with his high powered rifle from atop San Francisco buildings. Whoever they found to play this psycho sure gets the job done. All jittery and creepy - kinda like Bud Cort on acid - Scorpio rapes, kills, smacks kids around, and apparently really likes scavenger hunts. The killer was based on the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 70’s. In a bit of art imitating life imitating art, the film Zodiac released last year mentions the effect of Dirty Harry on the real-life events going on in California at the time.

Clint tracks down Scorpio, stabs him in the leg and shoots him on the 50 yard line of the old 49ers stadium. Turns out that Scorpio walks (or limps) because he didn’t have a warrant for kicking down his door and torturing the suspect. Clint thinks the law’s gone crazy and he stalks Scorpio at playgrounds and strip clubs until he cant take it no more so he hijacks a school bus and demands $200,000 cash and a plane ticket out of town. But Clint is waiting for him on a bridge and he jumps on top of the bus and beats the crap out of Scorpio and then delivers the iconic line “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well do ya, punk?” Scorpio's watched lots of Texas Hold'em on ESPN so he grabs for his gun ... Clint shoots him.

Dirty Harry finally matches Clint up with a co-star strong enough to match Clint’s screen presence - a .44 magnum, which I hear will blow your head clean off. Now, actually being assigned as Clint’s sidekick is obviously a not such a good gig. He always gets the bad guy, but apparently he’s not so good at watching his partner’s back. The last few officers forced to ride shotgun with Clint ended up dead or injured. Sure enough, the unlucky sap teamed up with Clint at the beginning of the movie ends up in a wheelchair, deciding instead to pursue a career in parking meters.

Clint has said that he just wanted to make an action film, but a renegade cop with no concept of police brutality resonated with an audience weary of increasing urban crime. Dirty Harry’s unconventional methods connected with a nation also frustrated with a justice system that had become so bogged down in legalese that victims seemed to take a back seat to criminal rights. Crowds responded to Dirty Harry’s vigilante approach, catapulting Clint’s impressive career into the stratosphere as the biggest movie star in the world.