I still remember the "Dirty Harry" series of movies, starring Clint Eastwood in the leading role, from when they first played in the cinemas from 1971 to 1988. There are five movies in total, starting with the original "Dirty Harry" (1971) and ending with the "Dead Pool" in 1988.
Certain characters have now entered cinema folklore and taken on almost iconic stature. Most everyone will have seen at least one "Rambo" movie with Sly Stallone, or one of the Harrison Ford "Raider" series. And then you have the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, Bruce Willis in the "Die Hard" series, and Mel Gibson in "Lethal Weapon". It would be fair to say that Clint Eastwood in the role of Inspector Harry Callaghan, the ultra-cool, hard-nosed San Francisco cop with a penchant for blowing away the bad guys with his .44 Magnum handgun, was most probably the template that most of these characters were based on!
The original Dirty Harry movie that the subsequent series was based on took the movie world by storm back in 1971, and caused a furore in the media worldwide. Back then the star, Clint Eastwood, wasn't the well-known and respected Oscar-winning actor that he is today. In fact, he was best known as a leading actor in Westerns, in particular the "Fistful of Dollars" series, and in the long-playing TV series "Rawhide". (1959 - 1966) So it was a bit of a sea change for Eastwood to take on this role, and also a bit of a gamble. In fact, he WASN'T the first choice for the part, the role originally being offered to Frank Sinatra and a couple of other actors who all turned it down!
So what's the movie about, and why did it cause such a sensation back at the time of its original release in 1971? Well, the plot was simple enough. A serial killer called "Scorpio" is on the rampage in San Francisco, and Inspector Callaghan, the aforementioned Dirty Harry, is assigned to the case. (The plot was loosely based on a series of actual murders that took place in San Francisco by a killer called "Gemini", who in fact was never caught!) Where the controversy begins is with the character of Dirty Harry. He's not at all your conventional cop, the All-American, clean cut good guy. Rather Inspector Callaghan is what could best be described as a loose cannon. A widower, (his wife and child were killed in a car crash with a drunk driver) he is now a total loner and completely immersed in his job, but his methods more resemble those of an out of control vigilante than a member of the forces of law and order. Harry is more inclined to deal out his own particular lethal brand of justice from the barrel of his .44 Magnum than to rely on the more traditional source of meting out justice, the legal system and the courts.
Scorpio, a Vietnam veteran, (who is well played by actor Andy Robinson) has been randomly picking off members of the public from the rooftops with his sniper rifle. He then kidnaps, rapes, and buries alive a 14-year-old girl in an attempt to extort ransom money from the authorities. Harry's job is to put a stop to the crazed lunatic before he strikes again, and he sets about doing this in his very own inimitable style, which naturally outrages not only his own Police Chief, but the Mayor and the District Attorney to boot.
That's the plot in a nutshell. What's makes the movie a classic isn't the plot, but Harry himself. Right from the opening sequences you're left in no doubt that this cop is not your usual run-of-the-mill detective. We see him eating a hamburger in a cafe when he spots a bank robbery in progress on the other side of the street. Instead of immediately intervening he instead asks the caf owner to ring police headquarters to send round a squad car as he doesn't want to be disturbed whilst eating his food. But when the robbery spills out onto the street before the reinforcements arrive, Harry is forced to reluctantly take action. He wanders coolly into action, his hamburger in one hand and his Magnum in the other, and nonchalantly blows away the bad guys one by one. It's at this point that he utters his by now immortal line while standing over one of the wounded crooks who is thinking of reaching for his gun that is lying on the sidewalk just out of his reach.
"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or five? But seeing that this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and will blow your head clean off, you have to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk?"
To put Dirty Harry in context and to understand why this movie has stood the test of time so well, (it's now 38-years old) you really have to explore what it is about the film that appealed to people back in the early 1970's, and what still has a universal appeal today. Put simply, it's the idea that the law and true justice are two distinctly different concepts! Back in the 60's and 70's the pendulum had began to swing dramatically onto the side of the criminal when it came to them being successfully prosecuted and convicted of major offences. Civil rights for everyone was the war cry of the day, and the bad guys took full advantage of the legal system and their "rights" to often evade paying any kind of penalty for their crimes. What Dirty Harry did was to redress the balance onto the side of the victims by meting out instant justice from the barrel of his gun, even if by doing so he acted as sole judge, jury and executioner!
In effect, what the director Don Siegel managed to accomplish so well was to transfer the traditions of the old western movie to a modern urban environment, and the idea of true justice appeals to people today just as much as it did 38 years ago! Whether or not this was intentional on the part of the director and the movie studio is questionable. It's much more likely that all they were simply trying to do was to produce a good movie that would earn loads of dollars at the box office. This they managed to do in spades, but at the same time managed to create a series of movies that set the tone for many action/adventure heroes that were to follow in the coming years.
I'm glad that Frank Sinatra didn't get the role, as was the original intention. Eastwood is simply so good in this type of role that it's often hard to distinguish between the real-life actor and his on-screen persona! In the same way that Sly Stallone will most likely be best remembered for his roles as Rambo and Rocky, and Arnold Schwarzenegger for his part as the Terminator, so will Clint Eastwood be best remembered as Dirty Harry, despite his distinguished acting career and Oscars for other acting roles. In my opinion, it was his defining role.
There has even been talk recently of a remake (ANOTHER ONE!) of Dirty Harry where he comes out of retirement. But I think it would be a huge mistake on the part of Eastwood to even consider such a part. Better by far that a good thing is left well alone, and he lets the five Dirty Harry movies speak for themselves.
A highly recommended old classic movie, that has stood the test of time well.