Dirty Harry (1971)

When a mad man calling himself 'the Scorpio Killer' menaces the city, tough as nails San Francisco Police Inspector Harry Callahan is assigned to track down and ferret out the crazed psychopath.

Director:

Don Siegel

Writers:

Harry Julian Fink (screenplay), Rita M. Fink (screenplay),

Stars:

Clint Eastwood, Andrew Robinson, John Vernon

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Clint Eastwood	...	Police Inspector Harry Callahan
Andrew Robinson	...	Charles 'Scorpio Killer' Davis (as Andy Robinson)
John Vernon	...	The Mayor
Reni Santoni	...	Police Inspector Chico Gonzalez
Harry Guardino	...	Police Lt. Al Bressler
John Larch	...	The Chief
John Mitchum	...	Police Inspector Frank DiGiorgio
Mae Mercer	...	Mrs. Russell
Lyn Edgington	...	Norma
Ruth Kobart	...	Bus Driver
Woodrow Parfrey	...	Mr. Jaffe
Josef Sommer	...	Dist. Atty. William T. Rothko
William Paterson	...	Judge Bannerman
James Nolan	...	Liquor Store Owner
Maurice Argent	...	Sid Kleinman (as Maurice S. Argent)

Storyline

In the year 1971, San Francisco faces the terror of a maniac known as Scorpio- who snipes at innocent victims and demands ransom through notes left at the scene of the crime. Inspector Harry Callahan (known as Dirty Harry by his peers through his reputation handling of homicidal cases) is assigned to the case along with his newest partner Inspector Chico Gonzalez to track down Scorpio and stop him. Using humiliation and cat and mouse type of games against Callahan, Scorpio is put to the test with the cop with a dirty attitude.

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Plot Keywords:

dirty harry | partner | sniper | mayor | ransom | 

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Taglines:

You don't assign him to murder cases, You just turn him loose.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Official Sites:

Official DVD Site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 December 1971 (USA)

Also Known As:

Harry, el sucio

Filming Locations:

Alamo Square, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

SEK 1,540,127 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Malpaso Company, The, Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min 99 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dirty Harry helped popularize the Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver which experienced an upswing in sales following the film's release.

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Goofs

In the scene where Harry is preparing to deliver the ransom money to Scorpio, he tapes a switchblade knife to his leg. The knife is positioned with the bolster or tip pointing upward. In the later scene at the cross, Harry pulls up his pant leg and exposes the knife - it is clearly pointing downward, the opposite of the way he taped it earlier.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Harry Callahan: Jesus.

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Connections

Referenced in Erkan & Stefan gegen die Mächte der Finsternis (2002)

User Reviews

Something wild about Harry

Don Siegel's highly polished .44 magnum-opus, with Clint Eastwood as the daddy (or should that be mutha?) of all maverick cops. Given an A-picture budget by Warners, Siegel delivered a tremendously taut thriller, as provocatively amoral as anything he had done in his 20-year career of expert B-pics like The Killers.

Dirty Harry also gave Eastwood a definitive Hollywood identity after leaving spaghetti westerns behind. It may lack the humour of Siegel and Eastwood's first collaboration, Coogan's Bluff, but it packs a much more uneasy political punch.

Inspector Harry Callaghan is the taciturn, laconic spokesman of Nixon's Silent Majority, elevated to iconic status. His dialogue with criminals is delivered behind the barrel of a devastatingly phallic Magnum hand-gun. "Feel lucky, punk?" he taunts one wounded miscreant in a famous line he repeats at the end of the film.

There's just enough moral ambiguity about Harry in this film to escape it being an endorsement of vigilantism – but if it poses resonating questions about how a liberal society can be held hostage by those outside the law, it also contrives a worryingly two-dimensional picture of psycho-killer Scorpio (Andy Robinson) - and of Harry, himself – with which to frame those questions.

Made by the veteran director in the same year as Hollywood-new wave young gun William Friedkin shot The French Connection, it's just as coolly authoritative and exciting. Siegel uses Bruce Surtees' always serviceable photography of San Francisco locations with flair (years before, he had shot the low-budget but excellent The Line-Up there). The swooping helicopter shot out of the baseball stadium, as if to rush the audience away (either as witnesses or as voyeurs) as Eastwood presses his foot on Scorpio's wounded leg, shows Siegel's smooth mastery of the medium.

Siegel made the insouciant Charley Varrick with Walter Matthau next, after which his career went into slow decline.