No Tom! No Dick! Just HARRY! One Night In With The DIRTY HARRY Franchise!
You know the score with me by now right? I don’t do things by halves eh? If I’m going to watch a John Carpenter movie then I’m going to watch them ALL - in one sitting, over the course of 30 hours (read that right here)! If I want to revist the first two Best of the Best movies for no other reason then shits and giggles then I’m going to force myself to endure the horrendous sequels too (that’s readable right here). If I’m going to invite my friends round to watch some films, I’m going to have to turn it into a monthly event and share it with you whether you like it or not on this very site (read about that one right here).
So when the opportunity presents itself to dig into the recently remastered Dirty Harry boxset, you can pretty much guess that I’m going to pile up the beer, get the smokes to hand and sit and watch it in one go. All five films. Right? Right indeed!
Let me preface the individual reviews by calling this boxset out as being one of the best, if not the best, compilation DVD release of 2008. Fans of extra features and extra content will have an absolute blast with this. I’m not kidding. Make the ‘jump’ into the article itself and take a look at this ‘bad boy’…
Now, I’m not going to review the ‘in-disc’ extra content (which amounts to nigh on a couple of documentaries and commentaries PER DISC; the depth of content obviously lessening out with each sequel) but let’s just say that every single bit of it is considered and in-depth and that’s on top of the amount of actual physical freebies that come with the boxset. Yes, they’re all a little kitsch and ‘fun’ but they’re still the sort of stuff you feel kind of lucky and pleased with seeing stuck in with the flicks - a hard backed ‘guide’ through the movies, a fake Harry Callahan police badge, A5 poster prints, a feature length Clint Eastwood career retrospective documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman, reproduced memorandums from the studio (confirming the rumour, once and for all, that Frank Sinatra was very much on board to play Callahan until late in pre-production) and a map of the San Fransisco area blighted by the “Scorpio” murders! Great or what?
And then there’s the films themselves! The way to consider the Dirty Harry franchise is all there in watching the ‘Trailer Gallery’ available on each disc - you see each movie as the glossy piece of entertainment that is intended as (the “social bite” came naturally, according to Eastwood, and isn’t for what the films should be solely considered for.) but by the time you get to The Dead Pool trailer and you see that Harry and his “big gun” has developed as far as just carrying an over-sized harpoon now, you realise that the empty excess of the 1980s, especially the mid-to-late 1980s, has firmly forced it’s way into the Dirty Harry franchise.
Now, here’s the confession: I’d never seen a Dirty Harry sequel until I came to own this boxset. I heard awesome things about Magnum Force but over the years I’d heard really poor things about the rest of the films, and I just felt I’d rather indulge repeatedly in the original that I loved then waste my time on subpar sequels. Now, let’s go back to the beginning and see whether I should have carried on avoiding them.
DIRTY HARRY (1971)
I’m a massive fan of this movie. I endured studying it inside out whilst I was doing a Media/Film Studies course in high school. I managed to get past having it forced upon me and my fellow trainees whilst in police training school but then being told “If this is the sort of shit that motivated you to join up then get the fuck out now!” (to which I secured a rather generous laugh [back then] by heckling - never a good idea - the police sergeant with the quip “What about Police Academy? Is Police Academy a good reason to join?”). It just plays absolutely brilliantly each and every time I watch it.
Like I said back in Issue #37 of OFF THE SHELF though: It’s now cheesy as hell (this particular moment, not the movie itself!!) but who doesn’t get a sick-ass huge grin on their face during that moment when Clint Eastwood’s ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan foils a bank robbery and delivers that “Do you feel lucky punk?” speech. The thing is, this film shouldn’t be looked on as if it has something to say about the era it was released within but it should be considered, as Eastwood himself says, as a big Hollywood movie that took a real life event (i.e. the Zodiac killings) and turned it into “popcorn entertainment”.
For those not in the know (and what the hell are you doing on this site with no knowledge of Dirty Harry?) the year is 1971 and San Francisco faces the terror of a maniac known as Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) - who takes sniper shots at innocent victims whilst demanding ransom via cryptic notes left at the scene of the crime. Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) - known as ‘Dirty Harry’ by his peers because of his anti-authority, less-than-by-the-book reputation in handling homicidal cases - is assigned to the case along with his newest partner Inspector Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santori) to track down Scorpio and stop him. Using every ‘cat and mouse’ trick he can think of against Callahan, Scorpio enters into the ultimate battle of wits, wills, morals and endurance with the dirtiest cop within the SFPD.
I always thought, when I first encountered this movie, that using the real-life Zodiac killings as a basis for a mainstream blockbuster was a bit in poor taste. But then I grew up to experience the Titanic disaster being mined for movie, theme park and bad ballad inspiration along with 9/11 suddenly becoming the ‘trendy’ subplot or motivating factor in many a movie (hell, it’s a throwaway line in the opening moments of Bad Boys II) and I very quickly got over it.
I dig the crap out of this movie. It works on every level and I was way off in kind of being sniffy towards it when I first saw it in the mid 90s. Eastwood is fantastic in it, the location shooting is marvellous, Don Siegel shoots the shit out of the action sequences, Lalo Schifrin’s musical score is pretty timeless (one of the best of the decade - along with David Shire’s work on Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3) and Andrew Robinson is brilliant in the role of Scorpio; subsequently pigeon-holed to such an extent that he would never better his performance here.
Dirty Harry is not only a must own for any cineaste but for any film collector your collection will never feel complete without having this on your shelf.
MAGNUM FORCE (1973)
This was my first time seeing Magnum Force and I’ve got to say I enjoyed the shit out of it, I really did. It blew me away just how bloody good it actually was. They’d developed the character of Harry Callahan, actually playing on the very things that made him so “notorious” and putting him in amongst a plot that actually tested his moral infamy. Not only that but it takes the stuff that really works (Eastwood’s performance, the frantic action sequences, Lalo Schifrin’s musical score) and just dials it all up in the way a good sequel should. On top of that the whole film is helped greatly by working from a really rather clever and brilliantly conceived screenplay by uber “brats” (at that time) Michael Cimino and John Milius.
After ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan (Eastwood) put an end to the ‘Scorpio’ murderer, he and his new partner ‘Early’ Smith (Felton Perry) find themselves initially investigating the killing of a man acquitted of murder on a legal technicality but is found dead along with his lawyer, chauffeur, and bodyguard soon after. However, Harry and Smith are quickly ordered off the case and pushed onto Stakeout Duty by their boss, Lt. Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook) - a man who Harry despises because of his bleeding-heart approach to police work. However, when more and more people are highlighted as ‘escapees-of-the-justice-system’ and systematically murdered, Harry starts following clues that point to a ‘rogue’ police unit dolling out their own brand of justice and, if he doesn’t get out of their way, he could be next!
Magnum Force could never have superseded or equalled the sheer quality of the original Don Siegel movie but it makes a damn fine, commendable effort at trying to. Having never seen it until this year, I never realised that this was a film worthy of being placed on that (very slight) list of ”damn fine sequels”. The climax, alone, makes the film worth seeing just for the cracking shoot-out, motorcycle stunt work and chase sequences set exceptionally well to Lalo Schifrin’s music.
A really good, highly recommendable piece of 70s pure escapist fun!
THE ENFORCER (1976)
It’s three years after the events detailed in Magnum Force and we open on SFPD Insp. Harry Callahan ending a liquor store holdup by doing things in his usual hard-boiled manner, causing his latest bleeding-heart boss, Capt. Briggs (Bradford Dillman) to demote him to the personnel division. But Harry doesn’t remain there for long, as a group of terrorists rob an arms warehouse and begin a bloody extortion spree demanding $2 million from the City. Harry is paired with Insp. Kate Moore (Tyne Daly) to shut the terrorists down. Callahan is none too thrilled to be paired with Moore, but she more than proves herself when she and Harry pursue the terrorists to their hideout in the old prison of Alcatraz.
Now, admittedly The Enforcer is the movie in which the Dirty Harry “pattern” is very much fully visible - Harry gets in the shit and shows his unorthodox style of policing in the first act? Check! Disposable partner? Check! By-the-book boss who keeps getting in the way of Harry cleaning up his way? Check! Lalo Schifrin’s musical score? Check! San Fransisco locales? Check! Big, adrenaline-pumping OTT climax? Check! I know people who hate on this movie, but I dig it. I thought it was a whole heap of fun. Nothing of much relevance, not a patch on the original or its first sequel but it is great fun.
There’s no “bite” to proceedings like there was in Dirty Harry or Magnum Force, but if you just look at The Enforcer as if it is a disposable piece of action fare that the likes of Stallone or Willis would throw out as a piece of summer fare in between their respective franchises, then you’ll have a great deal of fun with it.
SUDDEN IMPACT (1983)
I’m not a particular fan of Sudden Impact. It just felt so ponderous and meandering, taking ages to travel nowhere of any great distance. It’s a shame because this is the first Dirty Harry movie to be directed by Clint Eastwood himself, and he does well with the occasional action sequence but overall it just didn’t do anything for me.
In researching this piece, I discovered that the only reason it was made was that Warner Bros. was preparing to release the Sean Connery “unofficial” James Bond film Never Say Never Again, and took a survey asking movie goers to name an actor and a famous part that that actor played, that they would like to see on the screen again following the return of Connery as Bond. Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry” scored so high in the survey results, the studio told Eastwood they would be “open” to distributing another Dirty Harry film. The minute Eastwood expressed an interest in such a notion, a fourth movie was instantly greenlit at that very moment.
This time round, after destroying a case involving a crime lord, Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is sent ”out of town” to San Paulo to “take a break” but ends up helping an old cop friend investigate the murder of a man, found dead in a car. The person responsible, Jennifer (Sondra Locke), is murdering all the rapists who brutally attacked both her and her sister 10 years ago. She’s returned to San Paulo to exact her revenge. Harry becomes inadvertently involved in Jennifer’s own troubles during his investigations, all the while not suspecting she is the killer until it’s possibly too late.
Sudden Impact just feels like a bit of a lifeless affair to me. Which is ironic considering it is the only entry in the five movie franchise that comes remotely close to breaking with the ‘template’ for these films. There’s no San Fransisco setting this time out, but asides from that it is business as usual: Harry gets in the shit and shows his unorthodox style of policing in the first act, again! Pretty much irrelevant partner, again! A by-the-book boss who keeps getting in the way of Harry cleaning up his way, again! Lalo Schifrin’s musical score, although you can never get tired of that! Check! Big, adrenaline-pumping OTT climax? Sort of! And maybe the lack of the latter is partially to blame.
Okay, this may well be the one where the most quotable “Harry-isms” come from but… Sondra Locke is wooden. Eastwood seems to be coasting. The rest of the cast are dispensable. It’s all watchable. But we don’t want watchable - we want, at the very least, FUN!
THE DEAD POOL (1988)
Yes, this is the one with Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey in it! Yes, that is a young Patricia Clarkson back before she became the ‘Queen of the Indies’! Yes, that is the band Guns & Roses in the funeral scene (they did ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ for the movie. What? It was the late 80s! You gotta have your tie-in music single!)Yes, this is the Dirty Harry movie where Harry and his kung fu practising partner get chased by the explosive remote control car! And yes, that is STILL as utterly daft as you’d imagine it to be.
After Harry’s arrest of a gambling kingpin results in a conviction for murder, a group of thugs shoot up his car and try to kill him. In the aftermath of this, he finds himself with a new partner, Insp. Al Quan (Evan C. Kim) and together they find themselves working on the investigation into the mysterious death of a rock star (Jim Carrey), who was on location filming a movie directed by Peter Swan (Liam Neeson). After one of Swan’s crew is killed in a Chinatown robbery that is foiled by Al & Harry, Al discovers a list of celebrities on the dead man that includes the dead rock star and one Inspector Harry Callahan. They soon discover that this is part of a strange game called The Dead Pool, and it isn’t long before other people on the list turn up dead, and someone starts making attempts on Harry’s life…
The Dead Pool is big, dumb, loud and excessive - it’s about as far removed from everything that was brilliant about the original movie back in the early 70s. The thing is it’s a product of the mainstream action cinema of that late 80s period. It’s not really a Dirty Harry movie per se; you could literally take out the character of Harry Callahan and just insert any random ‘action hero’ and it would play exactly the same. You couldn’t say that about Dirty Harry, Magnum Force or The Enforcer in my opinion.
It’s watchable and fun, which is at least a small improvement on Sudden Impact. But by the time this movie comes to an end you realise that it really is a case of ‘diminishing returns’ with the Dirty Harry franchise. Clearly Eastwood would rather have quit making these movies then pass the point of mediocrity that he’d reached.
However, in conclusion, you can pick this boxset up for under £30.00 now. You have to look at it as one masterpiece, one great movie, one great piece of fun and two disposable pieces of mediocrity. Then there’s all those extra features on the disc. Not to mention the stuff they throw in with the boxset itself.
This is something any film fan should really stick on their WishList. It’s a great piece of collector’s fare!
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- [Retro Review] HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE
- BRITNEY SPEARS: THE MOVIE? Is It Porn? No? Well No Thanks Then!
2 Responses to “No Tom! No Dick! Just HARRY! One Night In With The DIRTY HARRY Franchise!”
I got this for my dad and he just about cried. He LOVES these movies. Good reviews!
You know what Kris? I get disheartened when I see you put a review up and get like eight or nine comments almost instantaneously and I just think “Man, why the **** don’t people ever comment on my stuff with that degree of regularity?”
You do question yourself a little, whether your writing is of any quality, whether your opinion matters, etc. But I’m always warmed straight back up when I know I can rely on you to always find the time to comment on anything I write!
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L O V E F E S T - B E G I N ! ! !
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