Not content with revisiting Blade Runner I also became inspired to rewatch 1971's Dirty Harry which made Clint Eastwood into a superstar and set the standard for virtually every single Cop related film and TV show that followed.
This is a film that I have a very vivid memory of watching for the first time I hired it in 2008 from my local Video Store and was genuinely knocked out by it though back then what struck me the most was Clint Eastwood's performance in the film, he just held the screen whenever he was on with his striking and no nonsense appearance and it absolutely inspired me to track down as many films of his as possible.
But that was then and this is now and re watching it again a couple of weeks ago brought back the very same reaction I had when I first watched it and along with Eastwood there were 2 other factors that struck to my mind when I watched it.
- The first of these is Don Siegel's direction and it is simply the work of a master, he wastes no time getting to the heart of the story (the film immediately opens with Scorpio's first kill) and making the absolute use of every scene in the film, no scene and no frame feels wasted and the film has this feeling of being air tight and extremely tense especially as the confrontation between Harry and Scorpio comes ever so closer and Harry races against time to find Ann Marie Deakin before she suffocates to death.
What Siegel also brings to the film is a sense of the contemporary, this was a new hero for a new time the early 70s which saw the world enter a very contentious time (the end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandal, the Whitlam Years and the Escobar and Miranda Decisions regarding the rights of criminals) and Inspector Callahan suit the time perfectly with his no nonsense heroics and sense of the righteous cause where all that mattered to him was the safety and security from the evil of San Francisco an evil that he knows all too well can strike at any time and without warning.
There's also an interesting parallel between Harry Callahan and James Bond as 1971 also saw the release of Diamonds are Forever which began the transition to the much more light hearted tone of the Roger Moore period in that franchise and while the 007 films of the 60s embodied the free love, promiscuous, high class and clear good guys and bad guys feelings of that decade Callahan is much more of a working class hero with shades of grey as well as being a much more rigid and take control type of hero.
- The second one was Andrew Robinson's performance as Scorpio and the dynamic between him and Harry is a fascinating one because in some ways it resembles the dynamic between Batman and the Joker, one is very stoic and soft spoken while the other is chaotic with a capital C and they complement each other rather well I think.
Another thing is that Scorpio simply has no regard for anyone no matter their age, gender or race as far as he's concerned they're simply the next target in his sights and he'll kill them without any hesitation but if you pin him down he'll use the system against you and that makes him dangerous and as a result you sit there watching it thinking "Somebody please get rid of this guy."
Thinking about this film also made me think of the films inevitable sequels that followed and how each of them just simply never measured up to the original film and I think the absence of both Siegel's direction and a strong villain in Robinson very much hurt the series going forward and as far as I'm concerned without a strong adversary to challenge the heroes whether they carry a badge or be Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the Avengers I just don't care whether the hero survives or not it's just become that simple for me now.
And so that was my revisit of Dirty Harry discussed, I hope you all enjoyed reading it.
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