The Film:Clint Eastwood stars in this, the first in the Dirty Harry series as the title role of San Francisco detective Harry Callahan or “Dirty Harry” as his colleagues call him as he always gets the dirty jobs, this time he has to deal with a madman known only as the Scorpio, one that will test Harry’s loyalties.
I won’t say too much more, other than that the movie is a wonderful piece of cinema, director Don Siegel uses the city by the bay beautifully and although Andrew Robinson is great as Scorpio, this is Eastwood’s movie all the way, beautifully portraying the title role but while there were 4 sequels that followed this film, this proves the old saying that the original will always be the best: 5 out of 5.
The DVD:
Dirty Harry as well as the rest of the series are being reissued in brand new Special Edition DVDs as well as debuting on the new Blu-Ray format but unlike the DH sequels, DH is being issued as a 2-Disc SE but how does it hold against the original single disc release.
Well for starters, it is very clear that the film has undergone a brand new restoration, which looks very crisp and clean with no real blemishes to be seen, but while the day time scenes and the interiors look great as does the aerial photography, this new restoration isn’t all sugar and cookies, for one, the film looks a little too over saturated in some of the daylight scenes and the night time scenes are a mixed bag, sometimes great, sometimes not.
The audio appears to be the same 5.1 track created for the single disc release, it sounds good and never over mixes one element for the other and never relies on artificially created sounds put in to spice things up, all in all, a good mix.
And now, onto the extras, broken down disc by disc and new extras highlighted in bold.
Disc One:
Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel: Schickel provides a very enjoyable commentary track, in which he details the production, history and legacy of the film, although he has good info, he also takes time to enjoy the film as we do, so a very good listen.
Featurette – Dirty Harry: The Original – This documentary appeared on the original release and is an enjoyable watch hosted by Robert Urich, who appeared in Magnum Force, this will be of great enjoyment for fans.
Interviews – Cast and Crew: These are extended interviews with the people that appear in the Featurette mentioned before, some are good to watch but this area is hit and miss.
Vintage Featurette – Dirty Harry’s Way: This is a vintage feature covering the filming of Dirty Harry in San Francisco at the time of its release; personally I think it’s great to see stuff like this so this gets a thumbs up from me.
Disc Two:
Featurette – The Long Shadow of Dirty Harry: This is a new featurette created just for this release and features new interviews with Eastwood and Robinson as well as various other fans and filmmakers, a very good feature.
Featurette – Clint Eastwood: The Man from Malpaso: This is a one hour doco from 1993 covering Eastwood as well as the career he had until Unforgiven in 1992, a long watch but good for Eastwood fans.
And now, the bad, while the features present are very good, it sadly lacks the theatrical trailer found on the first release, to me this is a major disappointment and stops this release from gaining full marks.
Final Say:
So in closing, a great 2-disc release with only a minor complaint (missing trailer) holding it back from containing full marks but the good far outweighs the bad, so Highly Recommended.
And Also, one last question: Do you feel lucky?, Well do ya Punk.
No comments:
Post a Comment