December 2021 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the original San Francisco benefit premiere of one of the most iconic action films with an equally iconic character played by a now-legendary – and iconic – superstar.
DIRTY HARRY premiered on December 22nd, 1971 in the ‘City By The Bay’ and quickly provoked much controversy, not in terms of its’ uncompromising approach to violence, but equally in terms of Clint Eastwood’s interpretation as the lead protagonist, Detective Harry Callahan, whose desire to take down a vicious killer, Scorpio (Andy Robinson) (who has held the city to ransom, initially for $100,000 with the threat to kill a Catholic priest or black individual if the city doesn’t pay up) goes beyond conventional police process.
The film was initially offered to Frank Sinatra and John Wayne and originally set in New York City, but Eastwood used his production company, Malpaso, to secure the San Francisco location as a creative change.
Much of the film’s impact is down to a terrific lead performance from Eastwood and contains one of the all-time great monologues, delivered early on when he thwarts a bank robbery.
In 1973, Eastwood returned as the character in Ted Post’s MAGNUM FORCE, in a script co-written by John Milius (BIG WEDNESDAY, RED DAWN (1984))and Michael Cimino (later to direct the Oscar-winning THE DEER HUNTER (1978)) in which a group of rogue cops are out to rid the city of key crime kingpins in a film that was equally as entertaining, if not more controversial.
It was the turn of a terrorist organisation to hold San Francisco to account in James Fargo’s 1976 sequel THE ENFORCER, in which Harry has to not only contend with their threat, but a recently promoted and somewhat-naive Inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly, later of the hit TV series CAGNEY AND LACEY)
Without question, the most iconic line ever spoken in a DIRTY HARRY film: ‘Go ahead….make my day‘ – which would also find itself in the vocabulary of then President Ronald Reagan, as well as countless other imitators, appeared in 1983’s SUDDEN IMPACT, directed by Eastwood (who was seguing into an equally profitable and award-winning career behind the camera) and saw Harry on the trail of a mysterious killer who has taken out several men in seemingly cold-blooded revenge.
The saga would end in 1988 with THE DEAD POOL, in which Harry finds himself on a twisted wish-list of potential victims, as well as investigating the death of a rock singer, Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey in an early role) on the set of his latest music video (directed by a film-maker, Peter Swan (Liam Neeson, pre-SCHINDLER’S LIST and TAKEN). The centre piece of the film is a weird and wonderful car chase, between Harry’s car and a remote-controlled toy one.
The films are freely available to buy or rent via YouTube Movies and in other home entertainment formats. Given the joy of the last half-century, we think:
“You gotta ask yourself one question – do I feel lucky?’
Well, we think you must.
