After watching Eastwood as "the man with no name" I decided to take a look at his most iconic role an Dirty Harry. It has been at least 20 years since I watched this film, and the movie itself is almost 40 years old. I was curious if it still held up.
The movie has lost none of it's luster. It still has that dark, gritty urban feel that was so popular in the 1970's. Eastwood is excellent as "Dirty" Harry Callahan, the police officer who is willing to go it alone and bend a few rules to save a life. The scene where Eastwood says "do you feel lucky, punk?", to the wounded bank robber reaching for his gun, still stands out as a great cinema moment.
The film is very dark, with lots of the action taking place in shadows. It's bolstered by a great score from Lalo Schiffrin and wonderful on location shooting in and around San Francisco. In retrospect the parts of the Mayor, Chief Of Police and Homicide Chief (Harry Guardino) are not as well written as they could be, but it's a small issue.
The "spaghetti westerns" made Eastwood a movie star, but the character of Dirty Harry made him a superstar.
At The Movie House rating **** stars.
3 comments:
Excellent review....This is a very retrospective situation...I think that, during the heyday of these films, they were looked at as good macho films with a great anti-hero...everyone liked them because they viewed them as the flawed good guy beats out the truly rotton evil doer despite the obstacles placed in front og him by burecrats...they were enjoyable but I am not sure people said they were great...I think with the passage of time we can now really define them, and this one in particular, as great films...Excellent characters, intense drama, dark humor...gritty scenes...Every once in awhile I catch this film on TV and can't help but keep it on channel. Not only a great film, but now a classic great film
Not a bad review for an anonymous grouchy guy, heh
Your assesment of the films popularitybeing retrospective is incorrect. The film was a major success when released and made $35 million dollars (a huge sum for 1971) on a budget of $4 million.
It was criticaly praised and was considered one of the best films of 1971. Because of it's success the film immediately spawned two consecutive sequels in 1973 and 1976 and two more in the 1980's.
The film was made shortyly after Miranda Warnings became required police procedures and was iconic because the film shows Dirty Harry ignoring the law and essentially torturing the criminal to get information about a kidnapped girl. He is frustrated when a judge and District Attorney tell him they can not prosecute the guy. Later in the film Dirty Harry goes off on his own to catch the guy and again disobeys rules to achive his ends. At the end of the film he is seen throwing his badge away to symbolize that he can not work under the new rules.
The film was part of a gritty new style of urban crime films of the 70's. Such films as The French Connection, Death Wish, Dirty Harry, The Seven-Ups, Dog day Afternoon, etc., all showing a more gritty, violent slice of urban life.
I may have been wrong, but it sure sounded good
Post a Comment