Dirty Harry

1971
Director: Don Siegel

Writers: Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Reisner

With far too much time on my hands during holidays, they’re always a good time to catch up with films I haven’t seen for a long time. After a year supposedly studying film academically, I suppose I wanted to see whether my opinions on any of my favourite films would be any different. To be honest, I doubt they ever would, not unless I could now see some glaring flaw in any of them I wasn’t aware of before, but I have no idea what they could possibly be. I still don’t watch them in the same way as the films we study at uni- I’m not going out of my way to note the mise-en-scene or studying the editing techniques; to me they’re still simply films I love to watch. Although I’ve found that on some base level, I do keep an eye open for these things when I watch films for fun (especially if they’re particularly distinct), just not in as much detail as during lectures.

It’s from this slightly confused standpoint that I decided to watch a film I’ve always had a lot of love for: Dirty Harry. Along with the likes of A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, Being John Malkovich and several others, this is one of the few films that are actually quite personal to me in that they were amongst the ones I watched when I was around 13/14 and being more adventurous in my viewing. These were some of the films that showed me how diverse and captivating cinema could be and ignited my passion for film which remains today. Dirty Harry also has the honour of being my first introduction to the living legend that is Clint Eastwood, a man whose sheer screen presence and effortless cool is still a pleasure to watch. Dirty Harry is still my favourite Clint film and his most memorable role, revisited across four sequels of unfortunately widely varying quality.

It had been a few years since I last watched this and so I wanted to see whether my high regard of it was still deserved or whether I was simply looking at it through rose tinted glasses. It is very different to a lot of my other top films in terms of factors like its content, scale, the period it was made in and its visuals. Of course I’d be worried if all my favourite films were especially similar but I did wonder what it was about this film that kept leading me to look on it so positively.

The time: 1971. The place: San Francisco. The city is being held hostage by a sadistic serial sniper known only as Scorpio. He has already murdered a young woman by shooting her from a rooftop and now demands $100, 000 or else he will kill another person each day. With the police on high alert, Inspector Harry Callaghan is assigned to the case. His no-nonsense style, lack of respect for his superiors and unorthodox methods have helped form the basis of many onscreen maverick cop imitations ever since. They’ve also developed his infamous reputation in the police department- many different theories are suggested as to why he’s called ‘Dirty’ Harry, from the fact that he’s the one most willing to do all the dirty jobs to the point that he is simply a bit of a perv (as evidenced several times during the film). What starts as a routine investigation soon escalates into an intense battle between Callaghan and Scorpio, with the two men resorting to increasingly offhand tricks to win their own personal wars.

I think that’s where this film’s greatest strength lies: in its simplicity. It’s less a police thriller and more a study into two dark and violent men. Rewatching it this time made me realise how similar they both are; it just happens one is on the side of the law and one isn’t. Both are driven solely by single forces- Scorpio with his sadistic love of killing and Callaghan with his need to enforce the law, although as the film progresses his methods become increasingly unethical as his desire to overpower Scorpio overtakes. Very little is revealed about the lives of either man other than the events onscreen. Scorpio’s name or history is never discovered, his life seems to consist of nothing more than his insatiable urge to cause pain. A scene of him robing a liquor store shows he has no interest in money or gaining possessions; he’s simply there to retrieve a new weapon to restart his campaign, although he does slip a bottle of whisky on the way out. He’s always presented in a dehumanised manner- our first glimpse of him at the very start is simply that of the barrel of his rifle. We don’t see his face until about 10 minutes later and don’t hear his flat voice later still; even then it’s only on the other end of a telephone line where we can’t see him. The music distorts and becomes far more sinister in his presence.

Similarly, Callaghan is shown as being motivated almost entirely by his work. There is frequent reference to the fact that he doesn’t have a wife and the only time we do see him off-work, he’s using his time to follow Scorpio. We learn little more about him, other than brief glimpses into his voyeuristic tendencies and his general dislike for other people, especially those in power he sees as ineffective (although he does show increasing respect for his new partner Chico Gonzalez after he shows his capabilities in the field). Many critics and reviewers have pointed out the conservative right-wing tendencies of the character and the film and its series in general. This sort of view never really occurred to me the first times I watched this, as I tend to prefer to remain generally apolitical when I watch films, although now Callaghan’s desire to preserve justice over an need to follow rules or preserve human rights  is quite obvious. The controversy surrounding this film in the early 1970s doesn’t seem at all shocking now, although I can understand why it caused such concern over issues like police brutality and fascist ideals, with scenes such as Callaghan torturing information out of an unhelpful Scorpio or shooting a gang of African-American bank robbers being the most obvious. At times it does seem like a critique of the legal system, one which is slow, ineffectual and which preserves the rights of the criminal over those of the victim, a criticism which still rings around today. The film does definitely seem to side with Callaghan on this issue, most notably when Scorpio, having been captured, is released because the evidence is inadmissible due to it being collected without a warrant. However, Callaghan’s methods are so unusual and so extreme than they can hardly be called realistic; it seems this film is intended more as a study of Callaghan himself and how his determination to stop this criminal drives him to extreme lengths, with any sort of social commentary coming second in priority.

Dirty Harry is definitely intended to be an entertaining piece of action cinema and it’s in that sense that it works so well. The pacing is very brisk and precise; no time is wasted on showing anything which isn’t entirely relevant. Instead we get a series of strong and memorable set-pieces, the telephone chase around town and the school bus hijacking especially. Don Siegel directs this very well with a strong steady eye for detail- the violence in this film is convincingly messy and unchoreographed-looking yet retains a sense of style and clarity that makes it incredibly watchable and tense. There’s also an intelligent use of time and place; San Francisco is treated almost like a character in itself with numerous long shots of skylines tied with intimate filming right on the streets and alleys to give it a distinct feel. Several landmarks are used inventively in the action sequences; what stood out for me was the ironic use of religious imagery such as the cross in Mount Davidson Park and the neon ‘Jesus Saves’ sign outside the church, these two locations being home to some of the bloodiest violence in the film. These signs reflect the burgeoning tolerance and general peace of the city being put under threat by this maniac. The city is also distinguished here because of its association with the Zodiac killings that took place here in the late 1960s and that would have been still fresh in the memory of those who watched this when it was released. Those real life crimes were obviously an inspiration for the writers as similarities are drawn such as the sending of threatening letters and the threat of kidnapping a schoolbus full of children. This is referenced directly in David Fincher’s rich drama Zodiac (2007), based on the investigation of the murders, where investigators watching Dirty Harry at the cinema are shown to be visibly uncomfortable with how much overlap there actually is between reality and fiction.

 My brother complains that Clint Eastwood always plays the same role no matter what film he’s in. I suppose there is an element of truth in that (definitely in his earlier films) although his demeanour is most definitely his own and for me that’s what makes him so watchable. Here he is cocksure and confident; you can’t imagine him taking any shit off anyone. Harry Callaghan is just such a distinct character, with a swagger and a smart-talking economy with words all to himself. His ironic tone with his superiors and the mayor are a lot of fun- I loved spotting the homage to this in The Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin repeating Callaghan’s ‘I shoot the bastard’ speech. And of course you can’t forget Andy Robinson’s chilling turn as Scorpio, who on first appearances seems so unlikely- director Don Siegel describes how he has “the face of a choirboy”. But often it’s simply the cold smirk on his face that makes him so horrendously unpleasant, this marring of supposed innocence with such evil. His disintegration from the calm controlled sniper to the maniacally driven monster is creepy; he is definitely one of the most horrible movie villains I can think of.

What’s stood out for me on this repeat viewing is just how unbelievably dark and grim this film is. Although age adds to this, it is definitely a grimy looking film as we’re introduced to some of the most inhospitable parts of San Francisco hidden in the shadows. Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score does add a touch of class but ultimately this is a supremely gritty film. It’s so cheesy of me to say this but Dirty Harry is very much a dirty film, not necessarily because it is explicit but because it doesn’t hesitate from showing the dark underbelly of urban space, the impersonal machine-like working process of law enforcement and the blackest reaches of human depravity- there are no limits to which either Scorpio or Callaghan will go to which will stop them from overcoming the other. I’m surprised how much of this I missed when I watched it at around age 14. Then it was just a highly watchable thriller, one that has aged surprisingly well. It’s strange how much more disturbed I was by it this time, although I’m glad I was because seeing this in a new way was refreshing and it reaffirmed my respect for this film. I know this has ended up turning more into an essay than a review but I guess I just have a lot to think about with this- I’m glad I still like this film so much, it certainly makes my favourites list much more intriguing.