L'Inspecteur Harry

Don Siegel's highly polished .44 magnum-opus, with Clint Eastwood as the daddy (or should that be mutha?) of all maverick cops. Given an A-picture budget by Warners, Siegel delivered a tremendously taut thriller, as provocatively amoral as anything he had done in his 20-year career of expert B-pics like The Killers.

Dirty Harry also gave Eastwood a definitive Hollywood identity after leaving spaghetti westerns behind. It may lack the humour of Siegel and Eastwood's first collaboration, Coogan's Bluff, but it packs a much more uneasy political punch.

Inspector Harry Callaghan is the taciturn, laconic spokesman of Nixon's Silent Majority, elevated to iconic status. His dialogue with criminals is delivered behind the barrel of a devastatingly phallic Magnum hand-gun. "Feel lucky, punk?" he taunts one wounded miscreant in a famous line he repeats at the end of the film.

There's just enough moral ambiguity about Harry in this film to escape it being an endorsement of vigilantism – but if it poses resonating questions about how a liberal society can be held hostage by those outside the law, it also contrives a worryingly two-dimensional picture of psycho-killer Scorpio (Andy Robinson) - and of Harry, himself – with which to frame those questions.

Made by the veteran director in the same year as Hollywood-new wave young gun William Friedkin shot The French Connection, it's just as coolly authoritative and exciting. Siegel uses Bruce Surtees' always serviceable photography of San Francisco locations with flair (years before, he had shot the low-budget but excellent The Line-Up there). The swooping helicopter shot out of the baseball stadium, as if to rush the audience away (either as witnesses or as voyeurs) as Eastwood presses his foot on Scorpio's wounded leg, shows Siegel's smooth mastery of the medium.

Siegel made the insouciant Charley Varrick with Walter Matthau next, after which his career went into slow decline.

This film has it all, amazing soundtrack, amazing cinematography in the amazing San Francisco area, terrific cast of actors who played believable in their roles. This movie is what it is, a perfect 10, because it takes the vision of one of the most imaginative directors on Earth, and realizes them almost perfectly with all the tools that fit the task -- actors, stunts, story, cinematography. It is one of my personal favorite action movies of all time.

Dirty Harry (1971) is Clint Eastwood's masterpiece and one of his best movies including the best memorable character! The movie that started it all! It is the best action thriller film from Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel! Clint at his asskicking best! It is my favorite best film from Clint Eastwood and the first best one in the series. Even tough he did not directed this film he gave us one if his best performances ever! I love all Dirty Harry movies but this one is a classic and the best in the series. It has action suspense from end till beginning. A movie that will make anyone's day, if you feel lucky punk. I have seen the first one 20 times and will argue that it's the best with no question, but it is somewhat a matter of opinion :)

"I know what your thinking. Did he fire six shots or just five? We'll Do I feel lucky? We'll do ya punk?" Harry Callahan's best quotes. This is one classic Clint Eastwood film. He funnels traits of himself into "Dirty" Harry: no nonsense, dry humor, some charm and a good logical mind. Andrew Robinson had trouble getting work for a while after this movie because he did such a great job as Scorpio. Getting typecast as a psychopath kind of limits your casting options. Andrew Robinson also played in my favorite action Stallone flick Cobra (1986) and horror flick Hellraiser (1987). He did a great performance ever as a psychotic killer Scorpio. Reni Santoni was also cast in this movie as Harry's partner Homicide Inspector Chico Gonzalez. He also started 15 years later in my action flick Cobra (1986) alongside Andrew Robinson! I can say both of the actors did a fine job playing in bot cop flicks. First one is the best.

But, a little bit of background is due. Academy Award-winner Clint Eastwood ("Unforgiven," "Million Dollar Baby") stars as "Dirty Harry" Callahan in this riveting action film that spawned several blockbuster sequels. In this original, Detective Harry Callahan is determined to bring in psychotic killer Robinson, even if he's determined to break some of the rules. Brilliantly filmed for maximum impact. Recently selected by the prestigious American Film Institute as one of the 400 greatest American films of all time and added "Dirty Harry" as part of the 50 Greatest Heroes of all time.

Dirty Harry is a 1971 American action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series.

The basic plot is about catching a serial killer who was based on a Zodiac Killer. This is one of best movies ever. The story is good, acting is brilliant and effects and action scenes are epic. Watch this movie now!!!! Great films stick inside your head,and this one is a brain limpet! The cinematography and evocation of the San Francisco setting are hauntingly memorable,the dialogue taut and sparse and Schifrin's score is still super cool.Don Siegel and Clint must have studied the European stylists because I read Dirty Harry as the finest amalgam of US Noir and 60's new wave. I find echos of Antonioni and Melville in the tight,clean mis en scene and impeccable action sequences honed by Siegel's long Hollywood pedigree. superb. This movie is 10 out of 10.

How radically different cinema history, and our collective consciousness, would have been if Frank Sinatra hadn't injured his hand before shooting started on "Dirty Harry". Sinatra was due to play Harry, but had to withdraw, clearing the way for Clint. Given Sinatra's unique brand of self-loathing, Harry would have been an uglier personality than Clint made him. As it is, Lieutenant Callaghan is an ornery anti-liberal cuss of a guy, but he is straight and likeable. Arguably, it was this characterisation which made Eastwood a megastar.

San Francisco in 1971 was ready for stardom itself. The West Coast love-in scene and the gay 'boom', together with McQueen's "Bullitt", raised awareness of San Francisco as an exciting liberal city with a photogenic skyline. The film's funky score by Lalo Schifrin is perfectly-judged, and spawned numerous imitators.

The central narrative concerns a lone nut who is trying to hold the city to ransom. He starts by murdering citizens to extort money from the mayor, then progresses to kidnapping children. This plays cleverly on the inchoate anxieties of Middle America, where law-abiding people were puzzled and alarmed at the 'crime wave' and the threat it posed to them and their families. Crime in the decades before the Kennedy assassination had been compartmentalised by Hollywood. Gangsters were bad, but they killed other gangsters. Now the danger was unpredictable, irrational - and solitary. The lone madman was as likely to strike against me or you as against an institution. Only a single-minded strong man, operating on the fringes of the rules, could combat this new terror.

Harry is a paradox. In one sense, he is an 'outlaw'. He has little respect for formal authority (in the opening minutes, we see him being rude to the mayor) and he carries a strictly non-regulation monster of a gun. Harry is openly racist and mutinous. And yet he is also deeply moral. He conforms to an unarticulated ethical code that is anglosaxon American. He protects the weak and confronts the wrongdoers, no matter how the odds are stacked against him. Indeed, the cowardly bureaucrats who will never reward him or promote him are able to exploit his profound decency. They send him on all the difficult, dirty jobs because they know that his sense of right and wrong won't allow him to walk away.

Early in the film, the famous bank robbery scene occurs. This has become so familiar that it hardly needs elaborating here, but to summarise, Harry foils an armed robbery using icy courage and grim humour - and his magnum handgun. The special brand of Eastwood humour recurs throughout the story (eg, the suicide jumper and the gay called 'Alice'). White anglosaxon America is encouraged to laugh at the undergroups which supposedly threaten it.

When the bad guy 'Scorpio' is cornered, he immediately starts bleating about his civil rights. This is meant to arouse our fury, because we have seen him callously destroying the lives of others, and here he is exploiting the protection of the state. To make matters worse, the state agrees with him. We see the DA and a judge explaining to Harry why the cogent evidence against Scorpio is inadmissible. Just exactly why the DA would call a meeting with a lowly policeman in order to explain department policy is far from clear, but the scene is thematically necessary. Scorpio is using the System against the decent, godfearing people who own it. The liberal apparatus is skewed if it lets a killer walk away scot-free.

There are some illogicalities about the plot. Such an important event as the cash drop is left to two cops working alone, when in reality there would be a massive covert operation. When Scorpio beats the rap, there is no public outcry or media storm, and he is allowed to get on with his anonymous existence virtually untroubled.

However, this hardly matters since the main thrust of the story is the coming showdown between Harry and the bad guy. As the climax approaches, Harry drops out of the police operation. Scorpio is at his manic worst on the hi-jacked school bus, alienating us nicely and suppressing any liberal twitches we may still be feeling. Then we see Harry, standing as upright and sturdy as the Statue Of Liberty ....

DIRTY HARRY (1971) **** Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Andy Robinson, John Vernon. Eastwood made cinematic lore out of laconic San Francisco renegade cop Harry Callahan known more for his intolerence of the bureaucratic legal system and his firm belief in justice through violent means necessitated by righting wrongs. In the first of the series he's faced with a psycho serial killer named Scorpio (grinning looney toon Robinson) just begging to be noticed. Directed by Eastwood's long-time mentor Don Siegal the film acts as a parable of the system strangle-holding society and still remains an indictment of how bad things still are. Classic Clint.

Another film inextricably linked to a star cast as a last-minute replacement; it's impossible now to imagine how it would have turned out had Sinatra not dropped out and Harry Callaghan will forever more be Clint Eastwood.

As it stands San Francisco looks an urban hell with suitably nightmarish music by Lalo Schifrin and grimacing gargoyle Scorpio seems completely at home (evidently he killed for feral pleasure rather than merely attention like his inspiration Zodiac).

As for Harry himself his cynicism was aptly demonstrated by the famous speech that bookended it: evidently he knew precisely how many shots he'd fired, the first he was purely feigning ignorance for fun, the second time he was in deadly earnest about to commit judicial murder.