Dirty Harry

by Rick Thompson

Dirty Harry (1971, USA, 102 mins)
Source: Warner Bros. Prod Co: A a!paso "ompany #ro$%c&ion'A Warner Bro&hers
Re!ease Prod, Dir: (on Sie)e! Scr: *arry +%!ian ,ink - R.. ,ink an$ (ean Reisner. s&ory
by *arry +%!ian ,ink an$ R.. ,ink Phot/ Br%ce S%r&ees. Technico!or, #ana0ision. ra&io/
2.12/1 Ed, Assoc Prod/ "ar! #in)i&ore Art Dir/ (a!e *ennesy Mus/ 3a!o Schi4rin
Cast/ "!in& 5as&6oo$, *arry 7%ar$ino, Reni San&oni, +ohn 8ernon, +ohn 3arch, An$re6
Robinson, +ohn i&ch%m
Rick Thompson is senior !ec&%rer in cinema s&%$ies a& 3a&robe Uni0ersi&y.
One of the occasional films which escape the usual boundaries of cinema, Dirty
Harry-or at least some of its residue-has, in the last thirty years, taken up a place in
popular mythology and its language. In such cases, it is useful to examine the original
from time to time.
The project kicked around at least two studios during the 1!"s, first pitched as a #aul
$ewman %ehicle, then tailored for &rank 'inatra, finally, on at least the fifth rewrite,
for (astwood who accepted on condition that 'iegel direct. )ertainly a career
highpoint for 'iegel, Dirty Harry came at a crucial time for (astwood* ha%ing begun
+knowingly or not, a filmmaking apprenticeship with 'ergio -eone, (astwood had
been learning the director.s craft +and crafting a persona, with 'iegel from Coogan's
Bluff (1969) through The Beguiled +1/1, and Dirty Harry, between which (astwood
directed his first feature, Play Misty For Me +1/1,-an intense creati%e period. 0s
noted elsewhere, (astwood did not base his directing style on either -eone or 'iegel-
he is 1uite different from them-but from them he learned how think to as a director
+(astwood.s style is more leisurely, more Old 2ollywood, more romantic and more
sentimental,.
3hile it seems to be a watershed film, it.s not one by %irtue of inno%ations or .firsts.
+except as the 4ark I in a lucrati%e se1uel franchise, but rather for bringing together
se%eral de%eloping strands and crystali5ing the synthesis* Dirty Harry anticipates
Mad Max +1/, and Death ish +1/6,, presages Taxi Dri!er +1/!,, renders
redundant +and a bit silly, much of 7ames (llroy.s posturing, and reshapes an entire
literary genre, the police procedural story, by in%enting a new position for the hero
and for the city-as-crime. +This last is a large claim, but* before Dirty Harry, police
procedural models were based on the realist8humanist, just-ordinary-guys-trying-to-
do-a-job model of (d 4c9ain.s "#th Pre$in$t series: after Dirty Harry came a new
model* middle-aged male cops going through mid-life crisis, loners-marriages
collapsed, families lost, romantic liaisons transitory, alienated, self-destructi%e, in
conflict with their superiors, %alues in 1uestion-if this sounds like 2arry, it also
sounds like the writing of 7ohn 2ar%ey, 7on 0 7ackson, the aforementioned (llroy,
9ill 7ames, 7ames -ee 9urke, Ian ;ankin, 7oseph 3ambaugh, 2ugo 2amilton,
4ichael )onnelly, ;eginald 2ill, )harles 3illeford, <erald #etie%ich, 4ichael
)onnelly-and that.s just the 0-team,.
'tylistically, the film looks and sounds remarkably contemporary =" years later
+accommodations made for changes in clothing, hair, and musical fashions,. $either
self-consciously modernist or postmodernist, the film has none of the late-1!"s8early
1/"s hip8groo%y8with-it affectations: the closest it comes is a scene in a tacky topless
bar, a reasonably documentary detail in a film shot on location in 1/" 'an &rancisco.
-ike %ertigo +0lfred 2itchcock, 1>?,, it is also a wonderful film about that city and
its %ariety. 3ith %ertigo, and with Play Misty for Me, it shares an unusual narrati%e
structure* the story +2arry must pursue and capture the psychotic killer, 'corpio, is
told twice. In the first telling, 2arry.s arrest of 'corpio is in%alidated because he did
not follow correct police8legal procedure, and so the second telling begins with the
surprise that 'corpio is free again, and must be stopped again. In the second telling,
2arry finds and stops 'corpio +in the most permanent way, again outside procedural
law but this time by choice* his last act in the film is to throw his police badge into a
stagnant slough +thus rendering the se1uels pre1uels, and positioning the first
se1uel8pre1uel, Magnu& For$e @1/=A, as a self-conscious apologia* 2arry )allahan
goes after and shuts down a group of ma%erick police officers who are meting out
%igilante justice outside the police regulations and the letter of the law.,. There isn.t
much point in trying to render word-e1ui%alents for the audio-%isual aspects of the
film, but the kinesis of music and sound cues, edits, camera mo%ements and
mo%ement within the frame are, simply, a textbook of sharp-edged, no-waste, forward
narrati%e mo%ement. (%erything gets exactly as much time as it needs, no more:
performances, particularly (astwood.s, match this economy. In this way, it continues
to be a benchmark film.
It also deliberately inter%ened in a public debate in the late 1!"s8early 1/"s B'
society. 0s the film explicitly mentions, a liberal +left-oriented, 'upreme )ourt had
handed down decisions +4iranda, (scobido, protecting the rights of accused
criminals. The 4iranda decision re1uired arresting officers to read a criminal his
rights +.Cou ha%e the right to remain silent.. a litany in police dramas e%er since,
which 1uickly became a %erb* .Did you remember to 4irandi5e himE.,: (scobido
protected against unreasonable search and sei5ure, which, in the film, 7udge
9annerman of the 0ppellate )ourt accuses 2arry of in the first apprehension of
'corpio. The film poses the most extreme example of the legal8social issue* suppose a
totally uncontrollable and %ery cle%er killer preys on society and, though known to be
guilty by e%ery %iewer of the film, is protected by the %ery legal sanctions we depend
on to protect the accused until pro%en guiltyE This not long after 'en. 9arry
<oldwater had run for the B' #residency defending Fextremism in the defense of
libertyF as a key %alue. 3hat sort of answer8what sort of protagonist do we want for
this problemE Or, as the film has it, who speaks for the rights of little 0nne 4arie
Deacon, whose death is the turning point of the two tellings of the storyE The ob%erse
1uestion* how far are we +society, to go in responding to such extreme threatsE
9ecause of this, at the time of its release, Dirty Harry became a contro%ersy* the
influential 0merican film critic #auline Gael +among many others, called it a fascist
film, presumably because it depicts a +%ery strange, hero taking the law into his own
hands in defiance of his go%ernment. In its way, Dirty Harry is the most scrupulous of
the 1/"s B' films built around this issue. Its two-part narrati%e structure and its
dialogue calls attention to the constitutional issues. In opportunistic ways it %olunteers
our fears, then challenges us to think about acceptable answers. It gainsays our fear of
the world.s 'corpios in order to focus on a more pointed issue* our fears of our heroes.