{"id":1852,"date":"2008-06-13T06:36:58","date_gmt":"2008-06-13T05:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=1852"},"modified":"2008-06-21T22:38:41","modified_gmt":"2008-06-21T21:38:41","slug":"dvd-pick-the-dirty-harry-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/06\/13\/dvd-pick-the-dirty-harry-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD Pick: The Dirty Harry Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dirty Harry<\/a> is one of the most iconic cops in the history of cinema and Warner Bros have just released a DVD box set of all five movies entitled The Dirty Harry Collection<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is a pretty lavish affair and if you are a fan of the character or Clint Eastwood then it is well worth purchasing.<\/p>\n

WARNING: There are spoilers in this review, so if you haven’t seen any of the films then be warned.<\/p>\n

DIRTY HARRY<\/strong><\/a> (1971)<\/p>\n

The first and best of the series saw Clint Eastwood take on the role of Harry Callahan<\/a> – a no-nonsense cop in San Francisco who has to deal with a rooftop sniper named Scorpio.<\/p>\n

The success of the film took his career to another level, establishing him as one of the major box office stars of the 1970s.<\/p>\n

It remains a landmark cop film that influenced a generation of filmmakers with films like Lethal Weapon<\/a>, Die Hard<\/a> and Speed<\/a> all being inspired by it to some degree.<\/p>\n

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Revisiting the film is interesting experience – the craft of the film is quite striking and for director Don Siegel<\/a> it was the high watermark of his long collaboration with Eastwood.<\/p>\n

As a police procedural thriller it is is slick, absorbing and tightly plotted. There is very little narrative waste here but visually it is interesting too. Cinematographer Bruce Surtees<\/a> and director Siegel make great use of the fabulous San Francisco locations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The low lit night time sequences are also unusually dark – an interesting foretaste when you consider Eastwood’s fondness for low lighting as a director in later years.<\/p>\n

As an actor Eastwood brings the same dry, distant quality that he brought to the Man With No Name<\/a> in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy<\/a>. The loner cop figure can be seen as an extension of the bounty hunter figure from those films – a violent avenger who understands the blurry differences between justice and the law.<\/p>\n

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As for the villain, Andy Robinson<\/a> is remarkably creepy as Scorpio, with his childlike insults and temper tantrums. The clash between the cop and the sniper is interesting as it is Harry who behaves in a way that is deemed unacceptable in the eyes of the law.<\/p>\n

It was this sense of moral ambiguity and the underlying rage at bureaucracy in the wake of the Miranda<\/a> and\u00a0 Escbedo<\/a> rulings in the 60s (the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney) that gave ammunition to the films’ critics.<\/p>\n

Most notably, Pauline Kael<\/a> of The New Yorker loathed the film, denouncing it as a:<\/p>\n

“right-wing fantasy [that is] a remarkably simple-minded attack on liberal values”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Viewing the film now, these criticisms seem a little outlandish, but there is no doubt that the film does touch on the cultural conflicts of the times. Scorpio abuses Harry as a ‘pig’, wears a CND peace sign on his belt and also knows the rights that have been given to him by the liberal 60s.<\/p>\n

But the film and the central character are more libertarian than right wing: Harry hates the complacency and opportunism of his bosses; is perturbed by the lack of concern towards the victim’s rights; plus, there also seems to be a lingering class resentment towards his superiors, especially in the scene where he argues with the District Attorney and a Judge.<\/p>\n

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Another aspect of the film that doesn’t often get talked about is the violence. Although by today’s standards the acts depicted on screen seem relatively tame, the sadistic behaviour of Scorpio is disturbing. He shoots a young black boy in the head, leaves a 14-year old girl to suffocate to death, hijacks a school bus and revels in his own cruelty.<\/p>\n

Although based on the Zodiac killer<\/a>, he seems to represent a new kind of murderer ushered in by Charles Manson<\/a> – one who was concerned with their public notoriety as much as they were with brutalizing the innocent.<\/p>\n

But interestingly the film points out parallels between cop and killer – they both loners who hate authority and they both break the law, albeit to very different ends. It is worth noting that Harry only brings Scorpio to justice when he is on leave and effectively outside the law.<\/p>\n

It is also fascinating to view this film after Zodiac<\/a>, the film which last year explored the killings that inspired Dirty Harry.<\/p>\n

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There are a number of intriguing parallels: Don Siegel’s film contracts to a vivid resolution whilst David Fincher’s keeps expanding to an inconclusive mystery; Harry and Scorpio represent two different sides of the same violent coin whilst Dave Toschi<\/a>, Robert Graysmith<\/a> and Paul Avery<\/a> form a triangle of characters obsessed by a lone killer who is never truly revealed; and whilst Dirty Harry is a thriller with political overtones, Zodiac is a drama with existential vibes. Both are very different but still somehow connected.<\/p>\n

Like a lot of first films in a series, it remains the best and none of the successive Harry films could match it.<\/p>\n

Here are some facts about it:<\/p>\n