Viking Night: Dirty Harry
By Bruce Hall
June 22, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I know what you’re thinking; you’re wondering why I consider such a successful film a cult classic, aren’t you? Forty years on, if even people who’ve never even seen a movie are familiar with its most famous line you’ve got yourself a bona fide hit, right? And while it may not be Clint Eastwood’s most famous role, Harry Callahan is an icon, and the father of the "supercop" stereotype. Without him there might have been no Martin Riggs, no Sonny Crockett, and Fred Dryer might never have become an actor. But upon a recent viewing something occurred to me – this isn’t the movie most people remember, and as originally conceived, Callahan wasn’t quite the cartoon character many think of today.
To us, the idea of a wisecracking police detective with a hand cannon and an itchy trigger finger seems more than a little passé. But put yourself in the shoes of a moviegoer circa 1971 – Clint Eastwood was still best remembered as television’s Rowdy Yates. Westerns and sprawling period pictures were quickly being replaced by a new generation of cultivated drama, intelligent comedies and explosive action flicks. Steve McQueen still reigned as the definitive big screen gumshoe, but Bullitt was a confusing mess and despite his rough edges and world class driving skills the title character came across as more of a thespian than a thug.
The concept of a cop as anti-hero was still a novel one, and the very notion of a graphically violent, profanity studded action movie positioning itself as a concept piece seemed almost ludicrous. But Dirty Harry was all of those things, and while it’s not exactly a masterpiece, it is undeniably the first of its kind. It stands apart both from its impersonators and less distinguished sequels as an enduring thriller. And it's not only a fun ride, but along the way it poses some pretty timely questions on the subject of law and order versus civil liberty.
Hard nosed San Francisco police detective Harry Callahan isn’t like the rest of the boys in his department. In fact he reminds me a bit of myself - not because he’s tall, handsome, likes big guns and looks cool in a tweed jacket (only two of those things are true about me). It’s because Harry is a dour, standoffish loner who is frequently disciplined for thinking outside the box, but he keeps his job because he gets results. He’s intelligent but impulsive; he has a refined intuition but rarely the patience to use it. But there’s one thing in particular that differentiates Harry from the thugs he runs down as well as his humorless, regulation quoting peers. He harbors a deep, genuine compassion for the victims of violent crime and a seething contempt for reformers and intellectuals who are less interested in the application of justice than they are in making sure nobody’s feelings get hurt in the process.
These days, anybody who pitched this stuff to a room full of studio brass would get laughed out of the building. However, back in the day when Archie Bunker was still scaring the pants off of television censors, this was pretty groundbreaking. But unlike Archie, Harry Callahan was meant to be more symbolic than realistic. People with his psychological profile don’t usually become cops; they join motorcycle gangs, start talk radio shows or end up filling a cot in a federal penitentiary. Yet Harry was meant to represent a cultural backlash of sorts; a by product of the social change America was experiencing at that time was a renewed focus on the fair treatment of those accused of a crime. And though one of the strengths of our society is that everyone is given the presumption of innocence, sometimes in the rush to ensure fairness the most important person in the process – the victim – becomes an afterthought. It’s the classic argument of justice versus liberty – and if you add to this a new kind of criminal for which the police have no answer and the public has no defense, you have the genesis of Dirty Harry.
The movie opens with a stunning aerial shot of San Francisco, and the shocking murder of a beautiful woman by a sniper’s bullet. Homicide Inspector Callahan is assigned to the case, and quickly discovers that the murderer is an attention starved psychopath who wants the police on his trail and is determined to kill again. Patterned in part on the real life Zodiac killer – who was still active at the time – Scorpio, as the sniper calls himself, openly taunts the police and soon develops an affinity for his pursuer.
It isn’t long before the most important aspect of any cat and mouse thriller is revealed – the fact that despite their disproportionate assets, the cat and the mouse are equally cunning! As an illustration of this, Harry foils an unrelated bank robbery after leaving the crime scene and famously asks the lone survivor how lucky he feels – you know the words. The moment is flashy but not necessarily superfluous; Harry and Scorpio are both strange people who tend to get what they want in violently abnormal ways, and as such have a unique ability to understand one another. Of course, this is the sort of thing that only happens in films – the Zodiac was never caught, and while the motivations of real serial killers are tragic and complex, Scorpio turns out to be motivated by far more ordinary things. And real detectives are considerably more astute than their movie counterparts; despite his knack for blowing things up Harry ultimately makes his collar as the result of dumb luck rather than brilliant police work. Most police dramas suffer from such things, but unlike most police dramas the tension driving Dirty Harry isn’t in the hunt for the killer, no doubt to the surprise of first time viewers.
Callahan manages to track down Scorpio surprisingly early in the film, but the detective’s slash and burn methods have unintended consequences. Without meaning to, he raises the stakes and hands Scorpio a shocking victory. Suddenly, Harry is the one on the defensive, being raked across the coals over a legal technicality. It’s one of the most important scenes in the film and you shouldn’t overlook it because it’s really the meat of the action sandwich that is Dirty Harry. For one incredibly profound moment, the meanest man in San Francisco is the only one who has the empathy to question the welfare of Scorpio’s latest victim over that of her murderer. And when Callahan finally snarls back at his superiors “What about her rights?” you might feel as though he’s taken the words right out of your mouth. Eventually we discover that Harry wasn’t always this way – his wife was lost to a drunk driver, and his inability to fully cope is the source of his determination, as well as his charming personality.
Of course, by now, the cop-with-a-dead-wife routine has been worn pretty thin, but it’s important to establish that despite his bad attitude Harry really is a decent guy. But from scene one there’s never any doubt that the primary cause of Harry’s permanent sneer is a system that he feels is wired the wrong way, too often turning murderers into martyrs and victims into statistics. Eventually, Callahan questions his commitment to the Department and the Department questions their commitment to Callahan, but there’s little doubt where the audience’s sympathies are meant to be. In a day and age when a monster like the Zodiac could seemingly kill at will and get away with it, Scorpio wasn’t bound to win a lot of hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds were won by Dirty Harry, though; the film’s success was immediate. Audiences thrilled to the idea of a cynical cop fighting the system to bring down a twisted killer who was ripped right from the day’s headlines. Today the movie holds up quite well, despite a few uncomfortable moments of political incorrectness, and that annoying '70s-era fake blood that looks more like it belongs on a hot dog than a bullet wound. Dirty Harry remains a fast paced, engaging drama and at its conclusion, we’re left wondering whether we’ve seen the last of Inspector Callahan. In retrospect, it might have been better if we had.
The next four installments of the franchise were their own worst enemies as they attempted to recreate key moments from the first film, right down to fashioning a pithy new catch phrase for Harry to spit at his adversaries each time. Even composer Lalo Shifrin’s haunting, jazzy score became something became a gag when two years later Magnum Force spent its opening minutes unintentionally lampooning it. But for one brief, shining moment in the winter of 1971, audiences were introduced to a new kind of hero. He was tough and determined, but already as cynical as the rest of us would become as the new decade dragged on. And though his main objective was to provide us with a diversionary thrill, Harry Callahan managed to do something that few action heroes ever do – get us to think, if only for a little while. And in this case, it was about how much society should be willing to sacrifice to avenge the loss of innocent life and bring a terrifying madman to justice. Dirty Harry isn’t the movie you remember – it’s much better than the movie you remember.