Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry (1971) is about a detective hunting a serial killer in San Francisco. A man calling himself Scorpio shoots people from rooftops and demands money from the city. Harry Callahan takes the case. His method recognises no rules: he searches without a warrant, interrogates the suspect in hospital, stands on a wounded man. So the case collapses. The prosecutor explains why: the evidence was obtained unlawfully, the weapon is inadmissible and the confession is void. Scorpio walks. That is where the whole argument about the film sits. The narrative stands with Harry and presents legal protection as an obstruction. When it opened, Pauline Kael described it as a fascist work and the argument ran for years. The source is real: the unsolved Zodiac killings were under way in California at the time and the Scorpio character is plainly taken from them, including the coded letters and the threat to a school bus. The speech about the gun in the opening and closing scenes is the best known passage and is repeated twice, with different meanings. The part was offered to other actors first and refused; it came to Eastwood last. Don Siegel directed. It was shot on location in San Francisco and the city is used like a character. Lalo Schifrin wrote the score. In the last scene Harry throws away his badge; what that gesture means is still argued over. Four sequels followed. It runs 102 minutes. Good for: police films, seventies American cinema, and genre history. Less good for: its politics are contested, the violence is harsh, and some scenes are uncomfortable now.