Of all the movies Edgar Wright selected for The Wright Stuff II Film Festival at New Beverly Cinema, "Dirty Harry" is the one he has watched the most. Edgar screened a nice print of it along with "The Super Cops," and joining him in talking about "Dirty Harry" was filmmaker and New Beverly Cinema owner Quentin Tarantino.
They started off riffing on trivia about how the original title of "Dirty Harry" was "Dead Right," and that it was first going to star Frank Sinatra who later pulled out when that 44 magnum ended up injuring his wrist. And it turned out that the late Irvin Kershner who directed "The Empire Strikes Back," was the first choice for this one. Quentin and Edgar also talked about actor Albert Popwell whom they said played a different "black stereotype" in each "Dirty Harry" film except for "The Dead Pool," and they both wished he played the mayor in that one.
For Edgar Wright, what he loved about "Dirty Harry" was the grittiness of its main character and the atmosphere of San Francisco. On the DVD for "Hot Fuzz," Edgar did a location tour where Siegel's film was made, and he even checked out the deli where Eastwood was filmed eating a hot dog when the robbery took place. As for the film's score by Lalo Schifrin, he declared it his all time favorite saying it marked the birth of "acid jazz."
But much of the treasure trove of information came from Quentin who said he first saw "Dirty Harry" when he was 5 or 6 years old, and that it was a "political lightning rod" upon its release. Apparently it got a lot of crap thrown at it by liberal critics who didn't want a "police fascist solution" as well as from right wingers who got freaked out by Scorpio and the ills of society.
The way Quentin viewed it though, "Dirty Harry" does have a solid agenda. When Andy Robinson played Charles "Scorpio" Davis, there had never been a villain like that before in movies, and the term "serial killer" had not really been coined yet. The agenda was for there to be new laws for new crimes, and "Dirty Harry" was "screaming" for those new laws. Indeed, Scorpio was not your average villain, and that he got such a kick from his crimes was easy to see. There was no cure in store for such a psychotic character.
Both Quentin and Edgar agreed that "Dirty Harry" really holds up after 40 years. Much of that is due to its sequels treating the iconic character more as a superhero than a regular human being. With "Magnum Force," Quentin felt it was made more for critics of the first one than its audience as it preached against its predecessor and the character itself by having Harry go after those taking the law into their own hands. This was the same deal with the other sequels with "Sudden Impact" being the lone exception. Edgar remarked that along with John Carpenter's "Halloween," "Dirty Harry" has one of cinema's most perfect endings that eventually was ruined by sequels.
They also talked about Don Siegel who had already been around for a long time before he directed "Dirty Harry." Siegel was a B-movie genre director from the 1950's and a "Hollywood craftsman" who eventually became an auteur. For the most part, Harry Callahan represented the quintessential character of his films; the cop who takes the law into his own hands. Even after directing the 1971 classic, Siegel would continue to have a long and healthy career in films, eventually reuniting with Eastwood on "Escape From Alcatraz."
Quentin Tarantino also described "Dirty Harry" as the single most ripped off, imitated action movie of the 1970's. He even gave a list of every single movie that stole from it: "McQ," "Newman's Law," "Nightstick," and everything from Cannon Films (whether it was Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris, it didn't matter). The similar thing about the ripoffs was that they lost all the political subtext that made "Dirty Harry" so strong a film. It became all about going after some big drug dealer or crime syndicate, and there was nothing political about that.
When it came to 1970's movies getting ripped off, the only other movies that were stolen from as much were all the ones starring Bruce Lee.
"Dirty Harry" apparently also boasts the first homosexual date in cinema history as seen through Scorpio's scope rifle. Quentin said it was the first instance of unforced male sexuality in movies, and he still remembers audiences laughing at when he first saw it. Back then, he thought the audience wanted this couple killed, pointing out that they were not as enlightened as we are today, and that they were culpable for their "sinister intentions."
Hearing these two great filmmakers talk about the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood classic made for one of the most interesting evenings I have spent at New Beverly Cinema. A new generation of audiences will look at "Dirty Harry" differently may see it as tame compared to plethora of serial killers we in movies today. With the popularity of "The Silence Of The Lambs" and the "Saw" movies among others, serial killers have long been the norm of American cinema, so the accomplishments of the 1971 are somewhat diluted as a result.
Thanks to Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino, we are reminded of "Dirty Harry's" place in cinematic history, and how it opened doors not just for Eastwood who made the transition from westerns to other films, but so many other movies as well (for better or worse).
It was a fun filled evening listening to these two, and I am sure there are many more of them to come.
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