Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15646 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-07-04
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Whether or not you can sympathise with its fascistic/vigilante approach to law enforcement, Dirty Harry (directed by star Clint Eastwood's longtime friend and directorial mentor, Don Siegel) is one hell of an American cop thriller. The movie makes evocative use of its San Francisco locations as cop Harry Callahan (Eastwood) tracks the elusive "Scorpio killer" who has been terrorising the city by the Bay. As the psychopath's trail grows hotter, Harry becomes increasingly impatient and intolerant of the frustrating obstacles (departmental red tape, individuals' civil rights) that he feels are keeping him from doing his job. A characteristically taut and tense piece of filmmaking from Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Shootist, Escape from Alcatraz), it also remains a fascinating slice of American pop culture. It was a big hit (followed by four sequels) that obviously reflected--or exploited--the almost obsessive or paranoid fears and frustrations many Americans felt about crime in the streets. At a time when "law and order" was a familiar slogan for political candidates, Harry Callahan may have represented neither, but from his point of view his job was simple: stop criminals. To him that end justified any means he deemed necessary. --Jim Emerson

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
A tremendously controversial film, both decried as an apologia for fascism and hailed as the solution to a decade of rising crime, DIRTY HARRY propelled Clint Eastwood's career into the stratosphere while adding another archetype to join his Man with No Name in film iconography. Clint stars as Harry Callahan, a truculent San Francisco police detective well known for his vicious take-no-prisoners attitude toward criminals. With the city of San Francisco being terrorized by the psychotic killer known only as Scorpio (a character that is firmly based on San Francisco's Zodiac Killer), Harry is assigned by the mayor (John Vernon) and Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) to try to stop him, pairing him with reluctantly accepted new partner Chico (Reni Santoni). Scorpio kidnaps a 14-year-old girl and buries her alive, demanding a $200,000 ransom for her return. Harry is to bring him the money--alone.

What follows is one of the most exciting ransom deliveries in film history. The prototype for most of the action films through the rest of the century, DIRTY HARRY rises far above most of them due mostly to an excellent script and Eastwood's gripping acting. That said, the main character's contemptuous attitude toward the Miranda law seems far more damning now that it did in the early 1970s.

Callahan's exploits proved extremely popular and the inevitable sequel, MAGNUM FORCE was released two years later, and in turn was followed by a further three sequels, THE ENFORCER (1976), SUDDEN IMPACT (1983) and THE DEAD POOL (1989). Though the sequels are of varying quality, none diminish the importance of the original, which is now considered a classic.

Customer Reviews

Easily the best of the Dirty Harry collection
"You've got to ask yourself, do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" - This film is just superb, from the excellent camera work showing of the San Francisco location well, to the genius of Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack. For me, Clint Eastwood is not a great actor, but in this role he excels. His character is humourous yet serious, and has a dark side that you just have to take notice of. Andy Robinson is the crazy 'Scorpio' who holds the city at ransom. The plot is far fetched, which is no great surprise, but you're hooked until Scorpio is disposed of. I own this on VHS also, but the DVD is a must for the picture and sound quality. Don't buy the special edition, save yourself some cash and buy the regular version - the extra 30 minute documentary is not worth paying for. But the film is definately worth the money, buy it, watch it and savour it.

HUGELY INFLUENTIAL CLINT EASTWOOD THRILLER !
What can I say? DIRTY HARRY is a classic, slick action masterpiece which started off the renegade cop genre. Some may argue that it was THE FRENCH CONNECTION, but DH is a better film, as it's more exciting, humorous and offers more food for thought regarding its protagonist. Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan is a San Francisco cop, relentless, bitter, jaded and extremely tough, who never lets anything get in his way when he's hunting criminals. Whether it be shooting a would-be rapist armed with a butcher knife or injuring a murder suspect in order to extract a confession from him, Harry immediately dispenses with the 'niceties' of the law so that he can get results. My favourite scenes of the film are when Harry foils a bank robbery with his awesome .44 Magnum handgun, when he chases mad killer Scorpio to the football ground and the action-packed finale featuring the timeless ' do you feel lucky?' line. I was amazed to find out that John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Bob Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and even Paul Newman were offered the role of Dirty Harry. With the right amount of wit, cynicism and all-out hardness, this is Clint's role. Andy Robinson did a sterling job as well, portraying the twisted psychopathic gunman, dubbed 'Scorpio'. He must be one of THE most imitated bad guys in the history of action thrillers. These days, they don't come any better than this.

You lookin' at me punk?
In the 70's, movies were getting a bit more violent, and moving towards action rather than the 60s western, where the good guys always won. Don Segal decided to focus on cops that were not prepared to follow the new policing rules, and handled things in their own way. Bring on Inspector Callahan, a no nonsense cop in a crazy world, where drugs, muggings and bank robberies were a daily occurance in San Francisco. Harry wasn't ready to let it all go to hell, he was ready to fight.

This is the first outing for Harry, and the first few minutes of the movie show us that Harry isn't going to back down or "go soft", just because they mayor wants him to stop pulling out his Magnum 45, a very powerful handgun, and start laying down the law, and bringing the state police a lot of charges to them. So his boss Bresslier has just had enough, and places him with rookie cop Chico Gonzalez, who's more suited to a classroom than to the confinment of police life. The guys are sent out on a mission to arrest a crazed man who's going to kill a child or a black person for $1million, so Harry has to act quick.

The film follows Harry as he makes his investigations of crimes, like when Scorpio kills a child on the beach, shoots a black man in the middle of a green and the threats he keeps sending them through the San Francisco Cronicle.

Gonzarles finds out why Harry's called "Dirty Harry", because he has to do every bad job around, as he gets called to a guy ready to jump. Of course, Harry gets him down, but it's not usual methods he uses.

The film has great scenes, like when Harry goes up to one of the gunmen after the bank robbery and makes his legendary speech; which makes the man very scared because he's playing Russian Roulette with his life. Harry knows well what's going on, but he likes to use fear to make people do what they have to do. Another example is when he makes it to the football ground and finds Scorpio, and runs to the middle of the field, and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't help him find the little girl.

The music is excellent in this film, Lalo Schifrin, with his jazzy and funky soundtrack which illustrates the highs and lows. The music compliments the pictures, and brings a certain mood to the picture. The instrumentation is excellent, and the use of strings to bring preasure is just perfect.

The film also brings in a lot of personal feelings, like when Scorpio uses the media to make him look like the victime, this is quite a new skill used by Don Segal, and was quite revolutionary. Also Harry's attitude is well documented, with his masterpiece scene in the DA's office "What about that girl's rights?" He brought up quite a few things to think about, which is always good in a movie of this genre.

In conclusion, this film is great, the scenes are well done and well filmed for their time; and the remastering brings a lot of colour to the screen and texture to the soundtrack. Listening to this in 5.1 surround gives it a whole different angle, which is amazing. Also the script is of a high class. If you don't get this, you're missing out on the best cop movie ever made. Clint Eastwood and Andrew Robinson made the movie what it is, great direction from Don Segal. You won't regret this purchase.