Warner - Dirty Harry Documentaries (2008)Part 1 Dirty Harry The Original

In 1971, during a time of massive transition in Hollywood and of social upheaval in America at large, director Don Siegel and actor Clint Eastwood created one of the most memorable figures in all of action cinema, a bad-tempered San Francisco policeman “Dirty” Harry Callahan, not averse to bending the rules to get his man. The maniacal 'Scorpio Killer' is on the loose and Callahan disregards procedure in his efforts to track him down, using his trusty Magnum .44 to dispense his own brand of justice. A cop whose disdain for bureaucracy led to unconventional methods — such as torturing a suspect in order to extract information — Callahan could be viewed as a maverick hero or a fascist psychopath, depending on one's political persuasion. Siegel's ambivalent presentation and Eastwood's stoic mannerisms left plenty of ambiguous shadings for the viewer to consider. While critics of the time debated the value of Siegel's violent vision, audiences recognized a new kind of action hero and made the movie a smash hit. The character would eventually go on to appear in four popular sequels, Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988).

Part 1 Dirty Harry The Original

Jerry Hogrewe's 2001 retrospective documentary on the Dirty Harry franchise hosted by Robert Urich, a bad cop officer Grimes in the second Dirty Harry film “Magnum Force”. This 30-minute documentary includes a wealth of interviewees, like Eastwood, John Milius, Hal Holbrook, Ted Post and even Arnold Schwarzenegger commenting on how Eastwood's character was one of his inspirations. Clint contributes the most, revealing how he and Siegel planned to set the movie in the less filmed Seattle, but “it's hard to go past San Francisco”, as he says, and there the movie took root. Arnold Schwarzenegger offers up his thoughts on the appeal of the character, which for him is that Harry can “blast criminals away” while eating a burger.

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