Warner - Dirty Harry Documentaries (2008)Part 3 A Moral Right The Politics of Dirty Harry

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 3 A Moral Right The Politics of Dirty Harry

An insightful look at the way in which the film's sense of morality – of right and wrong – is measured against the social climate of its time. Don Siegel's 1971 crime thriller Dirty Harry has become synonymous in the popular imagination with the practice of a certain kind of brutal utilitarian logic, “Dirty Harry ethics” in which the ends justify any means, however shocking, as long as they contribute to the greater good. At the time it came out, there was a view that Dirty Harry embodies a reactionary political agenda, endorsing violence as a simplistic solution to social problems. The Dirty Harry series is a fascinating study of an American period that begins with the disillusionment in the early 70s and ends with “Morning in America” Reagan era, and when the country was even more polarized than it is now, where words like “fascist” and “communist” were banded about too easily. Filmmakers, social scientists and authors take a provocative look at the moral, political and ethical themes of the Dirty Harry films.

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