Warner - Dirty Harry Documentaries (2008) Part 6 The Craft 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 6 The Craft of Dirty Harry

A homage to the cinematographers, composers, editors, set designers and other collaborators who helped make the Dirty Harry series unforgettable. Clint Eastwood comments on his opinion of the auteur theory and we get interviews with the likes of Lalo Schifrin, James Fargo, Michael Madsen, Jay Cocks, David Ayer and several others as they talk about the importance of the editor, cinematographer as well as the composer. At the time, Lalo Schifrin was very much in demand as a composer for films, television, and records. Schifrin wrote music for five of director Don Siegel's films, three of which starred Clint Eastwood. But it was that first Harry Callahan film that captured the public fancy and would spawn four sequels, making Eastwood even more famous as a San Francisco detective than he had been as a western antihero. This featurette pays homage to the people behind the camera who usually don't get any credit for their work. We take a look at their role and comtribution to the series.

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