DIRTY HARRY

also I never really cared to think about it until I watched some of the DVD special features but yeah lol they have a Pauline Kael-alike as one of the victims in Dead Pool

Saving grace is being set in SF.

Also, lol @ cops being all pro-spirit-of-the-law.

good I was hoping for some serious challops

Jim Carrey's finest hour = dying in The Dead Pool after failing to lip-sync "Welcome to the Jungle" properly with a corpse under Liam Neeson's direction.

Wait.

Ned, explain.

don siegel was such a perfect director for this material. you want challops, how about pauline kael being a terrible film critic (but fun to read)

I dunno if i'm as mean as Ned but it does rate as one of the all-time best "wait a minute is that who I think it is" moments in classic cinema

after reading about Andy Robinson's career and death threats following his Scorpio performance I can't help but feel pretty sorry for him

Why libcrypt, do you seriously not know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfGLwl0XK_4

Enjoy. Really.

also, AL POPWELL

Never seen Dead Pool. Just the first Dirty Harry, a couple times.

If only Slash played a guitar solo during the funeral scene.

(As it is, he just stands there with the rest of the band, minus Axl of course.)

jom carry in a dirty haret movie? mhy wofrd

after reading about Andy Robinson's career and death threats following his Scorpio performance I can't help but feel pretty sorry for him

Robinson couldn't fire a gun without screwing his eyes shut and flinching, so they had to stop filming and send him off to a shooting range for a couple of days. Even after that you can still see him blinking whenever he fires. His performance is excellent though, just the simple bit where he's walking across the rooftop tearing up the piece of newspaper does so much to establish that the character is evil.

just as long as you tell me we both didn't learn that from wikipedia

Dead Pool is great... You forgot your fortune cookie; it says you're shit out of luck.

(xpost) it's mentioned in his interview on the DVD

Swell.

liked the bit in 'zodiac' where the cops are all ;_; at the dirty harry premiere

that is in fact what reminded me to go ahead and buy the box set

we had us a thread (was bumped a coupla months ago for the new box set, i think).

sudden impact shouldn't really be included in future box sets.

who was it said 'every frame votes nixon' about the first one?

yeah scorpio = most frightening screen villain ever.

btw this shit looks GREAT on Blu-Ray. Bought the box set last month, and whoever did the 1080p mastering should get an award. Just the right amount of grain to reflect that 70's Technicolor look accurately, while looking sharper than I've ever seen it. The opening scene of the first film alone, with the misty red blood in the pool with the bright green bottom over the industrial SF landscape - incredible.

the soundtrack to the first movie is hell of solid

btw this shit looks GREAT on Blu-Ray. Bought the box set last month, and whoever did the 1080p mastering should get an award.

OK, that convinces me to get a Blu-Ray player. Is there a region-free one yet?

I heart these movies so much

the first "dirty harry" at least is fantastic. i love that shot where the camera just flies back when harry finally confronts scorpio on the football field.

I like the way he's still chewing on his hot dog while he's shooting the bank robbers, shouting "HALT!" with a mouthful of bread and whatever goes into hot dogs.

whatever goes into hot dogs

And, of course, no ketchup.

Which inadvertantly reminds me of this:

http://www.straightdope.com/art/1991/910830.gif

haha him eating his hotdog lunch while he polishes off the bank robbers is fantastic

Wish I could find Pauline Kael's review.

Haha, this thread is *already* in the top ten on Google when searching: kael dirty harry

(xxpost) also, Scorpio shooting up the "JESUS SAVES" sign while Chico and Harry are underneath it...

INTENTIONAL

Harry Callahan: Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That's my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How did you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher's knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross!
The Mayor: He's got a point.

I like the "product placement" where Harry uses Sc0tch Tap3 to attach a knife to his leg, I bet 3M were very pleased...

(xxpost) also, Scorpio shooting up the "JESUS SAVES" sign while Chico and Harry are underneath it...

-- snoball, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 5:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

INTENTIONAL

Yeah, see also Harry getting pwned by Scorpio underneath the cross.

Guy wanting to set himself on fire on TV in the Dead Pool:

"She's right. Oh you can set yourself into a bonfire, we'll break out the marshmallows and the weenies, but you ain't gonna be on 'News at Eleven'. "

on itv4 now if people want to suppress facebook failure trauma

I would join you, but I can't get ITV4 here.

Reni Santoni underrated, as Chico he provides a great foil to Harry.

don siegel was such a perfect director for this material. you want challops, how about pauline kael being a terrible film critic (but fun to read)

― velko

blu-ray excellent as noted upthread

Surprised at how much I liked this. Obviously you have to get past the anti-liberalism stuff, but it's so hackneyed that it's not hard to ignore. Many beautiful shots. Opening stalking sequence (rooftop pool) is terrific. Lots of cool low-light filming. Great score. The gunshot sound alone is iconic.

Didn't realize until looking it up that Robinson was also in Charley Varrick, another Siegel.

stadium scene also reminded me a bit of the Lee-Norris deathmatch in way of the dragon, which, I just realized, came out the next year.

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/16521.gif

i thought this movie was terrible.

what's the deal with Don Siegel? Was he conservative? Was he just a cynical hollywood guy feeding disgruntled white male america a caricature of its worldview?

It's grim viewing. By the end, the audience is ready quit along with Callahan.

Also, the money line from this is probably the most misquoted money line since "Alas, Poor Yorrick"

Nah i loved it - I saw it for the first time last year. The SCORE was fantastic. And all those old San Francisco locations! And I loved that the stadium scene wasn't even the finale of the movie...and yeah all that low lighting and stuff. Just great.

the phone booth sequence is kind of a brilliant bit of movie sadism, and of course there's also more heavy-handed jesus stuff going on there (hmm, he stops a bunch of different places and suffers on his way to a giant cross on a hill...)

ooh I didn't catch that

yeah it actually just hit me!

Awesome movie, one of my favorite of all time.

what's the deal with Don Siegel? Was he conservative?

siegel was not conservative. iirc from his book he enjoyed a friendly difference-of-opinion with eastwood.

love this movie so much, easily in my top 10 of the decade.

Siegel played this down the middle, as with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (is the message anti-Communist or anti-witch hunt?). The film doesn't cheerlead for Callahan much that I recall.

IDK, he's the only one with the *guts* to take out a serial killer that preys on children while a hamstrung police department and city government twiddles its thumbs. I'd say it cheers for him. Plus the serial killer has long hair, is effete and wears a peace sign belt. The snivelling appellate judge speaks up for the "rights" of the killer and makes the justice system sound foolish.

how bout the badge toss at the end? Seems like there's a new rogue killer on the loose.

I took that more as "if killing a serial killer is against the law than I don't wanna be the law.". Maybe you're right, but considering how many middle-aged frustrated white men seem to idolize dirty harry, I think you might be viewing things through left-colored glasses.

According to J. Hoberman in The Dream Life, Siegel, "who considered himself an anti-establishment liberal", wrote a letter of appreciation for Paul Nelson's review of DIRTY HARRY in Rolling Stone, wherein Nelson bracketed Harry with "the outlaws of THE WILD BUNCH... a 'dignified' abd 'honorable' anachronism."

I saw the film once in a rep theater maybe 15 years ago and haven't revisited it -- I have no doubt it was conceived and made for the reactionary half of Nixonland, but it was just ambiguous enough not to revolt me.

Callahan has one brief moment of humanity as I recall (concern for his wounded partner), but is pretty consistently portrayed as an unrepentant asshole.

yeah, the scene where he tells the partner's wife that actually she's right to think that it's better not to be a cop's wife, he also mentions that his own wife is dead, and says that he "doesn't know" why he's still a cop, and you genuinely believe him, like he really is just a sad, lost guy who obsessively pursues criminals because he doesn't know what the hell else to do with himself. Cop trope of course, but a good one.

It's worth noting that John Milius is an uncredited screenwriter on this and that the script was originally written for John Wayne (he turned it down because it was too violent). Frank Sinatra was attached at one point, but when he left the role then went to Eastwood. Eastwood then brought in Siegel.

that makes sense too. def has a Milius flavor

Funny to think about Sinatra as Dirty Harry

This section is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Harry#Production

I wonder how close to Tony Rome he would have played Callahan?

Believing the character was too "right-wing" for him, Newman suggested that the film would be a good vehicle for Eastwood.

Great quote from Mitchum. Eddie Coyle-era Mitchum as Callahan would have been a completely different movie, but love to imagine it.

Details about the film were first released in film industry trade papers in April, September and November 1970 with Frank Sinatra attached as Harry Callahan and Irvin Kershner listed as director and producer with Arthur Jacobson acting as associate producer.[2] Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, and Burt Lancaster were also offered the role.[2] Mitchum dismissed this totemic role as "a piece of junk."[9] In Dick Lochte‘s article, "Just One More Hangover: A Vodka-Soaked Afternoon with Robert Mitchum", he writes: Mitchum always got "those prices" in those days. "Somebody says, 'We really want you to do this script.' And I say, 'I'd need an awful lot of money in front to do that one.' And that never seems to be a problem. The less I like the script, the higher my price. And they pay. They may pay in yen, but they pay. Not that I'm a complete whore, understand. There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down Patton and I turned down Dirty Harry. Movies that piss on the world. If I've got $5 in my pocket, I don't need to make money that fucking way, daddy."

Aw man Mitchum as Harry. Just think!!

Love that line though - movies that piss on the world

I wonder which way he thought Patton was pissing?

Kael vs Callahan

http://musings.oscilloscope.net/post/183590587021/when-dirty-harry-fought-pauline-kael-by-keith

Having never seen The Dead Pool, I didn't know they inserted a female critic character to be offed.

well yknow representation

I'd never seen this movie before, only in bits. I thought it was kind of ... half-assed? A couple of remarkable moments and shots and scenes, a bunch of coasting, and some really distracting foley work. Granted, I could still discern its importance, iconic or otherwise, but a lot of it was kind of shoddy and tentative, imo. And the (maybe at the time shocking?) scene where the DA is rambling on and on about why they can't jail the killer (because Harry violated his rights so much, even though he did all that after said killer beat the shit out of *him*, which is pretty illegal) is as awkward and momentum killing as the pedantic ending of "Psycho."

lol @ the mayor screaming "where the hell are gonna get that kind of money!" in response to Scorpio's demand for $100,000.

Scorpio is the most terrifying 20th century non-Horror villain IMO.

Oh and here’s an interesting outtake from the Schifrin recording sessions

https://open.spotify.com/track/3JxdSNHSHgUzku7KIdHELI?si=nS9FkvgFQpOKDmQJBy_S8Q&dd=1

The score rules.

When Scorpio is on the bus and he looks up and sees Callahan on the bridge is a cool visual.

Coogan’s Bluff is the early Siegel/Eastwood movie that really shows its age. It’s hilarious to watch many sequences of that one with modern eyes.

Recently rewatched this. Even just projected onto the wall here, the cinematography and framing come together (esp on Harry's phone call sprint through the city) in a total "you are there" - you really do feel like you're running/lurking alongside him.