DIRTY HARRY

     The anti-hero from spaghetti westerns and film noir comes to the police drama in this classic thriller from 1970. Detective Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) of San Francisco is determined to find serial killer Scorpio, no matter how many people he has to put in harm's way to do so!  A film that is a direct reaction to the attitudinal change in society and popular culture toward police in the 1960s, DIRTY HARRY presents a cop who knows evil when he sees it, whether it is in the soul of a serial killer or in the bureaucracy of a justice system that seems to give criminals more rights than victims.  If Eastwood wasn't already a cultural icon from his starring roles in Sergio Leone westerns, he certainly became one with DIRTY HARRY, a film so popular it inspired four sequels.  Best known for its "Do you feel lucky, punk?" speech (uttered twice by Eastwood), DIRTY HARRY still works because of Eastwood's sure-footed performance and for the incredible presence of unheralded actor Andy Robinson, who plays one of the creepiest serial killers you will ever see.  Smartly directed by Don Siegel (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), DIRTY HARRY is a tight thriller from the 1970s and a precursor to such film series as DEATH WISH, LETHAL WEAPON and DIE HARD.

SEQUELS

Magnum Force (1973)
The Enforcer (1976)
Sudden Impact (1983)
The Dead Pool (1988)