Dirty Harry
Created by	Harry Julian Fink R. M. Fink
Original work	Dirty Harry (1971)
Owner	Warner Bros.
Years	1971–1988
Print publications
Novel(s)	List of novels
Films and television
Film(s)	Dirty Harry (1971) Magnum Force (1973) The Enforcer (1976) Sudden Impact (1983) The Dead Pool (1988)
Games
Video game(s)	Dirty Harry Dirty Harry (cancelled)
Miscellaneous
Pinball	Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry is an Americanaction thriller film series featuringSan Francisco Police Department Homicide Division Inspector"Dirty" Harry Callahan. The five films are:Dirty Harry (1971),Magnum Force (1973),The Enforcer (1976),Sudden Impact (1983), andThe Dead Pool (1988).Clint Eastwood portrayed Callahan in all five films and directedSudden Impact.

Callahan is notorious for his unorthodox, violent, and ruthless methods against the criminals and killers he is assigned to apprehend. At the same time, he is assigned a partner who is usually either killed or seriously injured during the film.Clint Eastwood was the only actor to have appeared in all five films.

Dirty Harry (1971) was directed byDon Siegel, and starredClint Eastwood as Harry Callahan. Harry tracksserial killer Scorpio (loosely based on theZodiac killer). Eastwood's iconic portrayal of the blunt-speaking, unorthodox detective set the style for a number of his subsequent roles, and its box-office success led to the production of foursequels. The "alienated cop" motif was subsequently imitated by a number of other films. Early on in the movie, Callahan corners a bank robber and says, "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well, do ya, punk?". The line became famous, although often misquoted as "Do you feel lucky, punk?"; the second movie,Magnum Force, opens with Harry asking, "Do you feel lucky?"

It was thefourth-highest-grossing film of 1971 afterFiddler on the Roof,The French Connection, andDiamonds Are Forever.

Magnum Force (1973) was directed byTed Post. The main theme of this film isvigilante justice, and the plot revolves around a group of renegade traffic cops who are executing criminals who have avoided conviction in court. Despite Harry's penchant for strong-arm methods, he does not tolerate coldblooded murder of the accused and resolves to stop the killers. In this film, Harry's catch-phrase is "A man's got to know his limitations."

The Enforcer (1976) was directed byJames Fargo. In this film, Harry is teamed with a female partner with no field experience (in 1976, American women had only recently been allowed to fill patrol and investigative assignments in most police bureaus), Inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), as they take on aterrorist ring calling themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force. Harry opposes introducing inexperienced officers to the dangers of police work, whether male or female, and sees the homicide division as too dangerous for his new partner, who worked until recently in the personnel department. Though Moore starts out overenthusiastic, she soon proves herself valuable to Harry and matures quickly, earning his respect in the process.

Sudden Impact (1983) was directed by Clint Eastwood. Aging, but still bitter, Callahan is sent to a small town to follow up a lead in a murder case, which leads him directly to a rape victim who is out to avenge herself and hercatatonic sister by killing the people who sexually assaulted them. The film is notable for Callahan's catchphrase, "Go ahead, make my day".

The Dead Pool (1988) was directed byBuddy Van Horn. Harry finds that he is among the subjects of adead pool, a game betting on deaths of celebrities. Someone tries to rig the game by killing the celebrities on one player's list. Harry's catch phrase in this movie was "You're shit out of luck".

After this film, Eastwood retired from playing theDirty Harry character, as he felt his age (58 in 1988) would make Harry a parody.

Frank Miller, creator of theSin Citygraphic novels, revealed in an interview that he created theSin City story-arcThat Yellow Bastard out of his dislike ofThe Dead Pool. Miller said: "When I went to see the lastDirty Harry movie,The Dead Pool, I was disgusted. I went out and said, this is not aDirty Harry movie, this is nothing, this is a pale sequel." and I also said, "that's not the lastDirty Harry story, I will show you the lastDirty Harry story."^[12] A character in theThat Yellow Bastard story isNancy Callahan, named after Harry Callahan.

Bruce Willis played Hartigan, the "Dirty Harry of the story", in theSin City (2005) film.

This 1985 film featuringJackie Chan was Chan's second American feature film. The movie was noted for being similar to theDirty Harry series, with inspiration taken from there by directorJames Glickenhaus.

Directed by and co-starring Clint Eastwood, the film features an aging, tough cop who partners with a rookie cop, played byCharlie Sheen. Upon the film's release, critics and audiences noted the similarities between Eastwood's two characters.^[13]

Eastwood returned to acting after a four-year, self-imposed hiatus^[14] in this 2008 film, which he also directed and produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle andJamie Cullum, Eastwood playsWalt Kowalski, a recently widowedKorean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world. Walt's young neighbor,Thao Vang Lor, is pressured into stealing Walt's prized 1972 FordGran Torino by his cousin for his initiation into a gang. Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family.

Biographer Marc Eliot called Eastwood's role "an amalgam of theMan with No Name, Dirty Harry, andWilliam Munny, here, aged and cynical, but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose".^[15]Manohla Dargis compared Eastwood's presence on film toDirty Harry and the Man with No Name, stating: "Dirty Harry is back, in a way, inGran Torino, not as a character but as a ghostly presence. He hovers in the film, in its themes and high-caliber imagery, and of course, most obviously in Mr. Eastwood's face. It is a monumental face now, so puckered and pleated that it no longer looks merely weathered, as it has for decades, but seems closer to petrified wood."^[16]

Tania Modleski, author ofClint Eastwood and Male Weepies, said, "[f]or many reviewers,Gran Torino represents the final step in Eastwood's repudiation of the Dirty Harry persona. IfUnforgiven ends up being equivocal in its attitude toward violence and vigilantism,Gran Torino appears to accept the impotence of the lone, avenging hero" and that the impotence "is perhaps underlined by Walt's repeated gesture of pointing his finger at villains as if it were a gun."^[17] Amy Biancolli of theHouston Chronicle said that though Walt, an "old fart", does not have the same name as Dirty Harry, "there's no mistaking the rasp in his voice or the uncompromising crankiness of hisWeltanschauung."^[18] Tom Charity ofCNN said of Walt: "Like other Eastwood heroes before him, Walt sacrifices his independence by accepting that others depend on him."^[19] John Serba ofThe Grand Rapids Press said that Walt, who is "bitter, hopelessly cranky," "shares a sense of moral certainty" with Callahan, but that Walt "is infused with the wisdom and weariness" that Callahan does not have.^[20]

Warner Home Video owns rights to theDirty Harry series. The five films have been remastered for DVD three times — in 1998, 2001, and 2008. They have been packaged in several DVD box sets. TheDirty Harry films made their high-definition debuts with the 2008 Blu-ray discs. Warner's marketing plan called for onlyThe Dead Pool to be available as a separate Blu-ray, requiring fans who want the other four movies in high definition to buy the box set.^[21] In 2010, all five movies were released as a Blu-ray box set,Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry Collection.

In the early 1980s,Warner Books published 12 books, authored under the pseudonymDane Hartman, that further the adventures of Dirty Harry. The novels were later translated intoFrench in the 1990s, as theCollection Supercops.^[22]

In 1995,Williams Electronic Games created aDirty Harry pinball machine, inspired by the 1971 film. 4,248 units were manufactured. Notable features include a gun-handle shooter, a moving cannon used to shoot playfield targets, and custom audio callouts recorded by Clint Eastwood. Game modes, sounds, and dot-matrix animations reflect events in the film, such as a car chase, barroom brawl, defusing bombs, and "Feel Lucky" mode.^[23]

Dirty Harry is a 1990 video game based onDirty Harry film series. It incorporates several references to the film series.

Dirty Harry, originally scheduled for a 2007 release, is a canceled video game byThe Collective based on the 1971 film of the same name.

• Dirty Harry filming locations
• The BestDirty Harry Movies from American Movie Classics

• Film series introduced in 1971
• Dirty Harry
• Action film series
• American police detective films
• Warner Bros. Pictures franchises
• American vigilante films
• 1970s English-language films
• 1980s English-language films
• English-language action thriller films

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