Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)

I agree with John Milius who wrote a draft of the screenplay: "I don't think it's so brilliantly written or so brilliantly acted. Siegel can take more credit than anyone for it." I couldn't care less about (the) acting. But the screenplay, whoa boy! Do a shot every time you hear a character utter some variation on "Well, that's why they call him Dirty Harry" and you'll be in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning by the end credits. Dirty Harry is Corn Central which is the fate of a first entry in a new genre, assuming that such a designation is true (or even can be true). But I trust that plenty of viewers in 1971 didn't need to wait for all the copycat films and television shows (and parodies) to detect the film's corniness.

That leaves Siegel, an adept genre director. To be sure, he's created an adept genre film here. The climactic counterpoint of the children singing on the bus while the sniveling psychopath Scorpio (Andy Robinson) attempts to send them to their doom is classic thriller architecture. And the famous shot when the camera blows back while the law-unabiding Harry tortures a confession out of Scorpio at Kezar Stadium is worthy of all the commentary it has engendered. To many minds, this moment proves that Siegel is trying to distance himself from Harry's psychotic behavior. I find this impossible to accept because the viewer knows more than Harry every step of the way. We know Scorpio is guilty. So who needs evidence? We already have it.

But who cares if this film is right wing or left wing, if it supports Harry stepping outside of the law or stands at a distance from his vigilantism, or both? As typical Hollywood product, it can only imagine individual solutions to systemic societal problems. It's called Dirty Harry, not Dirty Police Force or Dirty Urban Planning or Dirty Nixonian Politics of Resentment.

Grade: C+