the enforcer (1976)

eastwood's third outing as dirty harry see's our eponymous hero dealing with such arduous challenges as discrimination and progression. for here we see harry partnered with a female inspector whilst having to deal with a gang of socialist terrorists. kinda. its fairly confusing as to what exactly the terrorists represent, but its some sort of veiled attack on socialism by the producers i think. oh and one of them is a priest of sorts. its all a bit odd really, but harry as a character is so entertaining that all of these problems are disguised adequetly.

it was with "the enforcer" that i noticed that the dirty harry films are kind of like an alternative bond franchise. it has a similiar structure to each episode, much in the same manner that the bond films work.

magnum force (1973)

the follow up to dirty harry doesnt reach the heights of its predecessors but it does raise some interesting notions. for a start we receive an insight into harry's personal politics, revealing much of his character. for example, the presumed rebel without a cause of the first film, with his instinctful, shoot from the hip attitude is revealed to be more of a rebel within reason, when confronted with some genuinely provocative workmates. a respect for order from the chaotic maverick is found, and while it may be considered contradictory a trait by some, i would argue that it adds a level of depth to the character that was previously missing.

of course there are a couple of qualms with the project. for a start the age old rule of sequel's going for the "bigger is better" attitude of including more villains applies here, and while david soul is surprisingly creepy, hes no match for andrew robinson as the previous films scorpio, nor are the assortment of other bad guys. also, the previous film ended with harry effectively quitting the force, by throwing his badge into the watering hole that signified scorpio's demise, yet no mention of this is made by harry (or indeed anyone else) throughout magnum force.

dirty harry (1971)

its been a while since i had seen dirty harry, at least four years. in those four years david fincher's masterful "zodiac" (2007) has been and gone, and one of my big worries that came with that films success was that i may not be able to take don seagal's unofficial take on san fransisco's zodiac killing's seriously under this new light. im pleased to report that that wasnt the case, and that i can extend my disbelief far enough to forgive any of the films shortcomings, at least when it comes to the very hollywood take on what was a pretty distressing period in san francisco' recent history.

san fransisco is the unbilled co-star in the first dirty harry film. in fact it was through this viewer's research of the city of san fransisco that he found out about the film, from an academic point of view at least. a few years back i was looking at sitting my masters degree at the san fransisco academy of art, when, through the program for the university, in a section on notable films shot in the city that i first delved into this, the first in eastwood's flagship franchise (alongside such other films as hitchcock's "vertigo" (1958) and orson welles' often overlooked "the lady from shanghai" (1947); incidently, soon to be remade, in name at least, by wong kar-wai)

the character of 'scorpio', billed simply as "the killer" in the credits of the film, is based loosely on that of the zodiac killer. i say loosely because very little was known about the zodiac killer, as anyone who's seen fincher film will attest to. the style of the character is drawn from that of the zodiac, the way the character manipulated and used the media to accomplish his task is exagerated in "dirty harry" (see the use of the media during the killers scene in the hospital, post staged-beating) from that of the real case, and while little focus is made of the print industry's involvement, mention is made.


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