Spaghetti Western maestro Sergio Leone started Eastwood on his long,
brilliant career as an avenging angel, fueled by scorched-earth rage. From the
opening shot in "Dirty Harry" of a memorial to San Francisco police officers who
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died in the line of duty, everything works to wind up your -- and protagonist
Harry Callahan's -- anger quotient. The mayor and the cops are hamstrung by the
law and given to appeasing bad guys. We're utterly repelled by Scorpio, a wimpy
killer who gets off on long-distance sniping, first offing a woman, then a
child. His piglike scream when he takes a bullet and his shamelessly
self-serving "I've got rights!" makes one's blood boil. But, face it, Scorpio's
just fodder for the fire. Callahan's an eternally pissed-off cat, a time bomb
from the get-go. A moral pragmatist, he's a sexier, jollier Jack Bauer: Dead
center in a football stadium, Harry furiously grinds his foot into Scorpio's
wounds and perhaps worse, the camera cranes tactfully upward so that we are
spared the ugly details. (Everett Collection)Close
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