Magnum Force (partially NRR)
Strider79it
1,176 Posts
OK I know these days its extremely easy to talk good abt Clint Eastwood (..especially if you are european and usually over-all left-winged oriented) but for what its worth, I would like to spend a word for the high quality of his so called "action" movies of the 70's especially if you compare those with today standards ).......we should recognize that he gave the Callahan character a compelling reading so that (differently from his colleagues in the "shoot em up" field, you name them) he frequently developed it 'till this day ("with Blood Work") ........of course we are talkin of nothing else than 90 minutes of entertainment, but since here I saw posts abt how good movies like "commando" are........... 
and props to the schifrin scoring, for incorporating 
jazzy jamming funk in his high relevant musical work of composer.........something that was not so easy at the time and in a field of highly conservative minded people so..... [color:red] do you feel lucky ? [/color] [/b] 
and props to the schifrin scoring, for incorporating jazzy jamming funk in his high relevant musical work of composer.........something that was not so easy at the time and in a field of highly conservative minded people so..... [color:red] do you feel lucky ? [/color] [/b]
Comments
"c mon Go ahead. Make my day."
I don't get it. Do left wing Europeans have a soft spot for Republicans (albeit a relatively moderate Republican)?
...and even worse, imagine being from Boston and hearing all those method actors butcher the accents...ugh...and everyone around here, even my friends who usually knowz the dealz, "loving it" just because it was shot locally...remind me again, who was I supposed to like in that movie?
For a much better take on essentially the same film, try Monument Ave.
what? the last line of the film is rad! it still makes me laugh....!!
however the first couple especially can be seen as reactionary responses to the 60s civil rights, anti-vietnam, hippy movements. Dirty Harry was the vigilante cop that was bringing law and order back to CA which had been ruined by the baby boomers who smoked dope, acted crazy and wanted equality. In the first Dirty Harry Scorpio, the killer has a little peace symbol on his belt. In later movies he's fighting against revolutionaries trying to kidnap the mayor, beating up and arresting black power members, etc. He was just the kind of figure and idea that got Ronald Reagan and the conservatives Republican agenda begun in CA in the late 60s that would eventually lead to Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush W. as presidents.
i still like the movies though for entertainment
D. Harry is also a blues afficianado right? and plays sax or trumpet or something? He narrates/hosts a PBS special from a couple-few years ago.
1)
damn," it started with "mystic river", and with the "million $ baby" it has arrived to cyclopic proportions : I don't know how to explain well in english, but every damn politically correct mutha, today claim to be Eastwood admirers.......I mean the dude is a bastard for sure, if you give a look at his life off screen,you realize that his OWN personality is really near to the tough guys he play on the screen.....of course today that the right wing is also represented by ann couric people will think Clint should be honored and all the critics he had in the 70's from left winged critics claiming he was a fascist now thwy changed opinion and pay him the highest honors.. ....instead,I mean nothing is more far from "polically correct" than Clint Eastwood........the mainstream now think he touched socially releveant topics as pedophilia and eutanasia but I still see the conservative reactionary view in those movie...........(why in the last movie the fame of 5 minutes is considered the highest honor for the poors, like the girl die happy cause she had something like success,something that others can only dream of? ..this view, IMO justify today kind of society,where is important craving for competition in life, no matter the price...just my 2 cents anyway
2)
I respect this outlook, but I don't agree......of course in the 70's streets were considered dangerous and also in Italy there were "red brigate" that was extreme left-wing terrorists and you could being blow up while walkin around..........so of course in those times the people were feeling the message of "good vs bad" that these not-ambitious movies were giving......but I don't think abt the callahan character as a fascist , cause thanks also to Don Siegel, it is really realistic in the portraying of a loner ,wife died,with lacking of social skills that struggle with the burocracy so heavy in the post 68 era....the same law burocracy that nowaday allow killers go out of the jail so easily (at least in Italy)
....in the movie there are different traces of that....
when they say "harry hate everyones mexs, blacks,asian,etc,name "...then he blink at his fellow officer, implying that he is jokin to scare the young colleague......
the scorpio character is crazy ex soldier that lost touch with reality now full of pacifists, the movie suggest for the Vietnam experience, not differently from the Rambo character that in the reagan era become the Hero
in the end, after killing the madman (not before scorpio tryed to pick up the gun and shoot him once again) he throw away his badge, and as you know fascists think they are right and represent the good and order in society.......of course they wouldn't throw away the symbol of their service to the country after they did the job for what the society should thanks him...
and in the 2nd movie (Magnum Force) the menace come from inside the police, to let everybody know harry is still officer and he still deny to be the judge that the bad policemen in the movie want to be
so in conclusion I think the character is a product of the 70's and just like every character out of movies in that era, is more complex than what a first glance may would suggest
3)
of course he is serious collector and I may suggest to watch his first movie as a director called Play "Misty for Me" where cannonball himself play for some minutes on screen it's 70's stuff
softspoken and badass for sure, but I wouldn't say he has sense of humor....
at least not in the traditional way
Oh, I think he has a sense of humor....ever seen "The Gauntlet" or "Any Which Way But Loose"? Or "Bronco Billy"? I don't know how he is personally, but he has displayed some great comedic timing in my opinion. Limited, but nice.
CLASSIC RIGHT THERE!!!! Sure it's got it's obvious comedic moments (Clint does have that timing for real), but the over-the-top nature of the action is hilarious too.. and probably goes right over the heads of people who are used to seeing action movie excess like houses riddled with so many bullets that they tip over. Highly recommended.
[hijack]
But I gotta say Sam Peckinpah wins my vote in the "most violent yet sensitive 60s-70s film icon hated by lefties as a fascist in his day but now idolized by them as a genius in his death" sweepstakes. Just watched ALFREDO GARCIA last night for the 4th or 5th time - now THAT'S a flick. And for those who dug THE GAUNTLET, the same style of highbrow action laffs are also included in Peckinpah's excellent but over-the-top KILLER ELITE with Caan & Duvall.
Shoutout to FREEBIE & THE BEAN - where's the widescreen DVD man!!
[/hijack]
Nah, man. Although I kinda see where you're coming from, I don't agree. Success is a form of respect, and who doesn't want to be respected (yes Omar Credle). She followed her dream, did her thing, and got recognized for it-- the fame you speak of is a by-product of that. It's never claimed in the film that everyone needs to set their goals as high as she did.
Dirty Harry's character fits in perfectly with this idea that CA needed "Law and order" and vigilante cops to "right" the "wrong" of the 60s. Hence he's blasting away black power dudes and Scorpio who as you yourself pointed out is a symbol of the problems of the 60s. Well shit, if these baby boomers are going to get all messed up by Vietnam and turn into serial killers the answer is a vigilante cop like Dirty Harry who doesn't believe in Due Process or the legal system and ends up stalking him and then killing him in the end. Remember the scene where he gets all pissed off at the D.A. during the 1st movie? Well here you have the "liberal" D.A. talking about the rights of the accused and Harry saying what about the rights of the victims? That's a typical conservative argument. And Harry might have thrown away his badge at the end, but he was back for part 2, 3, etc. wasn't he? And he could be disgusted with the liberal justice system and the cowardly mayor at the end of the 1st movie anyway that had allowed Scorpio to run amok so long anyway.
....I have slightly different opinion of what is success and however never liked the idea behind the struggle of becoming "someone" to emerge from the crowd.....
you do something ....you do right because you want to reach your goal......
but the basic form of respect should be dued anyway........
I mean the Clint character dislike the woman so sotrongly, but just because the girl had strong ambition to become a champion at 30 years old, and prove him wrong...than he start treating her as daughter......that's still make him an asshole......
now, even Hitler had strong ambitions and he near succeed in his goal.......should we respect him for that ? ok maybe I'm talkin too much ......
again, just my 2 cents for the love of talkin.......
nuff said.
oh you know I understand what you tell me abt california social problems as in Italy even if we didn't have mainstream white middle class dealing with black power and hippie movements, we do had (did have ?
back to the movie reading,I agree the character is conservative (as many cops are in real life )and it devolved badly in the 80's
but watching the movie I didn't get the political idea of this should be the norm, and surely in that last situation portrayed in the 1st movie
even a "left winged" as me think that a cop has the right of stopping the killing of many children in danger ...... no matter the background of scorpio
however you put it, the movie end sadly,even if the bad guy die.
I see here the difference with many shoot' em up of the past
but in a better sense, I never thought abt the movie and character as a big political statement ....... I always been impressed by the portraying of the loner behind the 44 magnum...my 2 cents