I watched the beginning of Dirty Harry on the telly (before remembering that I already have it on DVD), and have just heard Clint Eastwood deliver the first version of the do I feel lucky? speech. And I just want to say something that I have long felt, which is that he delivers the line, at least on that first occasion, very badly. They should have done a retake. The actual “do I feel lucky?” bit is gabbled, and you can hardly hear it. There should have been a slight pause between “you’ve got to ask yourself a question” and “do I feel lucky?”, but there is no pause. The sentences just before are fine, but this particular bit sounds like an uncomprehending read-through, not a performance at all. I realise they did not want to upstage the rerun of the same lines later in the movie, when the real Bad Guy is asked the same question, but I reckon they downplayed it too much.
Not that I blame Clint Eastwood. Or, I blame him only if he was the one who chose this particular take. But I presume that this was the director, or maybe the producer. Actors are usually helpless in circumstances like these. Time and again, they get called bad actors, when it was really bad directing and bad editing.
Otherwise, excellent movie entertainment, full of good sense about the deterrent value of chasing and punishing criminals and the pointlessness of worrying too much about what makes them become criminals. The important thing is to hunt them down and lock them up, or worse. (One of the biggest reasons why they become criminals being that they do not expect this to happen.) This is a lesson which the USA’s rulers now seem to be learning fast but which our rulers here in the UK (see the comments on Tuesday’s murder posting) are still only groping towards.
Most of the mere people in both countries have of course always known this.
Thank goodness for the movies. On this particular issue, insofar as they have argued anything at all, they have mostly argued very sensibly.
And let no one kid you that movies like Dirty Harry are just “mindless” entertainment. When people call a movie mindless, it generally means that it is actually rather mindful, but that the mindfulness involved is something that the complainer would rather not face. So, he claims that there is nothing to be faced. It was the same with the (ridiculously titled) Death Wish series. Those movies are crammed full of ideas.
And mostly very good ones. When Bronson chalked up his first kill in the first of these movies, cinemas everywhere erupted with spontaneous cheering.
When people call a movie mindless, it generally means that it is actually rather mindful, but that the mindfulness involved is something that the complainer would rather not face.
Steven Segal movies are mindless. Do tell me what I am missing? 🙂
2001 continues to be my favorite movie. It would have been better if more of the miserable British actors had been killed off, but the special effects are really special.
Movies can be educational. I have learned that cars are always full of fuel, a pistol can be fired one-handed yet the bullet impact will lift a person and throw them several feet, tyres make screechy noises on grass, windscreens remain clean even when driving long distances………….
I think i started out to make a point, but i have forgotten what it was.
I quite liked Dirty Harry. It includes one of the best lines ever:
“When a guy with a hard-on is naked, carrying a machete and chasing a woman, I guess he wasn’t collecting for the Red Cross”.
The DH film does, however, directly challenge the whole idea of search warrants, due process, etc. Not very libertarian in that sense.
Another, much better, Eastwood film has been on recently – hang ’em high.
This film addresses, reasonably effectively:
1. The legal differences between territory and statehood
2. The implications of the right of appeal
3. The dilemma of when an how to appease a vengeful mob
4. The pointlessness of vigilantism
5. The point, or not, of vengeance
6. The difficulty of wielding supreme power
I reckomend all Clint’s western films, includin the excellent Unforgiven, and High Plains Drifter, over any of the Dirty Harry nonsense.
DH is a (very cool and entertaining) vigilante. As Johnathan says, not very libertarian. More anarchistic.
Sure, the do-gooders are portrayed as bumbling fools, but in what movie are they not? If you ever get involved with the police, Brian, you might be grateful that they, and their forebears who limited exectutive power, existed.
J, I would say Outlaw Josey Wales is Clint’s finest western, but they are all really good. Unforgiven is just magnificent.
Speaking of movie lines, how would the song Springtime For Hitler gop if it were made today?
Springtime for Chimpie Cowboy Bushitler?
It’s worth noting that when ‘Dirty Harry’ was released, it was seized, not without reason, by the American left as proof of Clint Eastwood’s rather extreme form of crime prevention, and the left were somewhat nervous that it would cause copy-cat ‘justice’ to be perpetrated.
How the tables have turned! Eastwood releases ‘Million Dollar Baby,’ and the religious right are up in arms over the ending, which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it (as the right have done for me – thanks to those dimwits, I knew the ending before I saw the film, which is enough for me to hate those involved for ever) meaning that in the eyes of the American public, Eastwood has swung from dangerous vigilante to lily-livered pansy in the intervening time.
All this proves, really, is that people will seize, as this post has done, on any aspect of a film and try to extrapolate political points from it, when by and large films do not try to make politocal points at all, or at least not in a very serious way.
Looking at that comment, the end is a bit simplistic. Many, many films make a political point, but I don’t think that ‘Dirty Harry’ or ‘Million Dollar Baby’ can be read as campaign literature for anyone.
It is ironic that the actors in many of the “mindless” and violent films are often anti-gun and Liberal (not liberal) and are complete opposites of the characters they portray.
Bolie IV
I would say it’s more an old, bad lesson they are unlearning rather than any new lesson being learnt.
I agree, which is why I don’t think there is anything profound or particularly clever about these films. I think this piece says more about politicians than it does about movies.
From what I have read, Clint is a pretty libertarian sort of chap, in a roughly individualistic, distrust of government sort of way. Most of his films revolve around strong moral issues drawing on matters of personal responsibility, honour and justice, even in unconfortable ways, like Dirty Harry and Unforgiven.
I want to see Million Dollar Baby, even though some twit on a movie mag gave the ending away.
You are quite right, the line “Do I feel lucky” is indeed rather garbled in the movie, I was surprised by this when I first saw it quite some time ago. I believe the speech itself was written by John Milius, who is staunch on the issue of gun rights, but I think he had his name taken off the credits after a bust up with the director.
The Dirty Harry movies do have some great lines in them. My favourite is from, I think, Magnum Force, where Harry is reassigned to what we now know as Human Resources:
“Personnel? That’s for assholes.”
And Clint does get the timing of that line spot on. I find it helpful to remember this line when dealing with HR people.
Didn’t this used to be a libertarian website? Policemen are agents of the state, and the checks and balances which prevent them from acting like Dirty Harry were put there for entirely good reasons, by people who did not trust the state’s paid servants (with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence) to act honestly or decently. In fact, the most mindless thing in movies is the preponderance of policemen who act tough and break rules, but only when dealing with the guilty.
In related news, all the actual evidence from reported crime and from crime surveys, suggests that the methods of policing which have been used in the UK over the last ten years have been working really rather well. Crime is down, not up.
During those years, and to this day, the thinking of the real people was that too many violent criminals get off on legal technicalities. “Dirty Harry” was a (perhaps too) literal and simplistic reflection of this thinking. The pendulum has since swung the other way, especially if we can tag the indictee with the term “terrorist.”
If the poor guy follows Islam, or knows someone who does, there’s the danger.
I liked the movie, but I like the Bill of Rights even more.
Oh, dsquared, so the people put “entirely good and reasonable” restrictions on the police? Funny. I thought it was other “paid servants” like judges and Congressmen who did that, while pretending to serve the “interests of the people”, whatever that bit of collectivist mumbo-jumbo means.
Unforgiven is a great movie, Johnathan.
The Outlaw Josey Wales is very unusual in the Western genre. It is the funniest dead-pan Eastwood western, filled with politically incorrect humor, especially about American Indians.
It *is* a bit disquieting, really – I’m a libertarian who would normally cry foul if a policeman ignored due process, yet I love Dirty Harry still more every time I watch it (and yes, Brian, you’ve nailed the problem with the first ‘lucky’ speech). I can’t speak for Americans, but perhaps this contradiction is understandable in a society whose government takes a less-than-assertive approach towards crime? I’m incensed that as an English homeowner I still don’t have the legal right to use lethal force against a criminal invading my home, and so, the right to self-defence being one of the most fundamental rights (as has been elaborated upon time and again here), is it surprising that those of us who aren’t huge fans of the State’s police arm still cheer on a fictional maverick member of that arm who actually goes after criminals?
(Sorry about the inelegant sentence structure; bit pished.)
No no no, the LAW allows you to defend yourself! Never mind about the police who might decide that you haven’t used the right amount of force. Never mind about the CPS who can’t consider how actual people feel when crimes happen to them and how that affects their response. Don’t ask me to think about all that, it’s too much, I can’t stretch my tiny little mind! The letter of the law is the only factor that applies here! Not the police! The law! The law! The law!
No no no, the LAW allows you to defend yourself! Never mind about the police who might decide that you haven’t used the right amount of force. Never mind about the courts who can’t consider how actual people feel when crimes happen to them and how that affects their response. Don’t ask me to think about all that, it’s too much, I can’t stretch my tiny little mind! The letter of the law is the only factor that applies here! Not the police! Not the courts! The law! The law! The law!
Euan, technically you are correct, but in practice how can you ignore the attitudes of the police, CPS and courts?
Besides, all the letter of the law says is you may use “reasonable” force, and that is a moving feast. The Tory proposal re force that is not “grossly disproportionate” would be helpful, but the Bill will die in Parliament.
The reasonable force standard is adequate and does not need to be changed. The law allows you to use reasonable force to defend yourself. I do not understand what you mean by the ‘attitudes of the police , CPS, and the courts’. The law allows you to defend yourself and the police et al are bound by the law. Your moving feast comment makes no sense. The police, CPS and courts all take heed from the law which says that you can defend yourself.
May I suggest that the reason you believe otherwise is because you have been taken in by the unscrupulous tabloids and their wicked campaign to make you believe that the law is not on your side. You really should wise up and not fall for their lies.
EG
Grow up Euan, you are living in a dream world. What the law says and what might happen to you in court are two different things. If you’ve got a problem with that, fine, but I’m going to ruin your day and let you know that Santa Claus doesn’t exist either.
The original Death Wish novel, by the very skilled Brian Garfield, was in fact crammed with ideas about self defence and the relationship of victims, their friends, criminals, and society.
My favourite was a discussion of the thoughts of the protagonist as he walked down the street and saw a convertible car with the top cut open and the radio stolen.
He started by thinking, what do you expect? And then realised that that was backward thinking, twisted by the prevalence of crime. He realised that we all have the right to safety, and that the fault is ALWAYS with the criminal.
A basic discovery, but one which many fail to make. I highly reccomend this book, and anything else from Garfield, including Kolchak’s Gold, an historical detection novel.