I’ve always been a big Clint Eastwood fan. I feel like I’ve grown up with him and he’s like a family member somehow and maybe he’s my uncle who gives me beer and let’s me smoke cigarettes and look at his dirty stag magazines while my dad is off praying and shit and thinking up new cruel ways to scorch earth my ass for doing such horrible things as trying to finish a paragraph in my book when he’s ready to leave. Or for sleeping too late. Or for not cleaning the spark plugs thoroughly enough. So you’re six or seven and you just got your ass blistered forget any of those crimes and you head out to the side of the house to cry because crying there in the garage will just get you more fucking swats and you’re uncle is out there smoking and he gives you a beer and says something like ‘you’ll be able to get him back soon, kid” and he looks around the corner and gives you s smoke and hands you a porn and takes off, smoke everywhere as his tires screech heading out the driveway in his 67 Bette. That may or may not have happened to me but wouldn’t that have been cool? Since then I think I’ve seen all of Eastwood’s shit except for the super new stuff so he’s just kind of always been there. Not quite so much as Rocky but I think you get the point. Maybe. Hopefully. You son of a bitch.

This is the one with the line about the most powerful handgun in the world that’ll blow your head clean off and if you feel lucky, punk. I really liked this movie but it’s probably just for fans of Eastwood or the 70s in general I think. Or maybe fans of men with long frizzy hair who use the big N word to get beat up on purpose or shootouts at local gravel mills (I think) but – hey – I liked it!

But hey let’s keep it in even more perspective. It’s better than a LOT of things I watch even for out here on this blog but it’s also better than things like 530PM conference calls, The Clap, organized religion, sepsis, Putin, shitting in a public toilet, Seed Warts and most of Twitter. Shall we carry on? Let’s!

I think – think being the operative word here – I think that when people remember Dirty Harry, they all remember the whole “Go ahead… Make my day.” thing but there was actually a phrase used pretty commonly when I was growing up that came from this movie. This is the “You’re wondering if I’ve fired five or six shots. Well, do you feel lucky, punk? Do ya??” movie. I think I said that already. Oh well. I’m sitting at the doctor and I think they’re playing an Ozzie and Harriet on the teeb. No! The announcer guy just told us it’s Father Knows Best. Do YOU ever put on your jacket and tie to read the paper before dinner? Maybe we all should start that again….

Back to this – I remember I had a tee shirt that had that saying on it – HA! I also had one that had ‘keep on truckin’. Well – I thought this was pretty good for a movie from 1971 with no big explosions or cheesy one liners. On display here is some good old fashioned machismo, lots of car crashes and a ton of gunfire. If you don’t want to be surprised, there’s also random nudity like when Harry and his partner are try to track down Scorpio and hes in an alley surveilling some apartment building and these guys attack him for being a peeper and then whoever the character is (Hot Mary FYI) pops out the window to have a look around and so do her giant – uh – Peepers.

The guy who would go on to play the lead in Hellraiser which I didn’t love and utter “Jesus wept” before being ripped into a zillion pieces is The Scorpio Killer in this one. He wants some money from the Mayor’s office and he’s going to go around killing innocent civilians until he gets it. For the sensitive, he’s even going to kill Ns, Fs, and kids if he needs to. That’s the 70s for you and you don’t have to guess real hard about what I’m talking about there. It’s obviously a play on The Zodiac but this guy is spectacularly irritating in every scene so you should be prepared for that, if you choose this assignment.

Too bad Scorpio doesn’t realize he’s gonna have to go mano y fucking pinche mano with Iron Balls Harry Callahan who doesn’t cotton to rules, Miranda Rights or the Constitution. He’s here to kick ass and exact justice any way he has to. He’ll also go up on the fire ladder to berate a suicide jumper if no one else is around because he does the shit jobs, the dirty jobs. Get it? He’s also not afraid to eat local hot dogs which is a man a can really relate to.

And exact justice on this poor fucker he does – TWICE! First he tracks him down and gives him a beating in the middle of a football field. But Scorpio gets off on a technicality and kidnaps a school bus full of kids!! Harry says fuck the law and tracks him down again and asks him if he’s feeling lucky and then blows him away! Standing on the side of the river, he looks meaningfully at his badge and throws it in the water! FUCK YOU he says to The Establishment. Roll credits. Oh! You know what else this movie DOESN’T have?? A bunch of god damned baboons. Do you know what I’m talking about? God damned baboons.

Back to these credits. Fantastic! Just the actors’ names. End. Beautiful! Not 40 minutes worth, thanks Marvel. Dicks. One card and that’s it. Let’s all go roll a joint hit the wrap party. You bring the Schlitz, you bring the Canadian Club, you bring the broads. It’s a wrap. Just like this post. Call it.

FILED UNDER: RETROSPECTIVES

Oh wow. Do you remember earlier when I was at the foot doctor? Now I’m at the after party at a hotel lounge in a place called Glenbrae California. This chick on roller skates just came up to me and gave me this giant mound of angel dust. I wanted to fit in of course soisnortedthewholefuckingthingandgoddamnijustwanttoscrewsomethingormaybegodanceorjustbefreemanmaybeicantouchthestarsihaventfeltlikethisinsolongimlikeafuckingbabyandmyeyesareopenagainandjesuschristiwanttobeinthosetittiesanddidijustpeeohfuckifeelsogroovydidijustnutohmanohmanineedsomethingtocutthismanmaybealudeortwoohgodthatchickjusttouchedmyarmohfuckwecouldteallymakeittogethermyballsaresofilledwithpuritydoesntshewantsomeimsofuckinghornymybodyisthetempleiamthevesseliamthesphinxgodsiamthepoweriamthesecretoflightiamthesonbecomi

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