Brandon Peters ranks the Dirty Harry films...

Ranking the Dirty Harry Franchise

Like with Bond, at the end, I’m going provide my ranking of the entire series.  Unlike 007, nothing changed with my rankings this time around.  It's pretty much locked down.  I do recommend four of the five films in the series though.  Only one of the five qualifies as a genuinely bad film. Without further adieu...

Brandon Peters returns! Brandon Peters dissects the Dirty Harry franchise V: The Dead Pool (1988)

The Dead Pool

1988

Director:  Buddy Van Horn

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey, Evan C. Kim

Rated R

Fuck with me, buddy, I'll kick your ass so hard you'll have to unbutton your collar to shit.

                        ~Harry Callahan

Dirty Harry returns to the screen one last time in 1988’s The Dead Pool.  Director by another Eastwood “Yes, man”, longtime Eastwood stunt coordinator Buddy Van Horn delivers an adventure that finds the perfect medium between a film like Magnum Force and Sudden Impact. The film boasts likely the most familiar, big name cast of the series.  However, in 1988, this cast was much a bunch of nobodies.  Liam Neeson and Patricia Clarkson had minimalist film experience and were bouncing around television guest spots prior to The Dead Pool.  Jim Carrey (then going by James), was much of nothing then.  He was up and coming in a few films, but this was likely his first major and dramatic venture.  And its not like these were star making or star turning roles for them either.  Most were still years off from making a splash.

Brandon Peters returns! Brandon Peters dissects the Dirty Harry franchise IV: Sudden Impact (1984).

Sudden Impact

1983

Director:  Clint Eastwood

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Albert Popwell, and everyone’s second favorite Commissioner Gordon – Pat Hingle (editor's note: you mean third favorite, one shant forget Bob Hastings!)

Rated R

Go ahead, make my day

            ~Harry Callahan

That quote is what most people even know about at all about the Dirty Harry series.  Eastwood returns and takes on the director’s chair (as well as 60% of the film’s profits) for the biggest, most successful film in the Dirty Harry franchise.  While not close to being the best of the series, its nowhere near as boring and dull as the previous entry.  Its almost a completely mindless, satisfying watch akin to that of Rocky IV.  In order to get some reliable bread winners into the theaters in the early 80's, Warner Bros coaxed the magnum back into Eastwood’s hand to continue the series.  Reportedly he got the lay of the land at Warner with guaranteed future projects to direct and points on box office totals.  And with that, Dirty Harry returned. 

Brandon Peters returns! Brandon Peters dissects the Dirty Harry franchise III: The Enforcer (1976).

The Enforcer

1976

Director:  James Fargo

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Tyne Daly, Harry Guardino, John Mitchum, DeVeren Bookwalter

Rated R

Dirty Harry falls prey to the curse of the third film in a franchise in The Enforcer.  Intended as the final chapter to the series, the film comes off cheap, amateur, outlandish and dated.  The film’s themes and plot’s believably may have sold better in 1976, but even then it had to have seemed a bit cartoonish and laughable.

Two fans of the first 2 films in the series took it upon themselves to write their own Dirty Harry film, Moving Target and by chance got it through to Clint Eastwood himself.  Eastwood thought it needed work, but took it to Warner Bros.  Warner had already begun work on a script for a third picture called Dirty Harry and More.  The villain plot of Moving Target was combined with the female partner angle of More and thus the film with the working title Dirty Harry III (later renamed The Enforcer, as Eastwood wanted each film to have a standalone name) was put into production.

Brandon Peters returns! Brandon Peters dissects the Dirty Harry franchise part II: Magnum Force (1973)

Magnum Force

1973

Director: Ted Post

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, Tim Matheson, Robert Urich, Felton Perry, David Soul

Rated R

What does a woman have to do to go to bed with you?

Try knocking on the door.

Dirty Harry returned to the screens after 2 years in the follow up, Magnum Force.  The sequel deals with turning the tables on Harry making go against what he seemed to be championing himself in the first film.  Whereas Harry’s vigilantism and recklessness was arguable to solve a case and the life of a girl before her time ran out, Magnum Force’s villains are just straight up executing those that managed to weasel out of the courtroom on technicalities. While the first film did include action and violence, it was more suspense oriented.  This film ramps up the violence to another level.  The kills are ruthless and gory.  Some of the deaths in this film will even make you wince.  The film also features a lot of boobies, including those of pre Three’s Company Suzanne Somers.

Brandon Peters returns! Brandon Peters dissects the Dirty Harry franchise part I: Dirty Harry (1971)

Previously in Mendelson's Memos...

"Did Brandon write about 24 (007) movies or 25? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is Mendelson’s Memos, the most powerful punditry in the world, and would blow your Blog clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question about the next retrospective: "Do I feel lucky?" Well do ya, punk?"

20 days later...

For those who enjoyed Brandon Peters's insanely exhaustive James Bond retrospective reviews, rejoice at his return to the world of franchise retrospectives.  This time around, it's a mere five picture, which span from 1971 to 1988.  Yup, it's the Dirty Harry franchise.  As always, I'll do my best to stay out of it (I wrote about the franchise in a film school paper back in 2001), but I implore you to not do the same.  Anyway, without further ado, into the world of Harry Callaghan we go!

Dirty Harry

1971

Director: Don Siegel

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Andy Robinson, John Vernon, Reni Santoni

Rated R

And now, after 25 Bond films, I’m doing the “one for me” retrospective.  Hopefully it can turn into a “one for you” too.  The Dirty Harry series is one of my favorite film franchises.  I’ve noticed there’s not a whole lot of retrospective analysis on the internet about a five film franchise spanning 17 years.  It’s likely because the series hasn’t had an entry since 1988.  There were some brief talks of a reboot in the last decade, but nothing came to fruition.  And quite frankly, Dirty Harry’s mark is so firmly implanted on the action hero that a reboot or return isn’t at all going to prove or do anything.  And if you really want that extra entry, you can pretend Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino is named Harry Callahan. 

Weekend Box Office (09-23-12): Four new releases cannibalize each other as The Master whiffs in wide release and Importance of Being A Wallflower explodes.

As always, for background and historical context for all the weekend's new movies, check out John Gosling's obscenely detailed weekend preview HERE.

It wasn't so much a 'something for everyone' weekend as it was 'multiple things for the same general audience' as four wide releases aimed at thrill-hungry moviegoers and/or adults debuted on the same day, creating a clear case of mutually assured destruction.  The top three movies are basically tied, but as always rank is irrelevant next to the actual hard numbers (why rank doesn't matter).  For the moment, the top debut of the weekend may be End of Watch, a 'found footage'-style LA cop drama, parlayed strong reviews into a solid $13 million opening, which is the second-biggest debut for Open Roads outside of The Grey ($20 million) back in January.  The $7 million film (purchased for $2 million) had a marketing and distribution cost of around $20 million, so even a $40 million final total will get this film in the black before home video.  It also proves that Jake Gyllenhaal  is a decent mid-range opener.  He's useful when the film you're selling doesn't cost $200 million ala Prince of Persia.  End of Watch is yet another installment in writer David Ayers's 'two volatile men in a car' sub-genre, which includes the likes of The Fast and the Furious, Training Day and Harsh Times (an underrated Christian Bale vehicle which he also directed).  He wrote but did not direct the the LA Riots-set cop melodrama Dark Blue while directing but not writing the frankly mediocre Keanu Reeves cop melodrama Street Kings.  Among films he directed, End of Watch should easily top the $26 million gross of Street Kings while it will be fifth (out of seven) if it can merely surpass the $9 million gross of Kurt Russell's Dark Blue. Fourth place is the $76 million-grossing Training Day, which is too far a bridge to cross at this point.

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (09-21-12)

The House at the End of the Street is the new film from director Mark Tonderai, who made his debut with the 2009 thriller, Hush. The idea for the film actually originated from a short story written by Jonathan Mostow (director of Terminator: Rise of the Machines), which was then expanded for the screen by David Loucka. It sees recently divorced mother Sarah and her teenage daughter, Elissa, move into a new place, unaware that the house next door was witness to a double murder in which a young girl killed her parents while they slept. After the crime was committed, the girl vanished, leaving her brother, Ryan, as the only survivor. Elissa and Ryan (who still resides in the neighboring house) form a relationship but it soon becomes apparent that the evil that was present in the house at the end of the street may still be there. Elisabeth Shue takes on the maternal role of Sarah, with Jennifer Lawrence as Elissa. 

Politicizing apolitical Americana... Will the GOP/Right Wing surrender their biggest advantage by protesting the Clint Eastwood Chrysler Super Bowl commercial?

I've written from time-to-time about how Democrats and Liberals seem so willing to cede what should be basic apolitical American values to the Right/Republican wing of America.  Pundits, even liberal ones, brand movies as Conservative because they espouse family values, morality, private charity, personal responsibility, monogamy, the right of self-defense, entrepreneurship, patriotism, etc.  Never-mind that such American values are technically apolitical and are shared and practiced by people of all political stripes, the 'Right Wing sound machine' did a bang-up job in the 1980s and 1990s basically branding much of Americana as 'conservative', and we stupid liberals went on and allowed them to do it.  The Democratic wing has long struggled with rebutting an opposition that successfully branded itself as 'explicitly American' and has defined the debate by defining the vocabulary.  So to those criticizing last night's Chrysler commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl and was narrated by Clint Eastwood (longtime Libertarian/Republican) as some kind of pro-Obama propaganda, knock yourself out.

Weekend Box Office (11/13/11): Immortals surprises with strong #1 debut, Jack and Jill underperforms (for Adam Sandler), Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar opens well.

In what counts as a somewhat pleasant surprise, Reletivity's Immortals topped the box office this weekend with a solid $32 million debut.  Tarsam's highly stylized Greek hack-and-slash action film was sold as a glorified rip-off of 300, which opened with $70 million back in March 2007.  If it needs to be said (because others are indeed whining), expecting Immortals to open as well as the lightening-in-a-bottle 300 (or even Clash of the Titans) makes about as much sense as expecting Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to open as well as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  The budget for this one was allegedly just $75 million, and much of that was apparently supplemented by foreign pre-sales.  The film also earned another $36 million overseas, giving it a near-$70 million worldwide debut.  Relativity took a major chance on the picture, fully financing it themselves and selling the heck out of it for at least the last six months.  Immortals received a B from Cinemascore and was heavily front-loaded, earning $15 million on Friday night alone for a pretty poor 2.1x weekend multiplier.  So while the domestic run may be brief, the new distributor Relativity needed to prove that they could open an expensive movie to quasi-blockbuster numbers (it's already their second-biggest grossing movie, behind the $79 million haul of Limitless).  On that scale, mission: accomplished.

Weekend Box Office Review (10/24/10): Paranormal Activity 2 scores record $41.5 million. Hereafter nets $12 million. Holdovers hold strong.

Paranormal Activity 2 blasted into the record books over the weekend, grossing $40.6 million in its first three days. That's the biggest opening ever for a supernatural horror picture, the second-largest debut for any kind of horror picture (behind Hannibal's $58 million debut in 2001), the biggest horror debut in October history, the fifth-biggest October opening on record, and the 19th-largest R-rated opening ever. Costing just $3 million, the Paramount sequel capitalized on the much-buzzed about original, which had a stunningly successful platform release over last September and October. If you recall, Paranormal Activity grossed $7.9 million on just 160 screens over the second weekend in October, and eventually went wide over the weekend before Halloween, where it famously kneecapped the long-running Saw franchise. If the original film's box office run slightly mirrored the run of the original Scream (small opening weekend, slow jog to $100 million+), then Paranormal Activity 2 is definitely Scream 2 (the Wes Craven sequel also came out a year after the original and scored an eye-popping $33 million debut in December 1997).