This post contains spoilers for the "Dirty Harry" films.
Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry" changed cop movies forever upon its release in 1971. Capitalizing on the "law and order" craze stoked by President Richard Nixon, which was a reaction to the perceived anarchy of the various protest movements of the 1960s, Clint Eastwood's Miranda rights-flouting Harry Callahan fed conservative moviegoers a big, juicy slab of red meat. It also allowed the actor to flourish in a genre outside of Westerns, thus expanding his appeal and turning him into one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood.
"Dirty Harry" ends with Callahan, having caught and killed (in self-defense) a vicious serial killer, hurling his badge into a quarry. Throughout the movie, his hard-driving, occasionally extrajudicial methods, which could've resulted in a swift arrest and saved multiple lives, are decried by his superiors. It appears the inspector has had enough. Audiences, however,...
Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry" changed cop movies forever upon its release in 1971. Capitalizing on the "law and order" craze stoked by President Richard Nixon, which was a reaction to the perceived anarchy of the various protest movements of the 1960s, Clint Eastwood's Miranda rights-flouting Harry Callahan fed conservative moviegoers a big, juicy slab of red meat. It also allowed the actor to flourish in a genre outside of Westerns, thus expanding his appeal and turning him into one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood.
"Dirty Harry" ends with Callahan, having caught and killed (in self-defense) a vicious serial killer, hurling his badge into a quarry. Throughout the movie, his hard-driving, occasionally extrajudicial methods, which could've resulted in a swift arrest and saved multiple lives, are decried by his superiors. It appears the inspector has had enough. Audiences, however,...
- 11/12/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Stick
Written by Elmore Leonard and Joseph Stinson
Directed by Burt Reynolds
USA, 1985
Part of the reason that Elmore Leonard’s novels got turned into movies so often is that it was so easy to write the screenplays. Entire scenes full of Leonard’s trademark crackling dialogue would go, verbatim, into films like Get Shorty and Out of Sight. But that wasn’t true for the 1990s only. Leonard’s stellar 1983 novel Stick was turned into a movie as well, a film which served as popular entertainment as much as the films came a decade later. Where Get Shorty was 1995’s Travolta movie, Stick was 1985’s Burt Reynolds movie, and every bit as fun.
Reynolds plays Ernest “Stick” Stickley, a just-out-of-prison car thief who wanders into Miami and finds himself caught between a local drug kingpin (Castulo Guerra) and a bumbling financial planner (George Segal). Also of note: a pre-...
Written by Elmore Leonard and Joseph Stinson
Directed by Burt Reynolds
USA, 1985
Part of the reason that Elmore Leonard’s novels got turned into movies so often is that it was so easy to write the screenplays. Entire scenes full of Leonard’s trademark crackling dialogue would go, verbatim, into films like Get Shorty and Out of Sight. But that wasn’t true for the 1990s only. Leonard’s stellar 1983 novel Stick was turned into a movie as well, a film which served as popular entertainment as much as the films came a decade later. Where Get Shorty was 1995’s Travolta movie, Stick was 1985’s Burt Reynolds movie, and every bit as fun.
Reynolds plays Ernest “Stick” Stickley, a just-out-of-prison car thief who wanders into Miami and finds himself caught between a local drug kingpin (Castulo Guerra) and a bumbling financial planner (George Segal). Also of note: a pre-...
- 10/1/2013
- by Mark Young
- SoundOnSight
One of the things that makes movies so amazing is the level at which film can integrate itself into all parts of our culture. Songs become associated with images on the screen, actors become the embodiment of characters or archetypes, and movie lines work their way into our own language and lexicon.
The La Times has a great story today about the story behind four famous movie quotes that have transcended the screen and become part of the national vocabulary.
The Times writes:
"If you set yourself up to write that one-liner that's going to be iconic, you set yourself up to never have it happen," observed Joseph Stinson. He ought to know. He wrote one of the most quoted lines in movie history.
"Dirty Harry," "Cool Hand Luke" and "Forrest Gump" are three of the films with iconic movie quotes profiled, but one of my personal favorites is the...
The La Times has a great story today about the story behind four famous movie quotes that have transcended the screen and become part of the national vocabulary.
The Times writes:
"If you set yourself up to write that one-liner that's going to be iconic, you set yourself up to never have it happen," observed Joseph Stinson. He ought to know. He wrote one of the most quoted lines in movie history.
"Dirty Harry," "Cool Hand Luke" and "Forrest Gump" are three of the films with iconic movie quotes profiled, but one of my personal favorites is the...
- 1/2/2010
- by Christina Warren
- AMC - Script to Screen
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