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Clint Eastwood has a long-standing relationship with Warner Bros. Pictures and has given them plenty of hits as a director and a star. So, it was highly controversial when WB’s plans for his latest film Juror No. 2 included a limited release with little to no marketing. Many criticized the studio for trying to bury the film despite Eastwood’s legacy.

However, when the For A Few Dollars More star was at the peak of his career, he could call the shots and bend the studio to his will. WB reportedly planned on reducing the violence in the film Dirty Harry. However, Eastwood reportedly put a stop to it at the script stage and demanded one particular thing.

Clint Eastwood Made WB Bend To His One Demand For Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby | Credits: Warner Bros.

Clint Eastwood is one of the most legendary filmmakers and actors...

Inspector Dave Toschi needs a night off. After years of chasing the so-called Zodiac Killer, Toschi thought he had found his man, only for his captain to shoot him down, citing insufficient evidence to make an arrest. At the movie theater later on, the picture Toschi watches with his wife doesn’t make him feel any better. It’s Dirty Harry, the 1971 movie in which Clint Eastwood‘s Inspector Harry Callahan does battle with a killer called Scorpio.

Frustrated by what he’s seeing, Toschi heads to the lobby for a smoke. As viewers shuffle out after him, one remarks, “Dave, that Harry Callahan did a hell of a job with your case.”

“Yeah, no need for due process, right?” Toschi responds sarcastically to indicate his frustration.

Or, at least that’s how it went in the movies. Specifically, the film Zodiac, written by James Vanderbilt and directed by David Fincher,...

Marc Eliot's 2009 biography "American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood" lays out the production of Don Siegel's 1971 cop drama "Dirty Harry" as a complicated affair. The first version of the film's script was violent and raw, telling the story of a cop who has to break the law in order to stop a dangerous serial killer. As the script was passed around, though, many became wary of its violence, and many actors expressed interest and dropped out. The rights to the film were once in the hands of ABC who aimed to adapt it for TV, but sold it to Warner Bros. when they realized just how violent the film had to be. Irvin Kershner was once hired to direct, with Frank Sinatra starring. Sydney Pollock, George C. Scott, Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, and many other famous people brushed up against "Dirty Harry" during pre-production. Even Terrence Malick purportedly wrote a draft.

When The New Yorker's Pauline Kael wrote of Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry" in 1971 that the American cop thriller "has always had a fascist potential, and it has finally surfaced," she kicked off a fierce debate about the genre that still roils today.

Taken at face value, it's difficult to dispute that the film is meant to titillate viewers with the ultimate, judge-jury-executioner justice pursued and dispensed by Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan. He despises the Miranda Warning, and complains that the United States' judicial system has been corrupted to favor the rights of criminals. The screenplay, credited to Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, and Dean Riesner, stacks the deck to a ludicrous degree by having Andrew Robinson's Scorpio Killer orchestrate an act of police brutality late in the movie to get Callahan kicked off the case. At this moment, it feels like we're meant to throw our hands...

Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” series of films are some of the most iconic American action movies ever made. Spanning two decades and five films, the “Dirty Harry” franchise looks at America’s changing attitude toward law enforcement and justice.

The first film, “Dirty Harry,” was released in 1971 and was an instant classic, spawning four sequels over the next two decades. While each film is excellent in its own right, there is a clear progression in how America is depicted, from a place of hope and optimism in the first film to a much more cynical and jaded outlook by the fifth film.

The story of all the movies revolves around a San Francisco Police Department inspector, “Dirty” Harry Callahan, played by Clint Eastwood. If you are a fan of action-packed cinema, you should watch “Dirty Harry” movies.

So without wasting any more seconds, Join us as we take a...

It’s a new deluxe Limited Edition of Sam Peckinpah’s mangled masterpiece, the third fancy boxed set in as many years. Arrow’s presentation is certainly got the edge in graphic elegance. They’ve also strived to include as many earlier extras as possible, plus new analytical-critical takes on the picture, and an excellent (and wickedly funny) visual essay from David Cairns. The disc has both of my commentaries, including the comprehensive one that details the missing scenes with information taken directly from Sam Peckinpah and Oscar Saul’s screenplay. And hey, you never know: this could be the year that Mitch Miller’s Singalong Gang makes an incredible comeback, and we can All fall in behind the Major.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / (2-Disc Limited Edition) / Street Date June 29, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters,...

The new [Imprint] label turns its attention to the Sam Peckinpah favorite, the almost-classic that suffered a number of setbacks — a studio regime change, impractical remote locations, the wrong producer — and a director with zero diplomatic skills, who couldn’t finish his script and fought political battles when his movie needed his full attention. That the finished film shows so much brilliance is a tragedy, as this could have been a landmark epic, Charlton Heston’s best. CineSavant turns its attention to a favored film one more time — to play imagination games with re-cuts. Viavision [Imprint]’s lavish boxed set is said to be sold out, but that may only be at the company source.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 11

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / Street Date October 28, 2019 / available at [Imprint] / $79.95 au

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong,...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

Harry Callahan’s next adventure originated with John Milius, Hollywood’s favorite gun fanatic, surfer and “Zen anarchist.” Milius wrote B Movies for American International Pictures before breaking through with two Westerns, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and Jeremiah Johnson. His knack for macho action and pulpy, colorful dialogue fit Dirty Harry perfectly; Milius wrote his draft in 21 days, receiving a Purdey shotgun as payment.

Though uncredited, Milius claims credit for Harry‘s dialogue, especially the “Do I feel lucky?” monologue. Others, including Richard Schickel, credit Harry Julian Fink with that speech. Clint Eastwood marginalizes Milius’s contributions to the film, admitting “we might have taken a few good items John had in there.” Milius resented this: “Look at the movie and you tell me who wrote that,” he challenged an interviewer.

Milius soon moved past any hurt feelings. After reading several articles on Brazil’s “death...

Part I.

1971 was an incredibly violent year for movies. That year saw, among others, Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack, with its half-Indian hero karate-chopping rednecks; William Friedkin’s The French Connection, its dogged cops stymied by well-heeled drug runners; Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, banned for the copycat crimes it reportedly inspired; and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, featuring the most controversial rape in cinema history. Every bloody shooting, sexual assault and death by penis statue reflected a world gone mad.

It seemed a reaction to America’s skyrocketing crime. Between 1963 and 1975, violent crimes tripled; riots, robberies and assassinations racked major cities. The antiwar and Civil Rights movements generated violent offshoots like the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Citizens blamed politicians like New York Mayor John Lindsay (the original “limousine liberal”), who proclaimed “Peace cannot be imposed on our cities by force of arms,” and Earl Warren’s Supreme Court,...

Sneak Peek clips from the Oscar-nominated spy thriller "Ice Station Zebra", in anticipation of writer-director Christopher McQuarrie's upcoming Warners remake, based on the 1963 spy novel by author Alistair MacLean.

The original feature directed by John Sturges, starred Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown, with a screenplay by MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink and W. R. Burnett, with a parallel to real-life events in 1959:

"...'Commander James Ferraday', captain of the nuclear submarine 'USS Tigershark' is dispatched to the polar ice region on a rescue mission when an emergency signal is received from research station, 'Ice Station Zebra'.

"On board the sub is a civilian and likely spy, 'David Jones', whose orders are secret. Along the way, they collect two additional passengers, a Russian named 'Boris Vaslov', likely also a spy, and 'Us Marine Capt. Leslie Anders' who takes command of the Marines traveling as passengers.

Curiously, with all the bold, ambitious, fresh talent storming into Hollywood in the 1960s/1970s – directors who’d cut their teeth in TV like Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer; imports like Roman Polanski and Peter Yates; the first wave of film school “film brats” like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese — one of the most popular genres during the period was one of Old Hollywood’s most traditional: the Western. But the Western often wrought at the hands of that new generation of moviemakers was rarely traditional.

During the Old Hollywood era, Westerns typically had been B-caliber productions, most of them favoring gunfights and barroom brawls over dramatic substance, and nearly all adhering to Western tropes which ran back to the pre-cinema days of dime novelist Ned Buntline. With the 1960s, however, the genre began to change; or, more accurately, expand, twist, and even invert.

To be sure, there would...