Dirty Harry 4K UHD (1971)

Star Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel's hugely influential crime thriller is one of three of Eastwood's movies getting a 4K release from Warner Bros. this week. 

The city of San Francisco is being terrorised by a sniper who calls himself Scorpio, picks victims at random, and says he will keep killing unless he is paid $100,000. City mayor John Vernon is willing to cough up but reckons without no-nonsense Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) who is frequently happy to ignore the rulebook to see justice is done. 

It's almost impossible to understate the effect of DIRTY HARRY on cinema, and especially crime cinema. Responsible not just for a string of sequels, and for inspiring the entire Italian poliziotteschi genre, The Sweeney in the UK, and 1980s action movies in the US, as one of the extras on here states, it brought the Western, and its figure of 'God's lonely man' (thanks John Milius) into the urban environment. It also helps that the film is superbly written, shot and scored, with excellent support performances, especially from,Andy Robinson as the killer. Most iconic of all, of course, is Eastwood himself as Harry, likely the only man who can dress like a geography teacher and still be the essence of cool as he eats a hotdog and blows hoodlums away on a busy city street.

Warners' 4K comes with a couple of new extras and a bunch of archival ones. Generations & DIRTY HARRY is 6 minutes of academics and film-makers of different ages (including millennials) offering their positive opinions of the character. Some balance would have been fun but this is a DIRTY HARRY disc after all. The Cinematography of DIRTY HARRY, like similar pieces on Warners' other 4Ks is eight minutes about DP Bruce Surtees.

Archival material includes a commentary track from Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel, the 87 minutes BBC Arena coproduction from 2000 'Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows', DIRTY HARRY's way: a seven minute piece about the making of the film from 1971, and DIRTY HARRY: The Original, a 30 minute 2001 documentary about the character. Also, and rather out of context, is an 'Interview Gallery' which includes tiny snippets of interview footage left out of that documentary. Consequently we get clips of Patricia Clarkson (2 minutes), editor Joel Cox (3 minutes), Evan Kim (2 minutes), Andy Robinson (2 minutes) and others talking about Eastwood and their involvement with him although you are often left on your own to work out which film they're talking about. Finally from 2021 there's Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy - Fighting for Justice which is more in the same vein as the 'Reinventing the Western' piece on Warners' other discs, with the same talking heads including Mel Gibson and John Milius as well as Gene Hackman and Shane Black.

Don Siegel's DIRTY HARRY is out on 4K UHD in both regular and posh steelbook editions from Warner Bros. now

Pale Rider 4K UHD (1985)

Clint Eastwood's 1985 western is one of three classic movies featuring the star that are being released by Warner Bros. on the 4K UHD format in both regular and steelbook editions. 

It's the Gold Rush and Michael Moriarty is part of a small prospecting community. Unfortunately Big Bad Boss Richard Dysart, who is busy plundering the surrounding hills with his industrial mining operation, wants their land as well, so he sets about driving them out with those old western standbys, intimidation and violence.

During a gang raid the dog of 14 year old Megan (Sydney Penny) is shot, and as she prays over its grave for someone to come to their rescue who should ride out of the wilderness but a nameless preacher (Eastwood) on a pale horse. The preacher soon establishes himself as part of the community and of course it's not long before he has to take on the bad guys, including sheriff for hire Stockburn (John Russell) and his gang of deputies. 

When it was released in 1985 contemporary reviews could not help but compare PALE RIDER with Eastwood's first western as director, 1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, and that's not surprising. Both films begin and end very similarly, there's the suggestion that Eastwood's character is dead in both, but in PALE RIDER his character is perhaps more of a guardian angel than a vengeful spirit.

Considered by some to be inferior to the 1973 film, there's still much to appreciate here, not least the photography by Bruce Surtees of the impressive landscape. There's also a fine cast, many of whom (Moriarty, Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Richard Kiel) will be familiar to fans of fantasy cinema.

Extras new to Warners' 4K release include The Diary of Sydney Penny which is seven minutes of reminiscence from the actress. The Cinematography of PALE RIDER is an eight minute piece in which a number of academics discuss the contribution of Director of Photography Bruce Surtees to the picture. 

        Finally, there's Clint Eastwood: Reinventing the Western which includes interview footage with Mel Gibson, James Mangold, Kevin Costner, Frank Darabont, Morgan Freeman, Martin Scorsese and Sir Christopher Frayling in a compact 18 minute journey through Eastwood's contributions to the Western genre. It's the same extra that's also available on Warners' 4K of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. If you want a longer piece on Eastwood the film-maker, then Richard Schickel's 2010 feature length documentary The Eastwood Factor is also on here.

Clint Eastwood's PALE RIDER is out on 4K UHD from Warner Bros. on Monday 28th April in both regular and steelbook editions.

 

The Outlaw Josey Wales 4K UHD (1976)

Clint Eastwood's second western as both star and director (the first was 1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER) gets a 4K UHD release in both regular and steelbook editions from Warner Bros.

The American Civil War is nearing its end. Before it does Missouri farmer Josey Wales's (Eastwood) wife and son are killed and his house burned to the ground by raiding Union soldiers. Wales becomes a soldier but when the war finishes he refuses to surrender, which is just as well as the rest of his unit are massacred in a betrayal, with only his old commanding officer Fletcher (John Vernon) allowed to remain alive to then pursue Wales.

Josey makes his way down through Texas with the intention of heading to Mexico. Along the way he picks up a rag tag group of followers and hangers on that include elderly Cherokee Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), a Navajo woman, Moonlight, (Geraldine Kearns), a dog and various others. All the while he is being pursued not just by Fletcher and the Union army but by bounty hunters keen to pick up the reward on his head. He eventually settles in an abandoned ranch with his group but the harsh American west has not yet finished with him.

Noticeably different in style to HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and indeed to what could be considered the 'classic' American western, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES is an epic in the true meaning of the word - the story of the lengthy journey of a single man and the challenges he has to face. Wales himself is not the typical American western hero, either, preferring to avoid violence and finding peaceful solutions whenever possible (of course sometimes there isn't one). At well over two hours it really is quite the sprawling epic tale, but it justifies its length and the pacing never feels sluggish.

Warners' 4K looks fantastic, with an image so crisp you'd swear the film could have been made yesterday. Extras include a commentary track from Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel, and two archival pieces: Eastwood in Action (8 minutes) from when the film was made and a Making Of from 1999 that runs about half an hour and is narrated by John Milius.

New extras include An Outlaw and a Hero (7 minutes) in which academics discuss the character of Josey Wales, and Cinematograph of an Outlaw (8 minutes) in which the same team returns to discuss the work of DP Bruce Surtees on the movie) Finally, there's Clint Eastwood: Reinventing the Western which includes interview footage with Mel Gibson, James Mangold, Kevin Costner, Frank Darabont, Morgan Freeman, Martin Scorsese and Sir Christopher Frayling in a compact 18 minute journey through Eastwood's contributions to the Western genre.

Clint Eastwood's THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES is out on 4K UHD from Warner Bros. on Monday 28th April in both regular and steelbook editions.