50 Fun Facts About Dirty Harry

Which never-identified serial murderer, known for taunting letters, was the loose model for Scorpio in Dirty Harry?

The Zodiac Killer had terrorised the San Francisco Bay Area only a few years before filming. Scorpio also borrows from kidnapper Gary Steven Krist, who held a young woman for ransom.

What does Harry Callahan hurl into the water before walking away in the final scene of Dirty Harry?

His badge goes into the water in a gesture said to echo the 1952 Western High Noon. Eastwood first resisted the idea, fearing it meant Callahan was quitting the force.

What vehicle does Scorpio hijack to demand a ransom and a flight out of the country in Dirty Harry?

A school bus full of children becomes his last bargaining chip. Eastwood made the leap onto its roof from an overpass himself, with no stunt double.

Which American gunmaker built the Model 29, the .44 Magnum revolver Harry Callahan carries in Dirty Harry?

Smith & Wesson had sold the Model 29 mostly to hunters and handgun enthusiasts since the 1950s. After the film came out, retailers struggled to keep it in stock.

Harry Callahan gives his famous speech about losing count of his shots after foiling which crime in Dirty Harry?

A bank robbery interrupts his lunch break, and he stops it almost alone. The speech comes back at the quarry, in the final showdown with Scorpio.

Which US president borrowed Harry Callahan's Sudden Impact catchphrase in a speech threatening to veto tax rises?

Ronald Reagan, himself a former actor, used the line at the American Business Conference in 1985. The film had made it famous only two years earlier.

Which future comedy star plays doomed rock singer Johnny Squares in the last Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool?

Jim Carrey was still six years away from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective when he played Squares, whose apparent overdose turns out to be murder.

Harry Callahan's revolver was once named the second-greatest movie weapon of all time, behind which Star Wars icon?

The lightsaber was the only weapon to outrank the Model 29. Callahan himself was voted the 17th-greatest hero on the American Film Institute's list of heroes and villains.

Which hard rock band makes an uncredited cameo at a rock singer's funeral in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool?

Guns N' Roses appear as mourners for the murdered singer. Members are also seen at the docks while a nightmare scene for a horror film is being shot.

Which actress, later Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney & Lacey, plays Dirty Harry's partner Kate Moore in The Enforcer?

Tyne Daly turned the part down three times before accepting. Her reviews as the desk officer turned homicide detective outshone those of Eastwood himself.

Which director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers made Dirty Harry, one of five films he shot with Eastwood?

Don Siegel called himself a liberal and his star a conservative, and said the two of them never once talked politics while making the film.

Which singer and film star, then 55, was first cast as Harry Callahan before leaving Dirty Harry?

Frank Sinatra fit a script that imagined Callahan in his mid-to-late fifties. When he left, the producers turned to younger actors, and Eastwood took the part at 41.

Which star turned down Dirty Harry as too right-wing for him, then suggested Clint Eastwood for the part?

Paul Newman thought the film would suit Eastwood even though its politics were not his own. Burt Lancaster refused the part too, objecting to its end-justifies-the-means moral.

Steve McQueen refused the lead in Dirty Harry rather than make another cop movie after which San Francisco thriller?

Bullitt had cast McQueen as a police detective in the same city three years earlier, and its car chase over the hills became famous.

Which then-unknown actor, later the lead in Hellraiser, played the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry?

Andy Robinson was a pacifist who flinched whenever he had to fire a gun, so filming paused while he was sent for shooting lessons.

The actor who played Scorpio in Dirty Harry later became the Cardassian tailor Garak in which Star Trek series?

Deep Space Nine kept him busy from 1993 to 1999 as a tailor with a past in espionage. He had first auditioned for a different part, Odo.

In Dirty Harry, a hospital doctor reveals that Scorpio lives in a room at which San Francisco football venue?

Kezar Stadium was chosen after Eastwood and his director watched a 49ers game there and were struck by its eerie look, like a Greek amphitheater.

Which rookie partner is assigned to Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry, against the detective's own wishes?

Chico Gonzalez saves Callahan's life at the ransom drop and is shot in the chest for it. He survives, but decides to leave the police and become a teacher.

Which Argentine-born composer of the Mission: Impossible theme wrote the jazzy score for Dirty Harry?

Lalo Schifrin scored four of the five Callahan films, missing only The Enforcer. His work with Eastwood had begun on Coogan's Bluff in 1968.

Which studio bought Dirty Harry after ABC judged the script too violent to become a television movie?

Warner Bros. first planned the film around an older star and another director, Irvin Kershner. Both had left the project by the time Eastwood signed on.

When a cornered suspect insists on knowing, what does Harry Callahan's trigger pull reveal early in Dirty Harry?

The gun is empty, so the bluff costs the man nothing but his nerve. When Callahan repeats the challenge to Scorpio at the end, the revolver fires.

Why does the district attorney say Scorpio must be freed in Dirty Harry?

The evidence was seized illegally: Callahan kicked in a door without a warrant and forced a confession, so none of it could be used in court.

In Dirty Harry, how does the freed Scorpio make it look as if Callahan assaulted him?

He pays a man to beat him severely, at a price of $200, then blames the injuries on Callahan. The stunt forces the detective to stop tailing him.

After Dirty Harry opened, the actor who played Scorpio got an unlisted phone number because he was receiving what?

Death threats followed because audiences found his killer so convincing. He had been cast, his director said, for having a face like a choirboy.

What rank does Harry Callahan hold in the San Francisco Police Department throughout the Dirty Harry films?

Inspector Callahan usually works homicide, but angry bosses keep punishing him with transfers to stakeout duty and the personnel office.

In Dirty Harry, how does Callahan say his wife died?

She was killed by a drunk driver, he tells his partner's wife. Mrs Callahan is seen only in an old photograph, which he turns around in Magnum Force.

Sent to talk down a suicide jumper in Dirty Harry, what reason does Callahan give for his nickname?

He gets the worst jobs, he says: every unpleasant assignment that comes along lands on him. Eastwood directed the jumper scene himself.

Clues across the Dirty Harry films suggest Callahan once served in which branch of the US military?

The Marines are hinted at more than once: an old friend talks of the twenty years they might have served, and a mug with the Corps seal sits on Callahan's desk in The Dead Pool.

After a payphone chase in Dirty Harry, Scorpio meets Callahan beneath a giant cross on which San Francisco hill?

Mount Davidson is the city's highest natural point, crowned by a 103-foot concrete cross. There Scorpio admits he never meant to let his hostage live.

In which city was the first script for Dirty Harry set, before the story moved to San Francisco?

New York was home to the hard-edged police detective of the first draft, titled Dead Right. That version ended with a police sniper, not Callahan, shooting the killer.

Who turns out to be executing San Francisco's criminals in Magnum Force, the first Dirty Harry sequel?

Rogue traffic cops on motorcycles form a secret death squad inside the force. The story was built to show that Callahan, for all his methods, was no vigilante.

Which actor, famous for his one-man Mark Twain stage show, plays Lieutenant Briggs in Magnum Force?

Hal Holbrook plays the superior who berates Callahan from his first scene. He had been touring as Twain since 1954 and won a Tony for the role.

Which future star of Starsky & Hutch plays Officer John Davis in the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force?

David Soul became Hutch two years later. His fellow rookies in the film include Tim Matheson and Robert Urich, both also near the start of their careers.

Which director, who had made Hang 'Em High with Clint Eastwood, took charge of Magnum Force?

Ted Post clashed with his star over who was really calling the shots, and stayed bitter about it for years. Eastwood had been offered the director's job himself and declined.

Which future Oscar-winning director of The Deer Hunter co-wrote the screenplay for Magnum Force?

Michael Cimino was hired to finish the script when its first writer left to direct Dillinger. He went on to make Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Eastwood the following year.

The final motorcycle chase in the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force takes place aboard what kind of derelict ships?

Aircraft carriers awaiting the breaker's yard give the chase its jumps from deck to deck. The first draft had no such finale; it arrived in rewrites.

Where do terrorists hold the kidnapped mayor of San Francisco at the climax of the Dirty Harry film The Enforcer?

Alcatraz is where a militant priest finally admits the gang is hiding. Callahan frees the mayor there, but loses his partner in the gunfight.

What stolen army weapon does Harry Callahan fire at Bobby Maxwell's guard tower to end The Enforcer?

A LAW rocket, part of the gang's haul from a weapons warehouse, destroys the tower with Maxwell inside. Earlier, Callahan pulls his new partner clear of one's backblast at an army demonstration.

The militants in the Dirty Harry film The Enforcer were inspired by the 1974 kidnapping of which newspaper heiress?

Patty Hearst was seized by the Symbionese Liberation Army, the model for the film's gang. Two film students wrote the first script and got it to Eastwood through his restaurant.

Asked for a getaway car by liquor-store robbers in The Enforcer, how does Harry Callahan deliver it?

He sends it through the shop window, driving straight in and shooting the gang in the chaos. His captain calls it excessive force and banishes him to personnel.

Which future star of Schindler's List and Taken plays film director Peter Swan in The Dead Pool?

Liam Neeson plays a horror director who becomes the prime suspect in the killings. He was still five years from his breakthrough as Oskar Schindler.

What unusual bomb-carrying vehicle chases Harry Callahan's Oldsmobile through San Francisco in The Dead Pool?

A radio-controlled car, driven for the cameras by an R/C racing world champion, beat the Oldsmobile to the bottom of the hill on the first take, so the scene had to be shot again.

In the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, what do players of the title game try to predict?

Celebrity deaths in the San Francisco Bay Area are what the players bet on, and Callahan finds his own name on one list. A killer then starts rigging the game.

Which British band named a 2005 single after Dirty Harry, a follow-up to their song Clint Eastwood?

Gorillaz put the track on the album Demon Days and shot its video on location in the Namib Desert. It reached number six on the UK singles chart.

Which war hero turned actor was considered for Scorpio in Dirty Harry but died in a plane crash before deciding?

Audie Murphy, celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II, died in 1971 before he could answer the offer. James Caan was also in the running.

Which uncredited writer, later director of Conan the Barbarian, said he gave Dirty Harry a lot of guns?

John Milius, a gun enthusiast, kept one of the Model 29 revolvers used on screen. He went on to write the story for the first sequel.

Which future director of Badlands wrote an unused Dirty Harry draft in which the gunman was a vigilante?

Terrence Malick imagined a shooter who killed wealthy criminals who had escaped justice. The draft was thrown out, but Eastwood remembered the idea when the sequel was planned.

Which actor played a different character in each of the first four Dirty Harry films, ending as Horace King?

Albert Popwell began as the man on the receiving end of the famous speech in the first film, then played a pimp and a militant leader. Eastwood's team called him their good luck charm.

Which US state's home-defense law is nicknamed after Harry Callahan's catchphrase from Sudden Impact?

Colorado's law protects homeowners who use lethal force against intruders. The catchphrase behind its nickname ranks sixth on the American Film Institute's list of movie quotes.

Which actor, later Dean Wormer in Animal House, plays the mayor of San Francisco in Dirty Harry?

John Vernon plays a by-the-book mayor who agrees to pay the ransom over Callahan's objections. He worked with Eastwood again in The Outlaw Josey Wales.