Inspector 2211

Film: Dirty Harry
Format: DVD from personal collection on itty bitty bedroom television.


It’s not too uncommon for an actor to be associated with one role or type of role for his or her entire life. Look at Fay Wray from yesterday’s movie. It happens to great actors, too—Errol Flynn will always be a swashbuckler regardless of his later career. Even Bogart had particular roles that seemed tailor made for him despite his versatility. Other times, actors are able to overcome that one great role and move on, becoming equally associated with other roles. Harrison Ford is a good example of this—he’s much more than Han Solo and/or Indiana Jones.

And then there’s Clint Eastwood, who seemed for years unable to shed the dual roles of the Man with No Name from many of his westerns and “Dirty” Harry Callahan from the series of movies started by the eponymous one from 1971. No matter what he did, the knock against him was that he didn’t have any range; he always played tough guys with a squint. Even now, you may well be nodding at this. Eastwood, the common wisdom goes, didn’t really find any range until much later in his career, and even then he didn’t find much.

I think that’s unfair. Eastwood is certainly remembered and loved for Dirty Harry, but the same year he made that film, he also directed and starred in Play Misty for Me, a seriously underrated film. As good as it is, though, it is overshadowed by the gritty cop with the .44 magnum.

It’s easy to see why, actually. Dirty Harry arrived at the perfect time—right in the middle of a whole bunch of classic “renegade cop on the loose” films starting with Bullitt and continuing on in the next year with The French Connection. Of all of these early “dirty” cop films, this one is the granddaddy, though, the one that people can quote and can remember specific scenes from. Much of the reason for that comes from Eastwood himself.

What’s easy to forget, though, is that Eastwood isn’t just a hardass in this film. That’s far truer of the later films in the series. In this one, he’s human, albeit a damnably tough human. This isn’t to say that this film features a softer Callahan than later ones, but it does feature one that is much more realistic. He’s not the perfect cop, and he doesn’t expect everyone around him to be the perfect cop, either. All he really wants is to do his job the best that he can.

In this case, the job involves a psychopathic serial killer who calls himself Scorpio (Andy Robinson). Scorpio starts out the movie with a sniper shot on a woman in a swimming pool, then goes on to kill others including a 10-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. He shoots an officer or two, kicks the living crap out of Callahan, and hijacks a school bus full of children. This is not a nice man.

Much of the movie concerns Callahan’s dealings with Scorpio. He also has to deal with a partner named Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni). And this is where the Callahan you may remember is different from the Callahan of this film. He doesn’t particularly hate Gonzalez as much as he’d simply rather work alone because his partners tend to get shot. But, he’s stuck with Chico, and the two have to make the best of things.

There are a few other notables here, particularly John Vernon as the Mayor of San Francisco. John Vernon is a “that guy,” meaning he’s one of those guys that you instantly recognize (“Hey, it’s Dean Wormer from Animal House!) but can’t always name. It’s a good role for him here. He plays authority figures well, especially when they are clashing with the main character(s) of the film.

While Eastwood certainly lives and breathes this film while toting the big handgun, in many ways, this is Andy Robinson’s film. Scorpio is one of the great film psychos, a man who is completely evil and enjoys his evil. When he has the upper hand, he is sadistic, twisted, and brutal. When he doesn’t, he is a sniveling little worm who begs for mercy. In other words, he’s easy to hate, which is exactly what is called for here.

As his career has continued, Clint Eastwood has shown that while many people find him limited to a certain range as an actor, he is one of the very few people in the business who not only made a successful transition to the director’s chair, but also that the director’s chair is perfectly suited to him. He’s a hell of a director, and he’ll be remembered as such. However, he’ll also be forever immortalized on film as Harry Callahan, and that’s not such a bad thing.

Why to watch Dirty Harry: The greatest film in the “my way or else” breed of cop genre.
Why not to watch: Police brutality.

Something is Wrong in Santa Mira

Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.


There are stories out there that have become such a part of the consciousness of the country or the world that it’s difficult to tell where they started. For instance, the current rage with zombies would not have started without the help of George Romero in the late 1960s. Before Night of the Living Dead, a zombie was something created by a voodoo priest, not a ghoul that wants to eat people. Romero rewrote that bit of the culture, and nevermore will it switch back.

Such a story is Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I probably hear a reference to “pod people” at least once a month, and every one of those references stem from this one point. If you haven’t seen this movie, you likely still know what is meant by that particular reference, so strong is the basic story embedded in the culture.

The story involves the small town of Santa Mira, California, and a disturbing visitor from outer space. Doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) has been recalled from a medical convention by his nurse. It appears that there is a rash of strange occurrences in Santa Mira; a number of people believe that their relatives are actually imposters.

Bennell is also reacquainted with an old flame, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter). The two of them visit Becky’s cousin, who is convinced that her Uncle Ira is not really himself. A quick examination later, and Miles and Becky are convinced this is merely a passing thing. The two of them, both recently divorced from marriages gone bad, decide to have dinner together, but are interrupted almost immediately by an emergency phone call. Jack (King Donovan), a local writer, needs Miles’s help.

Jack shows Miles and Becky a body that Jack found in his house. The body, while dead, looks unlike any other body they have ever seen—it looks unused, essentially, and when Miles tries to take fingerprints, they discover the body has none. While the body has no real character, it looks vaguely like Jack, and it is roughly his height and weight.

That night, Jack’s wife Theodora (Carolyn Jones) discovers that the body looks more than a little like her husband, down to a fresh cut on the hand. The pair race to find Miles, who investigates Becky’s house, discovering another partially-formed body, this one looking like Becky.

What has happened, they discover, is that alien pods have landed in a local farmer’s field. These pods can take on the likeness of people, essentially becoming them in all but emotions. They have the same memories as the people they duplicate, they have the same speech patterns, the same scars, and all, but they are essentially emotionless. The changeover happens when the victim goes to sleep; upon waking up, the newly awakened pod person is established as the old identity, while the original human being simply vanishes.

Fun stuff. It becomes even more fun with the group of four discover new pods in the back of Miles’s house, and they slowly come to realize that the entire town has been podified before them.

It’s easy to compare this movie to the McCarthy era (the Joe McCarthy era, not the Kevin McCarthy one) and find parallels. The pod people look like us, but are emotionless and cold, and every one of them is essentially exactly the same (just like Commies!). Or, the pod people allow no deviation of thought and can have no one thinking against them (just like McCarthy!). The author of the original Collier’s serial, Jack Finney, claims that there was no intent to comment on McCarthy in either way, a comment echoed by director Don Siegel. Still, it’s impossible not to see it in the film.

I’ve read the book the movie was based on, and while the film is fairly accurate, it’s also considerably different in places. For one thing, oddly, the film has much more of a downer ending than the book, a rarity in Hollywood. The ending here is in many ways more effective. The original ending consisted of Dr. Bennell running down the middle of the highway screaming “They’re here! You’re next!” and the revamped ending is not much brighter. In the book, things are considerably happier when the equivalent of the curtain closes.

I remember watching this as a kid. It’s probably the first time I was ever aware of being frightened from watching a movie, and it’s still a film that has the ability to be unnerving. It’s a worthy watch, and the first remake (the one from the 1970s) is worth watching as well. Skip the 90s and 00s versions of it, though, and stick with the ones that actually have something to say.

Why to watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers: It’s the first version of a classic societal trope, and it’s damn good.
Why not to watch: You freak out easily.