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Rating: If in this unforgettable film Clint Eastwood's star shines in all its coolness, we owe it to Frank Sinatra. The singer had been chosen as the protagonist, and if we have to think about what he would have made of the character of Callaghan, just look at the performance he gives as detective Tony Rome in the mediocre, self-indulgent film "Tony Rome." Fortunately, "Ole blue eyes" was wise enough to injure his hand and therefore could not hold that Smith and Wesson Magnum cannon in his hand. Another candidate for the role of Callaghan was the Duke, John Wayne, who would take his revenge with the two films of Lieutenant Branigan.
Even for the character of Scorpio, Andy Robinson was a second choice: the great character actor/pacifist (it took months of training to learn how to shoot, given Robinson's chronic disdain for violence), who at times in the film remembers McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange," replaced a reluctant Audie Murphy at the last minute.
Due to these emergencies, we can enjoy one of the cornerstones of police cinema. Without Callaghan, there would not have been the series of films with avenging inspectors, rendered impotent by a law that hinders those who want to do justice and who therefore go into business for themselves. Many will say that it would have been better otherwise; and thinking of the multitude of revanchist nonsense with blond commissioners with brown mustaches forced to clear things up and to hold back in front of the idiot commissioner of the moment ("Leave it to me! I know what to do with him"), I too shudder.
But "Inspector Callaghan (originally "Callahan"), the Scorpio case is your!" is an extraordinary film. A western among skyscrapers. At the beginning of the decline of the leading genre of U.S. cinema, the Americans already knew how to recycle the stuff their dreams were made of on film. Upon its release, the film sparked quite a few controversies: the accusation was that of being a fascist, reactionary film, suggesting the solution to America's problems in the 70s with a good old gunshot.
I will say it straight away: this is certainly not a left-wing or progressive film, but all the accusations made against it are exaggerated.
First: fundamentally it is an action film of the highest quality. Psychology is left aside, except for some signals I will talk about later. Many are the unforgettable and successful scenes, copied for years in less worthy police films following this progenitor or even equally worthy ones. Both in America and in Italy, our country that absorbed the Siegel lesson in real-time (Di Leo's "La mala ordina," for instance). Think of the legendary scene of Scorpio's capture in the football stadium: Callaghan pummels the criminal wounded in the leg and Siegel moves the camera lens away with a backward flight (the camera was positioned in a helicopter). The characters become two dots, and the camera seems to hastily paint the frame. Free cascading music underscores the inspector's delirium and the whole spiral of violence of this terrible two-way relationship.
Paradoxically, in another scene, Scorpio pays a thug to have his face smashed with an iron fist to accuse Callaghan of abuse. The viewer is led to be outraged with the zodiac killer, but it turns out that Callaghan is a genuine sadist.
Another scene imitated millions of times is the school bus kidnapping: Scorpio, in his delirium, lashes out at the kids, particularly a chubby one who starts whining (and he annoys us spectators too). When he believes he is free to escape from the police clutches, the shadow of the immortal Callaghan reflects on the windshield, and Scorpio realizes he will never escape his nemesis. How can we not cheer for this successful "here come the cavalry"? We see the slender figure of Eastwood stand out and we know that we are truly in a frontier story.
On the other hand, the final duel with the mad killer takes place in a factory next to a river, and the landscape and wooden building are similar in every way to western settings.
Second: The figure of Callaghan is not as monolithic as it might seem. Widowed, solitary, probably without a sex life (in this very similar to the gunman in Leone's westerns), the inspector seems to live immersed in a constant bitterness tempered, however, by intelligence and good sense. If he knows what to do with criminals, he certainly is not one who seeks violence at all costs. Callaghan is not happy that crime exists in the world, he does not enjoy having to shoot to stop the irreducible delinquent...
Or does he?
Here a series of small signals enter the film that crack the entire figure of the individualistic cowboy, forced to kill despite himself.
In the scene mentioned above, the one in the stadium, Callaghan tortures Scorpio beyond what is necessary. And he takes pleasure in smashing the wounded leg with a pistol shot. Then, Callaghan is a voyeur, one who spies on women while they undress. There are two moments in the film that Siegel highlights:
1) Callaghan and his Mexican colleague (a novice, literature graduate, whom Callaghan initially does not want by his side) are on the roofs trying to identify Scorpio's presence. At some point, the inspector spots a naked girl passing by the window. Callaghan is startled and for a moment stops to spy on her.
2) During a first failed chase, Callaghan climbs onto a garbage can and what he sees is a chubby Mexican woman with her breasts exposed. It's a moment, but he widens his eyes (a rare occurrence for the actor). These are small moments but revealing of the character's complexity: opposed to him is the asexual madness of Scorpio, a total madman without the possibility of being rehabilitated, whose cruelty has no real motivation other than a general hatred for differences.
Thanks to an essential but personal direction, a functional screenplay, cut with the axe just enough to keep the viewer on edge (thanks also to the uncredited John Milius and Terrene Malick); thanks to a wonderful soundtrack, by the great Lalo Schifrin, music imbued with that funky taste that would become the trademark of 70s police movies (especially the complex theme of the titles, with open harmonies, threatening cellos, Rhodes piano, and drum and paradiddle rhythm launches à la Billy Cobham, or the syncopated rhythm marked by the soloist drums during Scorpio's first attempt on the girl in the pool), a handful of faithful Siegel character actors with bureaucratic and American faces (John Vernon, Harry Guardino), illuminated by the clear photography of Bruce Surtees, later a loyalist of Eastwood as a director, "Dirty Harry" is the unbeaten progenitor of the 70s police cinema, a mirror of a society in crisis that did not know how to react to the entry of social differences that emerged from the second half of the sixties and integrated into everyday life.
The first of a short but intense-lived genre where above all shines the slim, feline silhouette of our beloved Clint Eastwood.
Born on May 31, 1930 in San Francisco.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CLINT!!!!!
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