Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry in the Make My Day scene
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Shawn S. Lealos
Published 24 minutes ago
Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor. He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.
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Sign in to your ScreenRant account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recapClint Eastwood is best known for his Westerns and directorial efforts, but just as many people likely know him from his role as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry franchise. The first film famously saw him tracking down a serial killer known as Scorpio, based on the Zodiac killer.
Each sequel had him involved in violent policing that he felt was necessary to stop crime. There were five Dirty Harry movies in all, from 1971 to 1988. The films had different themes, with the second about vigilante justice and renegade cops, and the last, The Dead Pool, about a serial killer with a list of victims.
However, there was supposed to be a sixth Dirty Harry, and curiously, it was similar to what Eastwood did later in Unforgiven.
Unmade Dirty Harry Sequel Would Have Pit Clint Eastwood Against Corrupt Police
Clint Eastwood as Harry in Dirty Harry
In 2023, author Mark Edlitz wrote a book titled Movies Go Fourth: 4th Films in Fantastic Franchises, which looked at the fourth movies in several beloved franchises. Included in the book was a discussion of Sudden Impact, the fourth Dirty Harry movie. In the breakdown, Sudden Impact screenwriter Joseph Stinson broke down an unmade sixth movie.
Stinson said he penned the script in the early '90s for the movie with Bronco Billy screenwriter Dennis Hackin. The film was a fresh idea, but it borrowed heavily from the second movie in the series, Magnum Force. In that film, vigilante traffic cops were executing criminals so they wouldn't have to deal with the court system.
This is where Harry had to fight corrupt cops and where he delivered the perfect Dirty Harry quote, "A man's got to know his limitations." According to Stinson, the sixth movie would have pit Dirty Harry against the police force that he had dedicated his life to. However, this time around, it was Harry who was to be targeted for his violent ways.
The script involves Harry trying to stop a killer with ties to powerful bureaucrats in the San Francisco Police Department. Stinson compared it to Serpico, where the police department turns on Harry when he gets too close to the truth. This time, the police see Harry as a man who is no different than the criminals he has brought down.
Dirty Harry Sequel Has A Similar Plot To Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood as William Munny in Unforgiven
It is similar in many ways to Unforgiven, which Clint Eastwood made in 1992 instead of the Dirty Harry sequel. In that movie, Eastwood played William Munny, an aging outlaw who doesn't really have time for nonsense anymore and is quickly finding himself a relic of the past. However, he finds himself pulled back into the action.
In the unmade Dirty Harry sequel, Harry's partner warns him that all the years he spent on the force are causing him to see "ghosts where there are none." However, Harry ends up right, and the sequel was going to focus on the distrust America has in its police. It is similar to the corrupted Little Bill in Unforgiven.
Unforgiven was a revisionist Western and changed a lot of what people thought of when watching the genre. The sheriff in the movie was the bad guy, and the outlaw was the hero. This was something Clint Eastwood has always strived for in his films. He wanted nothing to do with white-hat cowboys who were pure-blood good guys.
This is how he played Dirty Harry. Harry was willing to kill a criminal just to make sure they didn't slip through the justice system. While people still call out the first movie as glorifying police brutality, the sequels gave a little more of a nuanced look at it, showing the different levels of corruption in the police departments.
The sixth movie would have been released in an era with the Rodney King beating and the Rampart scandal. It was similar to Cop Land, which came out a few years later, about police corruption. Like Unforgiven, it would have Eastwood playing an older gunfighter who was seeing the world change for the worse in front of his eyes.
Why Didn't Clint Eastwood Make This Last Dirty Harry Movie?
Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry
Sudden Impact was the most successful Dirty Harry movie, making it seem like there would be plenty more in the franchise. However, after The Dead Pool disappointed at the box office, it ended the franchise, even though a sixth movie was planned. While Joseph Stinson had big ideas for his Dirty Harry sequel, Clint Eastwood wasn't ready for it yet.
According to Stinson, Eastwood was happy with the script and thought it was a good idea. However, he put it on pause, reportedly saying, "We will do this when the time is right." However, after making Unforgiven, Eastwood's career changed, and he started working on more drama movies, moving away from action-based films.
It was also harder for fans to accept Clint Eastwood as a tough-as-nails cop who could deal with people half his age. While it worked in Unforgiven, showing a former outlaw who was still quick with the gun, seeing him as a working police detective who faced overwhelming forces didn't quite have the same impact.
It would have been an excellent ending for Dirty Harry, but it seemed the franchise had passed Clint Eastwood by. He ended up passing on the opportunities for these movies to other actors and directors, and other franchises, and the franchise ended with a whimper in The Dead Pool, rather than with a bang with this unmade Dirty Harry movie.
Source: Movies Go Fourth: 4th Films in Fantastic Franchises by Mark Edlitz
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