A (psychology) love letter to… Dirty Harry

I have read with interest the previous 'love letters' in The Psychologist, dedicated to worthy 'national treasures' such as Sue Perkins, Taylor Swift, Richard Osman and Pixar Films. As heartfelt as they were, these offerings inspired me to focus on a more complex character, who has been in my consciousness for longer than all those others combined. This is no recent affair, or simple crush. This is life-long stuff. The real deal.

The subject of my affections is perhaps both unconventional and unpopular, and yes, unreal (although he was based upon real-life cop Dave Toschi who hunted the so-called Zodiac Killer – more of whom later). Dirty Harry (directed by Don Siegel), with the title character Inspector Harry Callahan played convincingly by Clint Eastwood, was released into the world on 23 December 1971. I had beaten its arrival into the world by a mere two months. This is my love letter to both the movie and the character. All I ask is that you suspend what you think you know about Dirty Harry, and bear with me while I justify my love of one of San Francisco's most infamous sons…

A role model

In common with many people's introduction to Dirty Harry, mine came probably sooner than it should have. One of my fondest memories of my late dad is sitting up with him one Saturday night, while my mum was working, watching Dirty Harry on BBC 1, when I was around 9 or 10. I should have been in bed. It was one of those 'don't tell you mother' father-son bonding activities that stay with you. Inspector Callahan took just 103 minutes to quip, snarl, and grunt himself into being my role model for what good guys can be like, without being a 'toxic' male.

And what a role model Callahan would turn out to be for me and countless other boys, men and cops. Several cinematic characters arrived around that time: Alex deLarge, Popeye Doyle, John Shaft, or even Frank Bullitt three years earlier. Generations of boys before me were impressed by cowboys, and before them it was Flash Gordon or Dick Barton. But Generation X were brought up on crime, cops and California. Dirty Harry was the vanguard, influencing The Streets of San Francisco, CHiPS, Quincy, Columbo and The Rockford Files, to name just some of the shows to cross the Atlantic from sunny California to a cold town in the North West of England.

It was Jerry Seinfeld who claimed that all men view themselves as a low-level version of Superman. Not me. I've always seen myself like a wannabe Callahan, willing to have-a-go if necessary, to the point that partners have described me as possessing a 'hero-complex'. If I do have such a thing, I'll take it as a compliment, and it's easy to see where I got it from. Unlike Superman, Callahan doesn't have a Kryptonite.

Callahan and Dirty Harry unfairly fostered a darker reputation, partly due to how the movie was seen as a summary of 'all that was wrong' with violent film-making by the end of 1971. For some Callahan was too physical. Producers originally intended Frank Sinatra to play Callahan, but I can't see how he could have done it as convincingly as the 6 foot 3 inches tall Eastwood did. Callahan needed to be physical.

It's important to consider the cultural and temporal context here. The US suffered unprecedented violent crime throughout the 1960s, including the growth of serial murders, stranger-homicides, terror groups and assassinations of public figures. The state became violent, with student protests against the Vietnam war, and prison riots ending with fatalities caused by the authorities (see the Kent State University massacre, and the Attica prison riots, both happening in 1971). Dirty Harry tapped into this 'meet violence with violence' zeitgeist. Some may be concerned that in 2025 the US could be about to re-enter an age of increased violence from both bad actors and the state. Dirty Harry was not an endorsement – and, for some, it was perhaps a warning about muscular policing.

The film wasn't to everyone's taste, though. A 'fascistic romp', with 'excessive violence, simplistic portrayals of criminals, racism and misogyny' (Ebert, 1971 & Kael, 1985). Dirty Harry was labelled an anti-progressive ultra-conservative picture, where a white male heteronormative cop claimed back his city from those who are unlike him (Bingham, 1994). What I saw was Callahan's no-nonsense approach to fighting crime, and Dirty Harry's broader approach to fighting for the rights of victims and not criminals.

Dirty Harry was unlike anything that went before in mainstream cinema, and it paved the way for decades of blockbuster action movies (O'Brien, 2012). Callahan was the first maverick cop who broke the rules, but he was not crooked. He bent the rules in the pursuit of justice, avoiding bureaucracy, and in doing so cleverly trod the line between being masculine and being monstrous (Houck, 2007). Dirty Harry was both blockbuster and cultural touchstone.

The currency of shock

Callahan was a much more benign character than critics recalled. He rarely used his firearm, the much mentioned .44 magnum. On many occasions he dispatched would-be muggers, assailants and various seedy characters of the night with dry sarcasm and putdowns. Callahan could have used his gun and legitimately got away with lethal violence several times, but he chose non-violence throughout the film. He killed only once – his nemesis, Scorpio, at the denouement. By contrast Scorpio killed at least four people. As Hollywood body counts go, this was mild stuff, but yet the violent reputation persisted. (Not helped, it must be said, by Warner Brothers promo with clunky taglines such as 'Dirty Harry and the homicidal maniac. Harry's the one with the badge'.) There's nothing as intriguing as a nice guy with a bad reputation.

And that's one of the things I respect about Callahan; his bad reputation isn't fairly deserved, and he knows this, yet he enjoys playing up to it while being an agent for good. He appreciates the currency that a shocking reputation can give and how it can afford him more success in what he does.

Society needs more Callahans who are willing to step in or speak up. When bureaucratic police become overwhelmed, frustrated populations require an agent of action (Johnson 1981) and that agent may be legitimate or otherwise. Callahan was clearly that agent, dispensing almost 'frontier justice' while remaining inside of the confines of the laws he upheld. Citizens need someone prepared to do the dirty work.

Another point of affinity I have with Callahan is his healthy level of distrust of authority and his superiors. He doesn't take them seriously and shows them the correct level of disrespect, often being reprimanded for how he talks to those above him. He knows he's ten times the cop that his bosses are and yet he never seems to want to aspire to their high rank or responsibilities. He's a good detective who's happy where he is because he knows he's the best. That's something that many of us would benefit from if we were to try it.

[to the city Mayor]

"Well, for the past three-quarters of an hour, I've been sitting on my ass waiting on you".

'Do I feel lucky?'

Many will remember Callahan's soliloquy as one of the most quotable movie-moments ever. The beauty of that sentence is that the bank robber it is directed at, whose hand is quietly creeping towards his shotgun, is afforded the option to avoid violence and be taken quietly:

"I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?"

The robber gives in, and resigns to ask how many shots were fired. Callahan pulls the trigger with his gun still pointed at him, and the empty barrel 'clicks'. Callahan knew he'd fired six shots all along, so talked himself out of a confrontation where he was technically outgunned. That is what the movie is about. Dirty Harry is not about the gun, or violence, but about Callahan's attitude. The gun is merely a backup device existing to give Callahan the confidence to try non-violence resolutions first.

Callahan possesses a smart mouth that he lets run: the film is peppered with pithy quips and one liners. And don't we all wish we could eruditely tell our bosses what we really think of them? How many of us have replayed interactions in our heads when we imagine what we wished we'd said at the time? Callahan gets to do that, and it feels good to see it.

A cinematic enigma

Callahan is not just tough and able to handle himself, he's stylish with it too. He's a cinematic enigma; a contemporary man in the most progressive city in the world, who retains traditional values of justice. He dresses conservatively with slacks and a sports jacket mostly, looking like a supply teacher, yet his wraparound shades wouldn't look out of place on a beatnik; his luxurious coiffured hair causes supervisors to ask when he will get a haircut. Callahan has tendencies towards the 'groovy' when he lets himself. He's such a contemporary figure that his radio call sign is Inspector 71 (1971, get it). A man of his time.

And you have to love Callahan's work ethic. He never stops. The viewer never sees Callahan's home or his domestic situation, and he's never seen at leisure. Even when Callahan grabs a hot dog for lunch, he is interrupted at first bite by the bank robbery across the street he just anticipated. Callahan outguns the bank robbers and foils their crime while still chewing on the first bite of his frank before other cops arrive. The only time he's seen laying down is when he's wounded or getting medical attention. He visits the Roaring Twenties strip-bar, but he is merely surveilling Scorpio, in his own time.

Callahan may have had some divine help on his mission. The established 'angel device' in cartoons and films, where protagonists facing dilemmas have angels and devils appear on their right and left shoulders respectively, appears twice in Dirty Harry. In both cases subtle camera angles allow for a white figure or object to be seen briefly on Callahan's left shoulder (bending convention) and there is no devil present to tempt a determined Callahan with the wrong moral decision. Dirty Harry is full of signs, symbols and colour-motifs throughout, playing with 'easter eggs' long before it became fashionable in film-making.

A rejection of emerging techniques

The story of Dirty Harry was loosely based on the five unsolved 'Zodiac murders' in the Bay Area between 1968 and 1970. The lead detective on the case, Inspector Dave Toschi, was the basis for Callahan's character. Unlike Callahan, however, real-life Toschi never caught the Zodiac Killer, eventually retiring from the police and passing away, never seeing his nemesis brought to justice.

In catching his quarry, Callahan relied on that work ethic and his tacit and instinctive understanding of criminals and how they operate. He did not need criminologists, sociologists or psychologists to help him – and this symbolised a rejection of the newly emerging criminal profiling techniques being developed by the FBI in the early 1970s (Douglas et al., 1986). 'Sociology?', he enquires of police officers with college degrees. 'Oh, you'll go far. That's if you live.' A police chief (incorrectly) uses pseudo-psychology to explain Scorpio's crimes, blaming serial offending on 'their superego or something'. That line is never followed or picked up by Callahan, and any attempt to understand Scorpio is dismissed.

Who we are, or want to be

Like all true heroes, Callahan has a tragic backstory, but viewers only get a short glimpse of this near the end of the movie, when he dryly explains to a worried cop's wife what happened to his wife: 'She was driving home late one night and a drunk crossed the center line. There's no reason for it, really.'

So he's damaged. Finally we get it, and that's why he throws himself into his work and the pursuit of justice. Now it all makes sense. She is never mentioned again, and Callahan is then back on the hunt.

We know psychologists have spent decades studying identity formation and development, trying to puzzle what shapes our sense of who we are over our life courses. I'd be happy to say that Dirty Harry was the right movie for me, that I happened to see at the right time. It imprinted upon me and fashioned a large component of who I am, and how I wish I could see myself – or at least be seen by others.

I even had a dalliance with the police for a year or so, as a distraction from being a psychologist, and perhaps that's what Callahan represents – a temporary escape from the moral and ethical constraints of psychology.

It's only fair to give the last words to the subject of my letter: 'Now you know why they call me Dirty Harry: every dirty job that comes along…'

Craig A. Jackson is a Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Professor of Occupational Health Psychology at Birmingham City University
[email protected]

Photo: 'From one of my many San Francisco trips. I often go visit many of the locations used in Dirty Harry. That pic was taken in the back alley off Washington Square w/ Krausgrill Place, where Harry mistakenly chases "Scorpio" down an alley and spies through the window of 'Hot Mary'. Callahan on the left, pale imitation on the right.'

References

Douglas J, Ressler R, Burgess A, and Hartman C. 1986. Criminal Profiling from Crime Scene Analysis. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 4: 401-21.

Ebert R. 1971. Dirty Harry review. 

Houck DW. 2007. "My that's a big one": Masculinity and Monstrosity in Dirty Harry. In Monsters in and among us: toward a gothic criminology, edited by Caroline Jones Picart and Cecil Greek, 65-90. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson.

Johnson D. 1981. Vigilance and the law: the moral authority of popular justice in the far west. American Quarterly 33(5): 558-86.

Kael P. 1985. 5001 Nights at the Movies. Austin: Holt, Reinhart and Winston / Owl books.

O'Brien H. 2012. Action Movies: The cinema of striking back. New York: Wallflower.