Dirty Harry Dirty Harry Dirty Harry is a 1971 American action crime thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the "Dirty Harry" series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. The film drew upon the actual case of the Zodiac Killer as the Callahan character seeks out a similar vicious psychopath. "Dirty Harry" was a critical and commercial success and set the style for a whole genre of police films. It was followed by four sequels: "Magnum Force" in 1973, "The Enforcer" in 1976, "Sudden
Dirty Harry Eastwood do what he does, and he does it so well." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out four, calling it "very effective at the level of a thriller" but denouncing its moral position as "fascist." Gene Siskel gave the film a full four out of four stars and praised it as "one of the great police thrillers of motion picture history," though he too thought that the film's message was "dangerous." Roger Greenspun of "The New York Times" wrote that "what makes 'Dirty Harry' worth watching no matter how dumb the story, is Siegel's superb sense