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| Dirty Harry (1971) | |
| Plot Synopsis (continued)
Gonzales wants to know the origin of Callahan's well-known nickname. One of his associates, De Georgio (John Mitchum) emphasizes 'Dirty Harry's' across-the-board non-racist, and un-bigoted prejudice and hatred for everyone:
In the scene transition, a scale-model of the city in the office dissolves into the twin spires of a Catholic church - Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church at Washington Square [on Filbert Street between Powell and Stockton]. On a nearby rooftop of the Dante Building [on Stockton Street at Columbus Avenue], Scorpio is set to strike his next victim. He reads the message to him from the Mayor in the Personal Column of the day's paper: "TO SCORPIO. We agree but need time to get money. Be patient." After ripping it up and tossing pieces into the wind, he dons black gloves and uses a telescope to target an exaggeratedly-effeminate (homosexual?) black man (wearing a purple over-the-head poncho and eating an ice cream cone with another man on a bench). After assembling his rifle and getting poised to shoot, he is spotted by a scouring patrol helicopter and thwarted, but he escapes. During a night patrol, Callahan and Gonzales cruise by the Columbus Street area populated by peep shows and strip joints (the Roaring 20s, Big Al's, the Condor and the El Cid with a show entitled Naked). Their police radio describes a suspect: "an adult male Caucasian...last seen, the suspect was wearing a pair of chinos, a pale blue shirt, brown coat, a sweater, dark gloves. He was carrying a tan suitcase which probably contains a 30 ought 6 rifle. This man is wanted on suspicion of homicide." Callahan comments on the weirdos that are on the streets:
Gonzales spots an individual with a "tan suitcase" - on the tip, and they pursue the possible suspect, but Harry narrowly misses hitting pedestrians in his path:
Callahan follows the man down a dark alley where he sees him enter an apartment. Standing on a garbage can, he spies on the Asian man through a window. Callahan topples to the ground when the refuse can is kicked over and he is accused of being a "lousy" peeping Tom (viewing half-naked "Hot Mary (Lois Foraker) and her boyfriend") by concerned neighbors ("You god-damn pie hawker!"). His buddy comes to his rescue, but not before Harry's humiliating experience of admitting to being a policeman in the act of committing a low-life crime. Gonzales even rubs it in with a second interpretation of his name: "I just had another thought...about why they call you Dirty Harry." In the meantime, sirens blare somewhere in the city. Back in their patrol car, they receive a radio report of an "804 in progress" [at California Hall, located at Polk and Turk Streets] near the Civic Center. Around the corner from Bathskeller's Restaurant, they find a crowd, rescue squad and other officers unsuccessfully dealing with a "suicide attempt." Harry volunteers to "talk him down" and is slowly lifted up in a window-cleaning bucket on a crane. Without begging the suicidal man (Bill Couch) to reconsider, Harry shows brutal indifference when he asks the disturbed man for his name and address to later help in identifying his 'mashed' body on the pavement. Further angered by Harry's comical reaction to his threat to puke, the man jumps onto the apparatus to take Harry down with him. The cop takes advantage of the distracted jumper, knocks him out and brings him down safely. Back on the street, he tells his pal how he truly earned his nickname - he won't flinch or shrink from the difficult, most demanding and dirty jobs that he is called upon to perform, jobs that often require 'dirty' methods, unethical operations, pain, and fanatical violence outside normal, conventional limits in order to succeed:
The next day, while driving through the Portrero District, the two cops are directed to an empty lot [at Texas and Sierra Streets], where the body of a "young boy - Negro" has been discovered shot in the face (from a closeby apartment rooftop with the sniper's shell casings). The mother of the deceased, Mrs. Russell (Mae Mercer), tells Charlie that her son was "only ten years old." Within the Hall of Justice in the Police Chief's office, a map-diagram of the city is marked with blue flags to identify where all the units will be on nocturnal duty - all areas of the city except the North Beach area where one building has an unlocked rooftop ("we're saving that for him"). For surveillance, Callahan will be staked out there on a building that overlooks the roof where the sniper was earlier spotted near the church. The detectives predict that Scorpio will pick the same rooftop in order to select a Catholic padre (at the church's novena that evening) as his next target: "He may just figure he owes himself a padre." That night, the church's padre knew that he was being "set up for bait" at the church's entrance, but had refused to have an officer (presumably Harry) take his place. Below a rotating "JESUS SAVES" neon sign, Callahan scours the neighborhood with binoculars for a glimpse of the killer - and is distracted when he catches sight of a naked young girl greeting two hippies at her door. Amused by the unconventional threesome, he remarks to himself: "You owe it to yourself to live a little, Harry." But then he finds that the same apartment's rooftop door is ajar - and the killer "took the bait." Working together, Gonzales shines a spotlight on Scorpio as Harry aims his rifle and shoots at the crazed and maniacal Scorpio. Their suspect giggles and grins gleefully, returns the bullets with repeating rifle fire, and blasts the 'Jesus Saves' sign above them. They pursue after him but he escapes, but not before apparently killing Officer Collins - another cop laments, "he never knew what hit him." The next day in Lt. Bressler's office, they are informed that Scorpio "grabbed a 14-year-old girl, Ann Mary Deacon" - (Debralee Scott) pictured in a set of colored photographs. Scorpio allegedly left a "suspicious object" in Golden Gate Park, containing another demand letter. According to Bressler, the "poor kid went to the movies last night and she never came home" - she was "buried alive" with just a small amount of oxygen left to sustain her. Gonzales reads the letter about Scorpio's burial of a live kidnapped young girl, with demands to be paid $200,000 to keep her alive:
The mother identified the bra, the hank of hair, and a bloody tooth extracted from her mouth ("pulled out with a pair of pliers") and wrapped in tissue. Harry immediately assumes the worst: "You know she's dead, don't you?" But the mayor is gathering the funds to pay off the blackmailing, pathological killer, so that he will tell police where she is located. Bressler advises Callahan to play it straight in their race against time: "He's using up a lot of favors, Harry. He wants to pay. No tricks." He volunteers to be the "bagman" - to deliver the ransom money in a large yellow bag to the extortionist for the girl's release. Gonzales asks whether he can cover Harry, but is denied the request. He discovers another reason for his partner's moniker:
At a hardware store run by Harry's friend Sid Kleinman (Maurice Argent), Harry acquires a microphone/wire device (to conceal under his shirt) so that Gonzales can hear him and shadow him by car within a two-three block area - against the strict orders of their superiors. Callahan is given the yellow bag containing $200,000 in cash by the Police Chief, and counseled: "Just make sure nobody takes it away from you." Bressler advises that Harry may be led all over town, and he is given specific instructions to not attempt a capture:
In full view of Bressler, Harry prepares himself with a long switchblade knife that he scotch-tapes to the side of his calf. His first destination is the boat docks at the Marina [Marina Green, East Harbor]. A pay phone rings with a call that warns he will be 'bounced all over town' to make sure he's alone. Scorpio threatens with a deadly game:
His first destination in the chase across the city is the Forest Hills MUNI Station [Laguna Honda at Woodside], where Callahan runs on foot. He rushes down a long flight of stairs to catch a MUNI light-rail/streetcar. He follows instructions to take the underground K street-car and after a short ride, exits at Church & 20th Streets by Mission Dolores Park. He enters another pay phone, and is directed to go for a longer run next time and proceed to his next stop - back to where he has just come from: "Public phone, hamburger stand, Aquatic Park. Hubba, hubba, hubba, pig bastard!" In the Marina district during his frantic run to Aquatic Park, he enters into a tunnel [that runs under Ft. Mason], where Harry is accosted by thugs intent on robbery, but he scares them off with his .44 Magnum:
At Aquatic Park in another phone booth, he is told to go to the massive, illuminated cross at Mount Davidson Park [above Portola Drive], a long distance away. On his way to the top of the steep park, he is again confronted by another weirdo, a gay man named Alice:
At the summit under the tall concrete cross, Callahan is ordered by Scorpio, hidden in the shadowy dark of the night, to "freeze - just like a statue," drop the bag, surrender his weapon, raise his hands, and turn to face the cross ("Put your nose right up against the cement"). The grotesque killer (with a full-face red ski-mask), seen partly from a bird's-eye-view, slugs and whips Callahan with his rifle across the side of the head, knocks him down, savagely kicks him in the ribs, and torments him by shaking his head. And then he taunts the cop with a cruel change in plans: "I've changed my mind. I'm going to let her die. I just wanted you to know that." As Gonzales races on foot into the park to intervene and save his partner, he listens to more of their conversation through his radio wire: "Do you understand? I just wanted to make sure you knew that before I killed you." Gonzales fires at Scorpio and prevents Callahan's murder, but is shot and wounded in the process. With a last bit of strength, Harry reaches for his concealed switchblade and jams it into the killer's left thigh, causing the crazed murderer to let out a deranged, painful cry. Scorpio stumbles away with the yellow bag, with the knife still stuck deep in his leg, tumbles down a steep dirt hill, and lets go of the bag with the ransom. When he comes to a stop, Scorpio takes a tight grip on the blade handle and removes the stiletto from his leg with one excruciating, blood-dripping pull, before scurrying away. Both Gonzales and Callahan (with two cracked ribs and other bruises) are nearly killed, but they survive the attack. To Bressler, Callahan defends the actions of Gonzales in following him - expressly against the direct orders of the Chief: "Gonzales was obeying orders from his superior, me...he didn't know anything about it. And when this mess is over, if he [the Chief] wants my badge, well, he can have that too." Meanwhile, Scorpio seeks out a doctor in the small Park Emergency Hospital to be treated. The doctor from the hospital [on Stanyan Street, around the corner from Kezar Stadium at Frederick and Stanyan Streets] calls the police with an important phone tip. Callahan and Bressler are given details about stab-wound treatment just administered to a "guy who has a knife wound in the leg" - he had "long blonde hair, medium build, about a hundred and fifty pounds, pale complexion." Both De Georgio and Callahan visit the hospital as the conversation continues: "...I believe he works around here...when they had football, he used to sell programs at the Stadium. I think the groundskeeper lets him live there...Kezar Stadium." The two detectives drive to Kezar football stadium - yet it's within easy walking distance.
Finding the outer chain-link fence locked, Harry decides to scale it, thereby entering the stadium illegally and without a warrant:
Scorpio's eyes are highlighted in the darkness as he watches Harry walk into the area and kick in the door of the groundskeeper room where he lives (or has set up quarters). Harry hears footsteps and pursues the psychotic killer hobbling and stumbling down some stadium steps to the closed mid-field playing area. As he calls out "STOP" and points his gigantic .44 Magnum at the wounded enemy, De Georgio turns on the flood-lights of the stadium and illuminates the exact position of the killer. In another confrontation, Harry fires his gun and fells Scorpio with a second wound to his bloody leg. As he stalks his downed prey, he tells De Georgio: "Go on out and get some air, fatso" - and his pal gladly responds: "You're the boss." The utterly despicable and cowardly Scorpio piteously pleads and bleats like a cry-baby to be spared, to have his civil rights honored, and to be taken to a doctor when Harry aims his gun at the killer and single-mindedly wants to know where the girl is buried and hidden. Hiding behind and manipulating the protection of the state and the laws of the System, the looney's head is appropriately positioned above the hash mark on the field (he puts his head in the cross-hair, making himself a target for Harry):
There is a terrific cinematographic, helicopter shot - a spiraling, aerial view pulling up and away from Harry, as he uses strong-arm tactics to torture and crush Scorpio's wounded, bleeding leg under his grinding foot and heel - alone in the flood-lit stadium. The camera moves further and further back into the night sky until the two become 'merged' together from a subjective view - and the entire stadium is lost to one's sight and enveloped in the foggy blackness. |
Throughout
the city, numerous rooftops have officers positioned to be on the
lookout (on "search patterns") for the blackmailing, ransom-demanding
killer named Scorpio (Andrew J. Robinson). In the Homicide Department,
Harry is assigned a replacement (for his wounded current partner)
against his will by an insistent Lt. Bressler - a rookie, college-educated
(a San Jose State University Sociology major) Mexican-American cop
named Chico Gonzales (Reni Santoni). He is less dismayed by the new
partner's ethnicity than his lack of experience and his major detective-work
liabilities: "You gotta be kidding. I don't got any time to
break in any newcomers. Why don't you do this boy a favor...if I
need a partner, I'll get me someone who knows what the hell he's
doin'."
Later, he advises the green, fresh-from college Gonzales: