Dirty Harry

The 1971 Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry has been released in UHD format. It is an influential, much referenced and misquoted ("Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?" often ends up as "Do you feel lucky, punk?"). It is in the vanguard of the bleaker, more violent films that Hollywood would make in the 1970s.

The director Don Siegel and Cinematographer Bruce Surtees, sometimes known as the prince of darkness for his mastery of low light filming, create a film that is visually a blend of classic Hollywood western and expressionism. Right from the start, watching the film in 4K shows detail that has not previously been seen on the TV screen. When Harry (Eastwood) finds the location that the killer Scorpio (Andy Robinson) shot from, the camera looks across the city. The zig-zagging wall atop the 52-story Bank of America Center, behind it the faraway lattice of streets and buildings. No longer are the urban structures blurry. The sharp intricacies of the city are stretched across the panoramic. It is not just the seedy sex shops and strip clubs of San Francisco, their glowing signage glittering casino-like in the pitch black of night, that benefit from HDR. The scenes with the 30 metre tall Mount Davidson Cross are astounding, the brutal grey concrete lit bright against the dark of woodland and starless sky.

There are two special features on the disk that are worth watching. The first is an hour long TV documentary, Clint Eastwood: The Man From Malpaso. It covers Eastwood's career until just after Unforgiven. For those who don't know much about the man it will fill in some of the blanks. The second is the concatenation of two episodes from BBC2's Arena, Clint Eastwood - Part 1: Out Of The West and Clint Eastwood - Part 2: American Filmmaker. These episodes date from the back end of 2000 and cover much the same material as The Man From Malpaso but from a slightly different angle. Their scope ranges into the years that follow on from Unforgiven. There is also a made for TV promotional featurette that has some historical interest. The rest of what is on the disc is much of a muchness.

The look and feel of the disc and its packaging are in keeping with the film. The menu system is clear and easy to navigate.

Reviewed on: 02 May 2025