Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan was born on August 3, 1930 in Potrero Hill, a working suburb of San Francisco. He grew up there. Upon reaching military age, he was drafted into the ranks of the American Marine Corps , where he served with his fellow countryman Charlie McCoy, with whom, after being transferred to the reserve, they joined the police service (and who also died as a result, like most of Callahan’s companions) .

His military service is practically not mentioned in films, only a mug with the emblem of the Marine Corps on his desktop reminds of her, therefore it is not known for certain where exactly he served, nor in any military rank he quit. The circumstances of his service are also unknown. McCoy only once dropped Callahana: “It would be better if you and I remained in the army ... Another twenty years or so commercials” ^[6] .

At the time of the first film, Callahan, already a middle-aged man, works as an inspector in the San Francisco Police Department (p / n 2211). He served most of his service in the slaughter department, investigating serious crimes - robbery and murder, although in his work biography there was a certain period when, during the next bickering with his superiors, he was transferred to the combat unit he hated and for some time served as a personnel officer, and with his uncompromising attitude, having once “flunked” with questions during an interview a candidate for the criminal investigation service, Harry is convinced that women have no place in the police.

At the same time, Eastwood himself was sometimes called a “ feminist ” because he necessarily included the image of a “ strong woman ” in the script, regardless of whether she was the partner of his hero or stood on the other side of the law ^[7] . For a while, Callahan works under external surveillance or simply "expelled" from the city for a while under some plausible pretext, supposedly to conduct an investigation; in fact, his superiors simply did not want him to bother them with his presence and callused their eyes ^[5] . Harry, suffering from chronic fatigue and always angry all over the world, gets on many nerves, and not only at his place of work. They are unhappy both in the municipality and at the place of residence.

The origin of the epithet " dirty ", which actually replaced him with his real name, is not fully clarified. His partner Frank Digiorgio, later murdered by bandits, opens the veil of secrecy about the origin of his nickname: "Harry hates everyone - British , Irish , Jews , snickering pasta , niggas , whites , china , continue the list yourself." Harry himself believes that this nickname stuck to him because he was entrusted with any dirty job that he performs very effectively: statistics for five films - 43 killers were neutralized ^[8] . It should be noted here that the character of Dirty Harry was not ignored by religious themes. Against the background of impersonal and inhuman savage criminals, Callahan appears as a kind of biblical avenger ^[9] with a very peculiar idea of justice ^[10] .

Little is known about his family life. His wife died in a traffic accident before the events shown in the first film ^{[Note. 2]} . Now he lives in the relatively prosperous region of Nob Hill, which many citizens call “ Snob ” Hill due to the fact that most city bonzes live there.

Character Creation History

The role was initially offered to Paul Newman , but by virtue of his reputation as a human rights activist, the role of Dirty Harry was unthinkable to Newman. Universal also considered the nominations of John Wayne , Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen ^[11] . For lack of prospects, the script was sold to Warner Bros studios, which had already trumpeted the release of an action-packed tape with Frank Sinatra as a cool detective in a cloaked cloak, but there was a problem - because of an old wrist injury, Frank could no longer shoot from the 44th Magnum. In the end, the promising hero of spaghetti westerns Clint Eastwood was invited to the role of Dirty Harry ^[11] .

Eastwood himself has contributed a lot to the image of his hero, in particular the rejection of generally accepted social and political institutions ^[12] . It is also characteristic that Eastwood performed a number of tricks on his own ^[13] . Film critic Pauline Cal had the courage to call Harry performed by Eastwood a fascist; in retaliation for this, in one of the following films, a supporting heroine resembling Kal was brutally stabbed ^[14] . Eastwood himself has repeatedly noted that the character he created seems to him to be largely comical ^[6] . After the release of The Deadly List (1988), Eastwood decided that Harry Callahan should “retire.” ^[15]

The character has a real prototype underneath - detective Dave Tosca , the head of the investigation team for the infamous Zodiac case. The similarity ends here, and all the features of a tough policeman are the work of the creators of the character, mainly Eastwood himself ^[2] .

The Dirty Harry Paradox is an ethical and legal paradox of criminal law , first formulated in 1980 by an American lawyer, professor of criminal law at the University of Delaware Karl Klokars on the basis of a scientific analysis of the events of the film of the same name and consisting in a scientific approach to the problem of establishing the limits of admissibility of certain means in the context of achieving ultimate goals in police work, from the point of view of both the criminal procedure and the philistine approach. Understands during seminars with students of American law faculties and cadets of police academies ^[16] .

This can be called a paradox rather arbitrarily, since for Harry himself no paradox has ever arisen. Nevertheless, analyzing this paradox, we can come to the unequivocal conclusion that law enforcement officers very often find themselves in situations requiring a quick decision and a choice of at least two evils - between strict observance of procedural requirements, which can interfere with the disclosure / suppression of the offense, and “dirty” methods of work, which can help reveal / prevent an offense ^[17] .

However, one should not forget that the key word in this case is “can”. Moving away from the legal side of the issue and returning to the film science proper, we can confidently note the fact that in the films about Harry Callahan’s adventures, good goals are always achieved only by exclusively “dirty” methods, which fuels the layman’s disbelief in the effectiveness of existing legal institutions ^[18] .

• Acker, James R.; Brody, David C. The Law of Criminal Procedure: Of Means and Ends // Criminal Procedure: A Contemporary Approach . - 3rd edition. - Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2012 .-- 650 p. - ISBN 978-0-7637-9520-7 .
• Brunsdale, Mitzi M. Dirty Harry: The Vigilante Cop // Icons of Mystery and Crime Detection: From Sleuths to Superheroes . - Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010 .-- (Greenwood Icons Series). - ISBN 978-0-313-34530-2 .
• Hoppenstand, Gary. Lethal Weapons: The Gun as Icon in the Popular Urban Vigilante Film // Beyond the Stars: The Material World in American Popular Film / Edited by Paul Loukides and Linda K. Fuller. - Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1993 .-- P. 237. - 284 p. - (Beyond the Stars). - ISBN 0-87972-623-7 .

• Harry Callahan on the Internet Movie Database