Magnum Force
Short description
Magnum Force opens with a wave of killings in San Francisco. Criminals who had escaped punishment through the courts are being tracked down and executed one after another, and the murders appear to be the work of someone who knows police procedure. Inspector Harry Callahan is drawn into the case, and his suspicions eventually settle on a group of colleagues rather than on ordinary criminals. The trail leads toward a death squad operating inside the police department, which forces Callahan to confront an enemy whose methods resemble his own and whose targets are the people he has spent his career pursuing.
The film is a sequel to Dirty Harry and the second entry in the series built around Clint Eastwood's Callahan. Ted Post directs, working from a screenplay by John Milius and Michael Cimino, with Eastwood also producing through Malpaso Productions alongside Warner Bros. Hal Holbrook plays Lieutenant Briggs, and Mitchell Ryan, David Soul, Felton Perry and Robert Urich appear among the officers. It was Post's third feature as director, following Hang 'em High and Beneath the Planet of the Apes the same year as The Baby.
Magnum Force took roughly 40 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for a crime picture of its period. On IMDb it holds a 7.2 rating from about 71,000 votes, and on TMDB a 7.1 from around 1,256 votes. A critics' rating of 7 out of 10 from 29 reviews places it broadly in line with how audiences have received it.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the beginning of the film, the voiceover featuring Dirty Harry's most famous line is read by Clint Eastwood himself. The actor also wanted his hand holding a revolver to appear on screen during the credits, but it was deemed too small and feminine-looking. Thus, this request was not granted.
- Harry Callahan's standard-issue weapon is a Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver. The same revolver is used by Eugene Tackleberry in the «Police Academy» film series.
- The characters played by Clint Eastwood and Hal Holbrook, with an explosive device in the car, drive past a sign with the number 76 three times over a period of about 30 seconds.
- According to screenwriter John Milius, the bedroom scene with an Asian woman (played by Adele Yoshioka) was included in the script because Clint Eastwood received numerous letters from female fans of Asian descent containing unambiguous propositions.
- The character played by Mitchell Ryan is killed in the film. On the day his death scene was being filmed, Ryan felt unwell and called a doctor. He later presented the director with a doctor's note stating that he was 'too sick to die'.
- Clint Eastwood declined the offer to direct, and Ted Post became the director. According to interviews with the actor and his biography, Clint Eastwood and Buddy Van Horn (a director known for staging Eastwood's films) were more involved in directing this film than Post was. Post had previously directed Eastwood in several episodes of the series Rawhide (1959-1965) and in the film Hang 'Em High (1968).
- When Clint Eastwood approached Don Siegel with a proposal to make a Dirty Harry film, he offered him a choice of four scripts, one of which was written by Terrence Malick. In that script, instead of a psychopathic killer who simply enjoyed killing, there was a man who killed criminals who had escaped punishment. Siegel did not like the script, but Eastwood did. Malick's ideas served as the basis for this film, the second in the Dirty Harry series.
- During production, Clint Eastwood repeatedly clashed with director Ted Post over who was actually in charge of the filming process. Among other things, Eastwood and Post argued over scenes they considered important. For example, Post caused a scene over a long shot of Eastwood on a motorcycle looking at the werewolf cops. Eastwood, as usual, wanted the filming to proceed smoothly and steadily, and frequently refused to redo the same takes.
- As with the work on the film 'Dirty Harry' (Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood, 1971), Eastwood, playing the lead role, performed all the stunts himself. His face is clearly visible in some of the stunt scenes—such as the scene on the roof of a swaying car and the motorcycle scene.
- Toward the end of the film, Clint Eastwood's character shares his suspicions with his partner, played by Felton Perry. This scene contains a reference to a real-life situation in Brazil several years prior, when the Esquadrão da Morte, or death squad, operated under the military dictatorship from roughly the mid-1960s until the end of the decade. John Milius pitched the screenplay for the Dirty Harry film to Clint Eastwood. It was about police officers who kill those they cannot reach through legal means. Eastwood liked the idea, especially because he wanted to resolve a certain contradiction regarding his character's actions in the original 'Dirty Harry' (Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood, 1971). Eastwood wanted to show that his character was by no means a vigilante (a vigilante is someone who bypasses legal procedures to pursue persons accused of real or imaginary crimes who have escaped deserved punishment).
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