#425!!!! Dirty Harry Week: The Enforcer

Hello you Harry fans and welcome to Day 3 of Dirty Harry Week.  Our installment this time around deals with hostages, militants and lots of military hardware.  With two sects of revolutionaries harassing the good citizens of San Francisco, it's up to Inspector Callahan to wage in and cash these punks out.  This is The Enforcer.

Harry, slow down . I'm in heels for crying out loud.

Harry Callahan: Here's a seven-point suppository, Captain.
Capt McKay: What did you say?
Harry Callahan: I said stick it in your spoiler.


Marin County lose a few gas company men as they are lured away from their route by a little blonde with great legs, Miki (Jocelyn Jones of  The Other Side of the Mountain,The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Fun and Games and Nowhere to Run) who assists her psycho former Vietnam Vet boyfriend and all around thug Bobby (DeVeren Bookwalter of The Omega Man, Cover Girls, Manhole, Evita Peron and Richard II).  Bobby's crew calls themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (which makes a really crappy acronym) who plan to use the van and uniforms for a heist.

Callahan and DiGiorgio (John Mitchum of Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Telefon and The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains) are on the scene of a liquor store robbery gone bad and they have hostages.  They demand a fast car with a police radio before they give up any hostages.  Callahan drives his squad car through a plate glass window and ventilates the perps thus saving the day.   Callahan's uptight wank of a Captain chews Callahan's butt for the damage to the store and the injury of the hostages from flying glass sending Harry to Personnel.

Typical Tuesday in San Fran.

DiGiorgio is wounded stumbling on the PRSF's weapons heist, including LAW rockets and M-16s and Harry is assigned to the case along with a new female inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly of Cagney & Lacey, The Last to Go, Face of a Stranger, Christy, Bye Bye Birdie and The Autumn Heart).  Working the streets, Harry sits in with a black militant group Uhuru, our former Vietnam Vet was associated with and the leader of the group tells Harry what he needs to know and pretty much establishes to get that psycho off the street before he sees black and white squaddies in his neighborhood.

Harry and Kate are in hot pursuit now but can they find these lunatics before all hell breaks loose?
I had a quick couple of observations on the film now.  The two militant organizations are clearly based off of the Symbionese Liberation Army (the folks that brainwashed Patty Hearst) and the Black Panther Party but for obvious reasons they did not use either real named parties.

The Enforcer cleared over $60 million stateside and another $120 million overseas making this one of the most grossing Eastwood movies of its time.  The biggest SNAFU of this movie was a lawsuit aimed at Eastwood for the title The Enforcer.  Writer Bretaigne Windust (June Bride, The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Winter Meeting) was annoyed his title ending up as Eastwood's working title and Eastwood simply stated that is where the inspiration came from.  Warner Brothers produced both films of course and the case was dismissed.

We don't dig the establishment, man!