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Magnum Force

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For the Heltah Skeltah album, see Magnum Force (album).
Magnum Force
Theatrical film poster by Bill Gold
Directed byTed Post
Screenplay byJohn Milius
Michael Cimino
Story byJohn Milius
Produced byRobert Daley
StarringClint Eastwood
Hal Holbrook
Mitchell Ryan
David Soul
Felton Perry
Robert Urich
Tim Matheson
CinematographyFrank Stanley
Edited byFerris Webster
Music byLalo Schifrin
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • December 25, 1973 (1973-12-25)
Running time
124 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish
Box office$44,680,473[1]

Magnum Force is a 1973 American police thriller film and the second to feature Clint Eastwood as maverick cop Harry Callahan after the 1971 film Dirty Harry. Ted Post, who also directed Eastwood in TV's Rawhide and the feature film Hang 'Em High, directed the second film in the Dirty Harry series. The screenplay was written by John Milius (who provided an uncredited rewrite for the original film) and Michael Cimino. This film features early appearances by David Soul, Tim Matheson and Robert Urich as the primary antagonists, the vigilante traffic cops. At 124 minutes, it is also the longest Dirty Harry film.

Plot

In 1972,[2] mobster Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) drives away from court after being acquitted on a technicality. An unseen SFPD motorcycle cop stops Ricca’s limo for a traffic violation. Suddenly, the patrolman pulls his service revolver (a .357 Magnum Colt Python), shoots all four men in the car, then rides away.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) and his partner Earlington "Early" Smith (Felton Perry) visit the crime scene. Callahan is controversial within the department. His superior, Lieutenant Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook) views Callahan and his tactics—such as his handling of the Scorpio case, and foiling an aircraft hijacking at the airport by impersonating a pilot—as reckless and dangerous. The dislike is mutual, with Callahan mocking Briggs with the words "A man's got to know his limitations". Others, such as rookie traffic cops Philip Sweet (Tim Matheson), John Davis (David Soul), "Red" Astrachan (Kip Niven), and Michael Grimes (Robert Urich), see the inspector as a role model. Encountering Callahan at the firing range, the young officers reveal that they are all ex-Airborne Rangers or Special Forces. The young officers' zeal and marksmanship impress Callahan.

More criminals are killed. A motorcycle cop attacks a mobster's pool party, using a satchel charge and a 9mm Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun to kill multiple people. Later, a pimp (Albert Popwell) who killed one of his prostitutes (Margaret Avery) is himself shot by a motorcycle cop. Callahan realizes that the pimp had let his killer approach him and had offered a bribe. He deduces that a cop is likely responsible, perhaps his old friend Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), who is suicidal and unstable after leaving his wife.

After the hearing McCoy's rant, Callahan visits his ex-wife, Carol (Christine White) and asks about McCoy. Carol tries to seduce Callahan but her kids break the mood. Back at his apartment building, Callahan meets a girl called Sunny (Adele Yoshioka) who asks "What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you". To which Harry replies, "Try knocking on the door." A little while later Sunny knocks on Harry's door and they spend the night together.

A motorcycle cop murders drug kingpin Lou Guzman and associates with a Colt Python equipped with a silencer. However, Guzman is under surveillance by Callahan's old partner, DeGeorgio (John Mitchum), who sees McCoy dump his bike outside Guzman's apartment complex just before he witnesses Guzman's murder. The assassin motorcycle cop encounters McCoy in the garage of Guzman's building and kills him to eliminate a potential witness. Meanwhile, Harry presents his suspicions about McCoy to Briggs, who informs him of McCoy's death. Later, DeGeorgio tells Callahan that Davis was first cop to arrive after the murder of Guzman and McCoy.

Davis' promptness at the crime scene raises Callahan's suspicions of the rookie cops. During a shooting competition with the rookies, Callahan borrows Davis' gun and embeds a slug in a wall. He finds that the slug matches those found at the crime scene involving Guzman and McCoy, and begins to suspect that a secret death squad within the department is responsible for the murders.

Briggs ignores Callahan's suspicions and insists that mob killer Frank Palancio is behind the deaths. When Briggs obtains a warrant for Palancio's arrest and tells Harry to lead the arrest team, Callahan requests two of the four rookies, Davis and Sweet, as his backup. Palancio and his gang are called shortly before the raid and told that killers dressed as police officers will attack. Palancio kills Sweet during the resulting shootout with a 12 gauge Winchester Model 1897 shotgun. During the arrest operation, Palancio and his men are also killed.

In the police garage after the raid, the three remaining renegade cops, sitting on their bikes, confront Callahan. When Harry tells them they've killed a dozen people and asks what they're going to do next week. Davis cold-bloodedly replies, "Kill a dozen more." They ask Callahan to join their organization; he responds, "I’m afraid you've misjudged me." Without saying a word, they drive away on their motorcycles. Back at his apartment, Harry discovers a bomb in his mailbox left by the vigilantes in case he refused their offer. He saves Sunny's life by preventing her from opening the mailbox. Callahan defuses the bomb, but a second bomb at Smith's home kills his partner.

Back at his apartment, Callahan calls Briggs and tells him about the bombs. Briggs arrives and Harry shows Briggs the bomb that was in his mailbox. Briggs wants to get the bomb back to headquarters and asks Callahan to drive. In the car, Briggs draws his .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 19 snubnose revolver and forces the inspector to disarm. Briggs then reveals himself as the leader of the death squad. He cites the traditions of frontier justice and summary executions, and says, “You’re a great cop, Harry...But you’d rather stick with the system.” Callahan responds, "I hate the goddamn system, but until someone comes along with some changes that make sense I'll stick with it."

As Briggs forces Harry to drive toward the docks, he sees Grimes, who is using his radio, shadowing them on his police bike. Callahan distracts Briggs and knocks him unconscious. During a high-speed chase, Harry tries to get away from Grimes, but then kills the pursuing rookie by hitting him head-on with his car. He runs onto an old aircraft carrier in a military vessel graveyard as the remaining two vigilantes arrive. The unarmed Callahan evades his pursuers and kills Astrachan by repeatedly hitting his throat. Davis finds Astrachan's body and gently cradles it before taking off after Callahan. Back on deck, Harry then rides Astrachan's motorcycle with Davis in pursuit. After a series of daring jumps between ships, the two run out of deck space. Callahan is able to dump his bike and stop but Davis is killed. Back in the car, a bleeding and beat-up Briggs gets the drop on Harry and threatens to prosecute him for killing fellow cops. As the inspector exits the vehicle, he surreptitiously activates the timer on the mail bomb; it explodes, killing Briggs. The final scene of the movie is a close-up of Callahan's face in front of the raging inferno as he says, "A man's got to know his limitations", before he walks away.

Deleted scenes

Cut from the final film were two scenes that explain why Harry grows to suspect Astrachan, Davis, Grimes, and Sweet of the killings of Charlie McCoy, Guzman, Ricca, the pimp, and all of the other criminals.[3]

  • The first scene cut takes place after Davis and Harry watch McCoy's funeral flight take off and before the combat pistol championship; after the flight Harry and Davis drive from the airport to a bowling alley for a few drinks; a black youth is suddenly chased outside and assaulted by four toughs; Davis attacks the toughs while Harry dispatches one with his beer mug. After subduing the robbers, Davis harangues a group of eyewitnesses for letting such crimes take place; Harry witnesses Davis' harangue and sees in it his own approach to crime fighting, albeit far more severe.
  • Later, after examining the bullet from Davis' gun at the combat pistol championship range, Harry checks on old issues of a police magazine. He finds articles condemning the revolving door justice allowed by liberal politics - and these articles are authored by the four rookie cops.

Cast

Production

Development

Writer John Milius came up with a storyline in which a group of rogue young officers in the San Francisco Police Force systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals, conveying the idea that there are even worse rogue cops than Dirty Harry.[4] Clint Eastwood specifically wanted the story to show that despite the 1971's film perceived view of Inspector Callahan, Harry was not a complete vigilante. David Soul, Tim Matheson, Robert Urich and Kip Niven were cast as the young vigilante cops.[5] Milius was a gun aficionado and political conservative and the film would extensively feature gun shooting in practice, competition, and on the job.[5] Given this strong theme in the film, the title was soon changed from Vigilance to Magnum Force in deference to the .44 Magnum that Harry liked to use. Milius thought it was important to remind the audiences of the original film by incorporating the line "Do ya feel lucky?" repeated in the opening credits.[5]

With Milius committed to filming Dillinger, Michael Cimino was later hired to revise the script, overseen by Ted Post, who was to direct. According to Milius, his script did not contain any of the action sequences (the car chase scene and duel on the aircraft carriers) at the end of the film. His was a "simple script".[6] The addition of the character Sunny was done at the suggestion of Eastwood, who reportedly received letters from women asking for "a female to hit on Harry" (not the other way around).[6]

Filming

Frank Stanley was hired as cinematographer and Lalo Schifrin once again conducted the score and filming commenced in late April 1973.[5] During filming Eastwood encountered numerous disputes with Post over who was calling the shots in directing the film, and Eastwood failed to authorize two important scenes directed by Post in the film because of time and expenses, one of them was at the climax to the film with a long shot of Eastwood on his motorcycle as he confronts the rogue cops.[7] Eastwood was intent, like with many of his films on shooting it as smoothly as possible, often refusing to do retakes over certain scenes insisted on by Post who later remarked, "A lot of the things he said were based on pure, selfish ignorance, and showed that he was the man who controlled the power. By Magnum Force Clint's ego began applying for statehood".[7] Post remained bitter with Eastwood for many years and claims disagreements over the filming affected his career afterwards.[8] According to director of photography Rexford Metz, "Eastwood would not take the time to perfect a situation. If you've got seventy percent of a shot worked out, that's sufficient for him, because he knows his audience will accept it."[7]

Effect

The film would launch a number of careers, including David Soul (Starsky & Hutch television series), Robert Urich (S.W.A.T., Vega$ and Spencer for Hire) and Tim Matheson (films like Animal House (1978) and Fletch (1985). Future Three's Company TV star Suzanne Somers can be seen as the topless blonde at the mobster's pool party.

Controversy

The film received negative publicity in 1974 when it was discovered that the scene where the prostitute is killed with drain cleaner had allegedly inspired the infamous Hi-Fi Murders, with the two killers believing the method would be as efficient as it was portrayed in the film. The killers said that they were looking for a unique murder method when they stumbled upon the film, and that had they not seen the movie, would have chosen a method from another film. The drain cleaner reference was repeated in three other films, Lethal Weapon (1987), Heathers (1989) and Urban Legend (1998). According to scriptwriter John Milius, this drain cleaner scene was never meant to be filmed, but was only mentioned in his original script.[6]

Release

Reception

Although the film was a major success after release, grossing $58.1 million in the United States alone, a new record for Eastwood, it received a mixed critical response.[8] New York Times critics such as Nora Sayre criticized the conflicting moral themes of the film and Frank Rich believed it "was the same old stuff".[8] Pauline Kael, a harsh critic of Eastwood for many years mocked his performance as Dirty Harry, commenting that, "He isn't an actor, so one could hardly call him a bad actor. He'd have to do something before we could consider him bad at it. And acting isn't required of him in Magnum Force.[8]

Box office performance

In the film's opening weekend, it grossed $6,871,011.[9] In the United States, the film made a total of $44,680,473,[10] making it more successful than the first film[11] and the seventh highest grossing film of 1973.

References

Notes
  1. ^ "Magnum Force, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
  2. ^ As stated in The Enforcer
  3. ^ "Magnum Force" at IMDB - Trivia
  4. ^ McGilligan (1999), p.233
  5. ^ a b c d McGilligan (1999), p.234
  6. ^ a b c John Milius commentary on Magnum Force Deluxe Edition DVD
  7. ^ a b c McGilligan (1999), p.235
  8. ^ a b c d McGilligan (1999), p.236
  9. ^ Munn, p. 142
  10. ^ "Magnum Force, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
  11. ^ "Dirty Harry Franchise Box Office Information". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
Bibliography

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