80/80- Dirty Harry cultural icon

Remember the scene where Dirty Harry on his way to Boston watches the in-flight movie - Superman II - and wishes he could swoop down out of the sky and take out the punks! Don't worry if you don't remember - it wasn't a deleted scene from any of the Harry movies but rather comes from book 5 in the Dirty Harry novel series by Dane Hartman, Family Skeletons.

"San Francisco homicide detective Harry Callahan saw Superman II on the cross country plane trip. He smiled all the way through it. Not because he liked it but because he wished his own job was that easy. For a few seconds he thought about throwing away his Magnum .44, ripping off his shirt, and leaping out of the 747 to fight for truth, justice and the American way."

I wrote about the history of these novels Here

There were 12 of these novels published, though only six saw print in the UK.

The books are as you'd imagine forgettable but they do highlight the extent to which the Dirty Harry character as become a pop cultire icon:

• Gorillaz songs "Dirty Harry" and "Clint Eastwood" are both cultural references to this movie.
• One "detective" character in the Warhammer Fantasy novel Beasts in Velvet written by Kim Newman is called "Harald Kleindienst", nickname "Filthy Harald", an obvious pun on "Dirty Harry". A contemporary drawing of this character in White Dwarf (UK) 140 also closely resembles Eastwood.
• In the film Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen picks up a handgun in a weapon shop in Texas, and states "I am like movie star Dirty Harold, Make a'my day, Jew", making an obvious reference to Eastwood's character the popular catchphrase of Sudden Impact, the fourth film in the Dirty Harry series.
• In the 2007 film Zodiac, Dirty Harry can be seen being played at a movie theatre in the midst of the Zodiac murders.
• In the 2004 crime thriller film A History of Violence the main villain says to the hero "We should leave before he goes all dirty-harry on us."
• The 1988 buddy cop film Red Heat main character Art Ridžić played by James Belushi says to his partner "Come on everybody knows the magnum 44 is the big boy in the black. Why do you think Dirty Harry uses it?"
• The 1993 comedy film National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 Emilio Estevez parodies at the opening scene in the convenience store moments after shooting the robbers saying "I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking 'did he fire 173 times or 174? Well, do you feel lucky punk.