(4) CLINT EASTWOOD –

THE MAN WITH NO NAME & DIRTY HARRY

 

Ask yourself a question: “do I feel lucky?” Well, do you, punk?

You had me at Clint Eastwood.

No, seriously – I could just stop there, with one of the foremost icons of screen masculinity.

As per TV Tropes in rating him the trope Rated M for Manly – “The 6’4, gravel-voiced, ultra-macho action star Clint Eastwood is one of the most enduring cultural icons of masculinity in the history of American cinema and beyond.”

Although my quip for his vocal delivery is one of whispered menace. The above description also omits his signature steely gaze or glare – the latter lending itself to TV Tropes coining the trope Clint squint. Not to mention a certain wiry quality to him, even grizzled, if not both.

However, it doesn’t stop there. There are his two most iconic characters, who also happen to be two of the most iconic characters in cinema – the Man with No Name from the so-called Dollars Trilogy or even The Man with No Name Trilogy, most famously the third film of the trilogy, and Dirty Harry.

Again as per TV Tropes, Eastwood is “most famous for portraying tough-as-nails gunslingers who speak very little, and make each word (and bullet) count. The two most famous roles of this kind are Dirty Harry, and the Man With No Name in Sergio Leone’s Dollar’s Trilogy.”

The Man with No Name came first – in the cinematic trilogy of Westerns directed by Sergio Leone, labelled as the subgenre of Spaghetti Westerns because they were produced by Italian film studios and Italian directors in the case of Leone. The trilogy itself consists of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and the best (as well as most famous) of them, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Of course, the Man with No Name has a name in each film – Joe, Manco, and Blondie respectively – but they are nicknames given him by other characters. There is only a loose continuity, if any, between each film, such that it’s not clear that he’s even the same character. I prefer to think of each film as more within a mythology than a continuity – and the Man with No Name a different incarnation of a mythic character in each film.

And that mythic character – the lone gunman, with “his aloof nature, questionable motives, and his mysterious past”, not to mention his laconic persona.

“There are two kinds of people in this world – those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig”.

Personally, I’d say that Eastwood played the type in almost all his Western roles – he was the Man with No Name even when his character was named, from Pale Rider through to Unforgiven. And I am here for each and every one of them.

But I am here for his Dirty Harry over and above his Man with No Name. In part, that is due to the eclipse of the Western as a film genre, although I would argue that most films are essentially Westerns in all but setting, as reflected by the Dirty Harry films themselves with its anti-hero gunslinger protagonist transferred from the Wild West to the urban landscape (which, being San Francisco is still in the geographic American West).

Or as TV Tropes labels the character type, the Cowboy Cop – “a blunt, cynical, “the buck stops here” kind of law enforcer who’s constantly at odds with his indifferent, incompetent, strictly-by-the-book superiors”.

And, I would argue, an instinct for justice as an essential character type – and one that is often at odds with (and usually played as superior to) the letter of the law.

Not to mention his most iconic character trait – well, apart from his Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 magnum revolver (“We’re not just going to let you walk out of here.” “Who’s we, sucker?” “Smith, Wesson and me”) – his one-liners, “(like the Pre Ass Kicking One-Liner, Pre-Mortem One-Liner, or just the generic “I’m so badass”-One-Liner).” They’re so good I’m fond of adapting them to my work.

Hence TV Tropes attributes to Eastwood that “his Influence on the movie industry was such that without him (or his Dirty Harry library, to be more specific) the ‘80s would have seen about a mere fourth of the action movies it actually did see.”

Some of you may also recognize the “thematically similar'” influence of Eastwood in general and Dirty Harry in particular on someone who just happens to be my favorite comics character and protagonist of my favorite comic – Judge Dredd. Judge Dredd is essentially a futuristic Dirty Harry in a dystopian SF satire. The character was also directly modelled on Eastwood – something to which we see paid tribute in the name of Judge Dredd’s block from Eastwood’s character in the Western TV series, Rawhide – Rowdy Yates.

Which makes Dredd one of two characters from the 2000AD anthology comic modelled on Eastwood and his two iconic characters – with Strontium Dog’s Johnny Alpha as the Man with No Name to Dredd’s Dirty Harry.

So yes – if I had to choose, I would pick Dirty Harry over The Man with No Name. And if I had to choose which Dirty Harry, well the first one with that title obviously – not just for the title but also for the most compelling presentation of Dirty Harry having to break the rules to apprehend the antagonist serial killer Scorpio.

 

FANTASY & SF

Yeah – The Man with No Name and Dirty Harry are pretty solidly grounded outside fantasy or SF, although some of his Western incarnations of the type border on fantasy, particularly Pale Rider with its revenant protagonist.

 

COMEDY

Well there’s those one-liners, although I wouldn’t really describe them or the films as comedic, even if they have their dry and wry moments of black humor.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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