Famously, the script had bounced in and out of Eastwood's hands, going by way of Paul Newman, Steven McQueen, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, and directors too numerous to list. Originally written by Harry Julian Fink and called Dead Right, Harry could have been anyone, in any city. "But it was a good script, the writing was there," demands Eastwood. After the rounds and the re-writes, it gravitated back to his desk as if by destiny. "They gave me five different copies. It remained the first one I liked. Then they asked if I would like to do it with Don Siegel." Now it is impossible to see another other face than the glacial features of Eastwood as Dirty Harry. His city was another matter of destiny: "We were looking to make it in Seattle, but decided to stop off in San Francisco. It was this beautiful day. We couldn't go any further."

Harry is a hard guy to figure out. Is he right-wing antihero, breaking through the clutter of liberal values (Pauline Kael deemed him "fascist") or is he a troubled but noble soul, thrusting for a better world? It's the lack if definition that Eastwood loves: "People jumped to conclusions without giving the character much thought, trying to attach right-wing connotations that were never really intended. He was complicated, let's leave it at that."

Whatever its politics, the film, so fluidly made and powerfully written, is an undeniable classic. Sequels were inevitable. The first, Magnum Force, softened Harry's stance - he was gunning for a cadre of even dirtier cops. "I thought it was a good idea to maybe take a different tack," admits Eastwood. "Over the years the studio would call up and ask if I wanted to do another one. I would always say no, then all of a sudden someone would come up with an idea. I ended up doing a series of them."

Clint Eastwood On... Coogan's Bluff
(1968, DON SIEGEL) "I talked with several actors, Lee Marvin was one, and they all said they liked him, so I agreed to meet him," so began one of the pivotal relationships of Eastwood's career: his friendship and fertile creative partnership with director Don Siegel. "I ended up liking him very much, but we had to piece that script together."

Coogan's Bluff is a key movie in the evolution of Eastwood's star image, catching him halfway between Western bounty hunter and off-the-leash policeman, this also offers a parallel with Midnight Cowboy as the straight-looking, stetson-hatted hero is treated as a joke by kooks, deadbeats and freaks who sneer at his John Wayne values, prehistoric sexual attitudes and faintly camp boots.

It's an unusual film in that it's out of love with its hero, who comes over as a callous, self-centered, unnecessarily brutal bastard, though, by the fade-out, Coogan has softened his dead right values enough to show some sympathy for his battered captive. The cowboy cop-out-of-water theme was reprised in the Dennis Weaver TV series McCloud, but Eastwood and Siegel were headed for Dirty Harry. "We argued once in a while, but most of the time we got on pretty well, " says Eastwood of the director. "We'd sit and bounce ideas off each other. He was a terrific guy and an efficient director and I learned a lot of my efficiency from him. He didn't monkey around much."