Dirty Harry/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: The line is "Do I feel lucky?", not "Do you feel lucky?".
    • Nor is it "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" (although that is what Eastwood said in the second film).
  • Dawson Casting: It's safe to say the actress playing the (nude) 14 year old girl wasn't really 14.
  • Dueling Movies: The first film with The French Connection, another 1971 Cowboy Cop movie.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
    • For Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans, Andrew "Garak" Robinson plays Scorpio Killer in the first movie.
    • Also, Dean Wormer is apparently the Mayor of San Francisco.
    • Jim Carrey is the victim whose death Harry investigates in The Dead Pool.
    • Harry's partner Chico in the first movie is "Poppy" the pizza chef who doesn't wash his hands on Seinfeld.
    • The most ironic of them all: Sudden Impact 's Ray Parkins becoming a judge.
    • Before she paired up with Cagney, Lacey got her training under Dirty Harry.
  • Real Life Relative: In the first movie, at the quarry scene in the end, Andy Robinson is taking his own stepson Steve Zachs hostage.
  • The Red Stapler: Sales of Harry's iconic Smith & Wesson Model 29 shot through the roof after the movie's release.
    • Specifically, Smith & Wesson stopped producing the Model 29 several years before the film's production. Clint Eastwood himself contacted S&W representative Bob Sauer, who had several assembled from parts at the factory. Smith & Wesson reintroduced the Model 29 shortly after the film's release.
  • Throw It In: Andy Robinson improvised several of Scorpio's lines, including the "hubba hubba" bit over the telephone and "my, that's a big one" when Harry pulls his gun in the park. The flip that Scorpio does when he is shot by Harry in the stadium was also Robinson's idea.
  • What Could Have Been: John Wayne lobbied hard for the role of Harry but the studio felt he was too old for the part.
    • Frank Sinatra was intended to play Harry, but he had a broken wrist at the time.
    • The screenplay for the first film went through numerous iterations and had several potential endings, including one in which Scorpio gets dispatched by a Marine sniper rather than Harry himself. Eastwood felt that the later drafts were overcomplicating the core premise and opted for one of the earliest screenplays written instead.
    • Audie Murphy was initially offered the role of the Scorpio Killer, but declined due to fears of scarring young children.
  • Working Title: The title of the first film's script was Dead Right.