Lyn Edgington Movies

"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "fascist" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood, in a role meant for Frank Sinatra) is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When hippie-esque psycho Scorpio (Andy Robinson) goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico (Reni Santoni) are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor (John Vernon) and Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," opines Harry in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again. Directed in violent and efficient fashion by Don Siegel, with a propulsive score by Lalo Schifrin, Dirty Harry was the fourth Siegel-Eastwood collaboration after Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), and The Beguiled (1970). Critics at the time strongly objected to the heroic image of a cop's violations of a suspect's Miranda rights, forcing Siegel and Eastwood to deny that they were right-wing reactionaries. All the same, Dirty Harry proved to be highly popular and spawned four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

In the opening episode of The F.B.I.'s fourth season, Inspector Lew Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and his assistant Tom Colby (William Reynolds) go undercover to trap master spy Lorenz Tabor (Louis Jourdan). Ingredients essential to the intrigue are a bus ticket, a cryptanalysis, and a dead man's hearing aid, which is actually a miniature "holding tank" for top-secret microfilm. Featured in the cast are Nancy Kovack, later the wife of symphony conductor Zubin Mehta, and future Hill Street Blues costar James Sikking. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In Southern California, Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and Rhodes (Stephen Brooks) go undercover as missile-plant works to plug up a security leak and capture an enemy spy. The situation becomes even more precarious when the Communist higher-ups arrange the "accidental" demise of one of their own agents to cover their tracks--and then formulate a plan to kill Erskine as well. In a plot device worthy of Alfred Hitchcock, the spies operate their network out of a local movie theater (which seems to run nothing but old Warner Brothers films!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of Elvis Presley's most popular vehicles, Girl Happy is also one of the most typical. Elvis plays Rusty Wells, the leader of a four-piece rock group, consisting of Gary Crosby, Joby Baker and Jimmy Hawkins. Hired by Chicago gangster boss Big Frank (Harold J. Stone) to protect the virtue of Frank's cute daughter Valerie (Shelley Fabares), Rusty and his buddies follow Valerie to Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break. The girl falls in love with Rusty, then falls out of love when she learns that he's in her dad's employ. Valerie then becomes involved with a slick Italian playboy (Fabrizio Mioni), forcing Rusty to break up the romance lest he end up in a cement overcoat. It all ends happily, of course: after all, Elvis hadn't died on screen since Flaming Star. A bikini-watcher's dream, Girl Happy is less successful as a musical; of the many songs, the title number is the only one with lasting value. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi