I decided this week to have another look at the Dirty Harry series of films. I'll post reviews on each of them as I work my way through the series.

It's a shame that the transfer to video was not very good - I had lots of colour fade to the point that the print almost looked cartoonish at times.

Of all the Harry films I feel this is the most complete and well put together. The starting scenes tie neatly in with the closing scenes and the classic dialogue ending in 'Do you feel lucky...' must be one of Hollywood's greatest meances if not the greatest.

Eastwood carries the role of suburban police cowboy well and the film is thought provoking about whether the ends do justify the means of not.

Andrew Robinson gives a chilling performance as the psychotic killer and deserves a large part of the credit, along with Eastwood, for the success of the film.

I'm giving this a rating of 95%. Yes, there are flaws (eg gratuitous nudity) but the acting and plot completely overshadow any minor flaws.

It's amazing to think that Frank Sinatra was originally slated for this role.

cheers Peter

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Out of pure luck I stumbled across the fact that Magnum Force would be screening again on Tempo (a French satellite channel) in our region so I decided to give this film another look. As I expected the film was dubbed in French. Fortunately I speak a little French.

What I did not expect to find was a restored print in full natural color and neatly letterboxed on the screen. This meant that I could see all the film pretty much as it would have been displayed when it first was released. I was amazed at the color - the film looked as though it was filmed in the last month or so.

I am now firmly of the opinion that it is critical to present a film with a good print as washed out colors and fading means that much of the subtlety and illusion of a film is lost.

I can't help wondering how the film was restored. If the film was filmed on Eastman Kodak stock in the early seventies I would have thought that there would be no good prints left of the film? Can someone suggest or explain to me how they would have managed to get a print looking this good?

Many filmed television shows from the 1960's and 1970's (e.g. "Star Trek", "Hogan's Heros", "Bonanza", etc.) look much better now than they did when they were syndicated on well-used and poorly stored 16mm prints. Likewise, modern video transfers made on telecines like the Spirit are likely to be very superior to transfers made from the SAME films decades ago:
here
here
here
here
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: here

It seems we live in fortunate times. It is now possible through a variety of means, to see older films such as Magnum Force in great color and in full aspect ratio. 10-15 years ago one would have to have found a theatre with a good print to see a film such as this as it originally was intended.

It really impressed me how a good print added so much more detail. For example in the first few scenes I looked at Harry's car and noticed the shine on the paintwork. These little details get lost with fade.

Most importantly though, with natural color the illusion of the film is much stronger.

cheers Peter

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