"I have strong feelings about gun control. If there’s a gun around, I want to be controlling it."
Pink Cadillac
"I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum – the most powerful hand gun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question–Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk!"
Dirty Harry
"Go ahead, make my day."
Sudden Impact
"When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross."
Dirty Harry
"Nothing wrong with shooting…as long as the right people get shot."
Dirty Harry
"Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera – I’ll kill you."
Clint Eastwood to Michael Moore
You’ve got to admit, the man has a way with turning a phrase.
I hadn’t known that Clint wrote Dirty Harry.
Is this an open thread or something?
Other goodies!
“This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.”
“I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.”
“Dyin’ ain’t much of a living boy!”
“Hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
“Nothing wrong with shooting…as long as the right people get shot.”
Hear hear!
“This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.”
Sounds like he and Wolfowitz went to the same school.
Only one Eastwood sums up the whole of the universe: “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. (Unforgiven).
Funny how as Clint’s gotten older, and written/directed his own work, he’s gone further and further away from the Dirty Harry charicature. In fact, ‘Tightrope’ was very much a cautionary take on the Dirty Harry thing.
He’s had a fascinating, amazing career. From spaghetti westerns to tighty-righty wet dreams to idiosyncratic movies with complex, ambiguous moral codes. What’s even more amazing is that his on-screen persona hasn’t changed much even as his roles have evolved so beautifully. Eastwood doesn’t ‘disappear’ into his roles, a la Hoffman or Guinness: the role disappears into him. He presents an interesting argument in favor of ‘less = more’ for big-screen acting.
Then you can compare and contrast Eastwood with someone like Nicholson – who also has a very long and varied career, and a definite screen persona that’s pretty consistent from role to role. (With a few very notable exceptions, like “Reds” and “As Good As It Gets.”) But where Eastwood is Repressed/Laconic Superego, Nicholson is The Joy of the Unleashed Id. Nicholson makes a good argument for ‘there’s no such thing as too much.’
Have those two ever been in a movie together?
“You gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?”
To expand on sidereal’s last quote from Unforgiven, with the payoff line (my favorite — especially Clint’s delivery).
MUNNY:
It’s a hell of a thing , killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
KID:
Yeah. Well, I guess they had it coming.
MUNNY:
We all have it coming, kid.
I always loved this exchange from Unforgiven.
“All right, I’m commin out.
I see any man I’m gonna shoot.
Any son-of-a-bitch takes a shot at me,
I’m not only gonna kill him,
I’m gonna kill his wife,
kill all his friends,
burn his damn house down.”
I also like the following unsourced quote, I think it’s very true although I have never found a source for it.
“the problem is that its a whole lot tougher to be an Atticus Finch than a Dirty Harry Callahan. But Atticus is a hundred times a better man than Dirty Harry will ever be.”
Clint didn’t write Dirty Harry, if imdb.com is correct.
I can’t believe no one’s added anything from Bronco Billy. I’ve been trying to Google the script, but can’t find it. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it as it is in the same vein as Unforgiven (in trying to debunk the Dirty Harry character) but a much lighter touch.
Clint Eastwood was in “Reds”?
Reread the post. Nicholson was in ‘Reds.’
There’s a scene in “The Outlaw Josey Wales” in which the Eastwood character, who has previously covered the entire landscape in tobaccy juice, eyes a bedraggled-looking dog who has approached him.
He lays a big tobaccy emulsion right on the dog.
No dialogue, but enough said.
I think Wales was a cat person.
From Sudden Impact, The First Dirty Harry movie Clint Eastwood directed:
“Nobody, but nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog anymore!”
Little Bill : “You just shot an unarmed man!”
Will Munny : “Well he should have armed himself,
if he’s gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.”
Clint is an American Icon for sure.
It didn’t produce any memorable quotes (well, ‘least that I remember) and wasn’t the best Eastwood movie of its era (that distinction belongs to “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” IMHO), but I’ve always had a soft spot for “Kelly’s Heroes.” Something about the way Eastwood and Sutherland play off each other, and the casual amorality of American and German troops joining forces in pursuit of the thing that virtually everyone can agree upon.
lj: “Clint didn’t write Dirty Harry, if imdb.com is correct.”
Time to calibrate your irony meter…
Here’s another great Clint quote:
Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.
The night is cold and delicate and full of angels
Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,
The chime goes unheard.
We are together at last, though far apart.
No memorable quotes from Kelly’s Heroes? Ha, I say. They just weren’t Kelly’s, they were Oddball’s, like the various riffs on positive / negative waves:
Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves.
Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Crazy! I mean like so many positive waves maybe we can’t lose! You’re on!
or Big Joe’s orders and rants, like:
Now when I come back, I want that farmhouse not only clean but completely decorated. Do you understand that?
Look! We’re not worried about the German army, we’ve got enough troubles on our own. To the right General Patton, to the left the British Army, to the rear our own goddamn artillery, and besides all that it’s raining. And the only good thing to say about the weather is that it keeps our air corps from blowing us all to Hell because its too lousy to fly, versteh?
Although, there is one classic that involved Kelly:
Big Joe: I thought I told you to get a good-looking kid, not some fat, sausage-chewing wino!
Kelly: Well, if you wanted a young boy, you should have sent someone else.
(Credit to IMDB for the quotes.)
Other favorite from Unforgiven (to throw a bit of cold water on this testosterone vicariousness festival)*
I ain’t like that no more. I ain’t the same, Ned. Claudia, she straightened me up, cleared me of drinkin’ whiskey and all.
*I love Clint, just don’t think “hear! hear!” is the appropriate response to “Nothing wrong with shooting”
Why should I care what some elitist millionaire from Hollywood has to say about gun control?
Ol’ Chuck is now a fan of public death threats, even death threats made in jest. Go it. I hope he’ll remember that in the future.
lj: “Clint didn’t write Dirty Harry, if imdb.com is correct.”
Time to calibrate your irony meter…
I have to admit, between complaints about media distortion, strippers, and now discussions of death threats, it is really getting a workout here. I’m going to let it cool down a bit…
OK, OK, for all you gun-control advocates out there, Clint also said:
Nuthin like a good piece of Hickory