Dirty Harry Bullitt Zodiac
Bullitt is one of my favorite movies. It still, to me, has the best
chase scene of all-time, the cars bouncing and flying over the hills
of San Francisco. It's one of Steve McQueen's best performances. It
was only when I saw Zodiac that I learned that McQueen modeled Bullitt
on real-life San Francisco detective Dave Toschi. The way McQueen wore
his gun belt, interacted with his partner and commander, etc., came
from his watching Toschi.
And, it's not a secret that Dirty Harry was based on the San
Francisco-area Zodiac killings, and that the writers based Harry
Callahan on the lead Zodiac investigator, one Dave Toschi.
During Zodiac, Dave Toschi is shown attending a special San Francisco
PD screening of Dirty Harry. Dave Toschi is also shown walking out of
the screening of Dirty Harry in disgust. Apparently, Toschi didn't
take kindly to Dirty Harry's disregard of the rules.
What's this matter? Not much. I just thought that it was interesting
that the cop on whom Dirty Harry is based didn't like the film Dirty
Harry. How did Toschi feel about Bullitt, well Zodiac doesn't give an
answer, but it does appear that he took some pride in being known as
the Bullitt cop.
All that said, I highly recommend all three films. But if you want to
rent a police thriller, get Bullitt over Dirty Harry -- it's what the
No comments:
Post a Comment