Dirty harry
LALO SCHIFRIN/ADA GLOBAL
When Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan arrives on screen in 1971’s Dirty Harry, he gets straight to work: no introduction, no introspection. Lalo Schifrin gave Harry’s film a hugely influential, insistent score to match. Brisk and brimming with immersive detail, Schifrin’s score drags you swiftly into director Don Siegel’s San Francisco and ushers you through it like Eastwood’s Dirty dick, always on the go.
Of course, Schifrin had form with laconic stars and driving music. Born in Buenos Aires, he was a classical and jazz musician before LA called. His indelible ’60s screen work ranged wide, from TV’s Mission: Impossible to Eastwood oater Coogan’s Bluff and Steve McQueen’s Bullitt. On all fronts, Schifrin applied his jazz chops to fertile ends: tense, experimental, cool.
For Dirty Harry, he merged and upgraded each of these virtues. Proving the potency of his multi-film union with Eastwood and Siegel, Schifrin’s unruffled tonal control grabs you fast: as we’re introduced to the villain, Scorpio (Andy Robinson), Siegel’s restrained direction lets the music do
the talking. Itchy tempo shifts and jarring sounds merge to unsettling effect, with Sally Stevens’ neargiallo-esque vocals lulling audiences into a false sense of security.
Harry’s entrance follows crisply, scored to nifty jazz-funk melees of organ, guitar, snare and bass. As on-the-move character introductions go, the on-screen result matches the arrivals of Saturday Night Fever’s Tony and Trainspotting’s Renton for the way it establishes character in motion; no laboured explication required.
Schifrin extended equally pungent treatment to Scorpio. With Stevens’ vocals suggesting voices in the killer’s head, Scorpio’s themes mix warped acid-rock and deranged jazz-funk stylings with wicked drive, evoking the rock rush of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ and something deadlier still for those moments when Scorpio goes loco.
Elsewhere, seedy and sad undercurrents jostle for place, establishing the city as a character and the source of Harry’s despair. Callahan doesn’t get a ‘theme,’ as such: though ‘City Hall’ nods to Eastwood’s westerns, Harry’s murky machismo is presented as a product of its background.
A model of composer, director, star and story in sync, the resulting score seems no less entwined with its parent film than that oft-quoted monologue about big guns and lucky punks. Yet its edge-of-nerves influence also resonates across endless ’70s thrillers. John Carpenter’s similarly fuss-free urban synth scores certainly owe it one. If Harry was a man of his time, Schifrin was ahead of his. With Dirty Harry, he blew audiences’ heads clean off.