A racketeer, Carmine Ricca, has been cleared of murder, due to the usual and frustrating court technicality... He leaves, a happy and free man... Not for long... A motorcycle cop pulls his car over, seemingly for a traffic violation and ruthlessly slaughters him and the other three occupants...
Harry is soon on the scene, this time with a new black partner, Early Smith (Felton Perry). It transpires that Harry is no longer in the homicide squad, he's been demoted to a stake-out squad by Detective Briggs (Hal Holbrook) because of his previous unconventional methods... Nevertheless he soon demonstrates that he has lost none of his considerable skills... Enjoying a hamburger at San Francisco Airport he becomes involved in a hijack...
Harry meets an old colleague Charlie McCoy (Mitch Ryan) who seems unnaturally upset about the ineffectiveness of the courts and Harry fears that he may be the killer cop...
Later, in the police firing range, he meets four young traffic cops who are more than impressed by his former lethal methods... With a wave of underworld killings on the increase, Harry is eventually told to work with Briggs to solve them... He still suspects the murderer is McCoy until the latter is killed and, by setting a clever trap to check the bullets in the guns of the four young motorcycle cops, Harry finds that they are the guilty persons...
"Magnum .44" is much bloodier than "Dirty Harry." The lack of emotion emerges in Harry's character... He is a powerful and dominating figure who shoots first and asks questions later... Director Ted Post takes him from below to imprint his stature on the piece...
Eastwood is solid enough but not as penetrating as it was in "Dirty Harry." He even have sex... Inevitably, as is usual with his persona, the initiative has to come from the female, unsuccessfully from McCoy's widow and extremely directly from the pretty little Japanese girl who lives downstairs... She gazes up at Eastwood and says: "What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you?" He replies: "Try knocking at the door." They've only known each other for about half a minute, making it one of the swiftest screen seductions on record, and it illustrates the fact that Eastwood's sex appeal is instant and uncomplicated... He is the conventional tough-guy par excellence handsome, laconic, cynical, determined and independent; clearly a man to be idolized by other men and worshiped by women...
Harry is soon on the scene, this time with a new black partner, Early Smith (Felton Perry). It transpires that Harry is no longer in the homicide squad, he's been demoted to a stake-out squad by Detective Briggs (Hal Holbrook) because of his previous unconventional methods... Nevertheless he soon demonstrates that he has lost none of his considerable skills... Enjoying a hamburger at San Francisco Airport he becomes involved in a hijack...
Harry meets an old colleague Charlie McCoy (Mitch Ryan) who seems unnaturally upset about the ineffectiveness of the courts and Harry fears that he may be the killer cop...
Later, in the police firing range, he meets four young traffic cops who are more than impressed by his former lethal methods... With a wave of underworld killings on the increase, Harry is eventually told to work with Briggs to solve them... He still suspects the murderer is McCoy until the latter is killed and, by setting a clever trap to check the bullets in the guns of the four young motorcycle cops, Harry finds that they are the guilty persons...
"Magnum .44" is much bloodier than "Dirty Harry." The lack of emotion emerges in Harry's character... He is a powerful and dominating figure who shoots first and asks questions later... Director Ted Post takes him from below to imprint his stature on the piece...
Eastwood is solid enough but not as penetrating as it was in "Dirty Harry." He even have sex... Inevitably, as is usual with his persona, the initiative has to come from the female, unsuccessfully from McCoy's widow and extremely directly from the pretty little Japanese girl who lives downstairs... She gazes up at Eastwood and says: "What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you?" He replies: "Try knocking at the door." They've only known each other for about half a minute, making it one of the swiftest screen seductions on record, and it illustrates the fact that Eastwood's sex appeal is instant and uncomplicated... He is the conventional tough-guy par excellence handsome, laconic, cynical, determined and independent; clearly a man to be idolized by other men and worshiped by women...