DIRTY HARRY BLACK VINYL – ALEPH 052
THE ORIGINAL SCORE BY LALO SCHIFRIN
Release Date: October 30th
It is possible to think of DIRTY HARRY as the godfather of the modern action film. In 1970 Clint Eastwood decided to produce Dirty Harry for his Malpaso company and recruited Don Siegel to direct, based on his prior relationship with the star. He was under contract to Universal, but they “loaned” him to Warners without reservation. The story is loosely based on the San Francisco “zodiac killings,” and Scorpio (the sniper, played by stage actor Andy Robinson) is an unmitigated, irredeemable villain. Here is someone prepared to do it all: rape, murder, extortion, torture—adults or children. It’s just grist to his mill. When faced with such evil Harry’s methods are positively gratifying, necessary even, and therein lies the dichotomy at the heart of the maelstrom.
DIRTY HARRY is a lean, mean, fighting machine. There isn’t an ounce of fat in its 100 minute running time. Stripped of exposition, the movie simply introduces Callahan as a ferocious protector of the community. He struggles with authority figures and prefers to go it alone. His partners have a rough time too, invariably ending up in the hospital or the mortuary. When the sniper threatens the city and demands a ransom of $100,000, Harry is detailed to find him and get him at all costs, despite the Mayor’s private concerns that Callahan might cause a scandalous bloodbath detrimental to the Mayor’s good standing with his constituents. The violence was pitched at a higher, more visceral level than had been seen in mainstream police movies to that time; a nocturnal confrontation between Callahan and Scorpio in the lee of a gigantic cross in Mount Davidson Park elicits a brutal beating for Harry in one of the most chilling sequences in contemporary cinema. Later, the detective will confront Scorpio again in a deserted football stadium and retaliate with bravura cruelty. In another instance, foiling a bank robbery, Callahan cynically banters with his foes: “Did he fire six shots or only five? … You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky, well do ya, punk?”
Lalo Schifrin was a logical choice for composing duties as he had experience scoring films for both Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. He had enjoyed writing the effusive melodies for COOGAN’S BLUFF immensely, and subsequently delivered music for Brian G. Hutton’s Eastwood vehicle, KELLY’S HEROES (1970). He worked with both director and star again on THE BEGUILED.
Eager to team up one more time with Siegel and Eastwood, Lalo had no hesitation in accepting the DIRTY HARRY assignment. In another San Francisco-located detective film, BULLITT (1968), Lalo had playfully textured his groove to fit the hip happenings in the hilly city. DIRTY HARRY afforded a different kind of opportunity. Urban jazz-funk formed the basis of the stew, but in keeping with the darker, angrier subject matter, the off-kilter, sometimes atonal polyrhythms infuse the proceedings with a tense, dense layer of feeling. There is no real theme for Harry, just the melancholy echo of one appearing only twice in the score. First in “Dawn Discovery” and then reprised in the bittersweet “End Titles.” Scorpio’s theme dominates as his “view” is the narrative’s focal point. Written for a driving, percussion-based jazz ensemble with a ghostly chorale floating in the mix for good measure, the fractured mindscape of Scorpio is kinetic, disordered, swirling, euphoric and dizzying. Without consciously intending it, Lalo achieved with DIRTY HARRY an action score quite unlike any other, and one that would come to be defined as the quintessential work in seventies action cinema.
For this album, which represents DIRTY HARRY’s premiere release complete, we have returned to the original multi-track, multi-take session masters. Spread across many tracks, with each instrument in the ensemble save the strings having its own, the precision with which this score was recorded is extraordinary. Designed to be folded down to a monaural mix in the film (which is how the handful of cues previously issued on album have been presented with the exception of the main title), the music is a revelation remixed for stereo. The crisp jazz unit, placed front and center with the strings nestling in behind and around them, delivers this score in unprecedented clarity, offering ample evidence to the listener of Lalo Schifrin’s unique and often unorthodox sonic clusters.
– Nick Redman
Composed and Conducted by Lalo Schifrin
Executive Produced by Donna Schifrin
Music Remixed from the original multi-track masters
by Michael Matessino at Sharpline Arts
Edited and Mastered by Daniel Hersch at d2 Mastering
Vinyl Mastered at Well Made Music
Art Direction and Design by Theresa E. Schifrin
Cover and Back Illustrations by Artur Trzebny
Music Recorded at Warner Bros Studios, during October 1971
Published by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp./BMI
Dirty Harry © 1971 Warner Bros. Inc. and The Malpaso Company
Manufactured by Gotta Groove Records, Inc.
Special Thanks: Clint Eastwood, Donald S. Passman,
Nick Redman, Matt Earley, Forrest Faubion
Track Listing:
SIDE A
1. Prologue/The Swimming Pool 1:31
2. Main Title 3:30
3. Harry’s Hot Dog 1:58
4. No More Lies, Girl 2:46
5. Scorpio’s View 2:37
6. Red Light District 2:56
7. Scorpio Takes The Bait 3:32
8. The Cross 0:47
SIDE B
9. The Stadium Grounds 1:00
10. Floodlights 1:34
11. Dawn Discovery 1:01
12. Off Duty 3:18
13. The Strip Club 1:45
14. Liquor Store Holdup 1:20
15. City Hall 1:20
16. The School Bus 2:02
17. Goodbye, Callahan 1:46
18. End Titles 1:19
Bonus Tracks
19. The Swimming Pool (Original Version)/Scorpio’s View 1:21
20. Dirty Harry’s Creed 3:25
