Sudden Impact 30th anniversary "Go ahead, make my day!"

[Jed Cooper]

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Sudden Impact, the fourth (of five) in the Dirty Harry film series.  I meant to post yesterday but was too busy. 

If anybody would care to, feel free to post your thoughts on the movie.  Where/when you first saw it and with; your first impressions and your thoughts on the film after all these years.  I did a search online and came across some obscure images that I'd like to share.  Hope you enjoy them and this topic.

 




A closeup of Callahan on the Japanese movie poster, apparently taken from the bank robbery chase sequence.



I used to have this album on vinyl!  I don't believe it's on cd but would be nice if it was.

[Walt]

I remember being so excited that Harry was back. I was first in line at the cinema and loved every minute of the film apart from the silly dog. On reflection, it's not as good as that first viewing but at the time I thought it was incredible. Especially the finale.

[antonis]

loved every minute of the film apart from the silly dog.

Loved the dog

[higashimori]

^^ Does he not made a great job..... It's adorable english bulldog?!!..... 


" 30 years ago this week: Dirty Harry makes our day with 'Sudden Impact' "

 http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/80s/30-years-ago-this-week-dirty-harry-makes-our-day-with-sudden-impact/2156378

 

Here are five more things you probably didn't know about Sudden Impact.


1. Although Eastwood made the phrase "Go ahead, make my day" famous, it was originally used a year earlier by actor Gary Swanson in 1982's Vice Squad, who said, "Go ahead, scumbag, make my day."

2. Sudden Impact was the only Dirty Harry movie not primarily filmed in San Francisco. It's also the highest grossest installment in the series.

3. The screenplay wasn't originally written to be a Dirty Harry movie at all but rather an entirely different movie. It had to be rewritten to add Dirty Harry to the storyline.

4. The film's famous line went on to be immortalized by then-President Ronald Reagan used it in a key address when he said: "I have my veto pen drawn and ready for any tax increase that Congress might even think of sending up. And I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers. Go ahead--make my day."

5. When Eastwood campaigned for mayor of Carmel (Carmel-by-the-Sea) in California in 1986, he used bumper stickers that said: "Go Ahead - Make Me Mayor."

Source: IMDB.com

 

[Whistledixie]

Don't recall the first time I saw it (pretty sure which theater) but the second time was at the drive-in... backseat of my '79 Dodge Dart, me and my future ex-wife with another couple in the front seat... pretty much just friends at that point, for the most part, my girlfirend on vacation out of state. Thirty years would make it about right to be 16...

[Christopher]

I wasn't old enough to see it in the theater.

I've mentioned before how Sudden Impact was one of the first Eastwood movies I ever watched, and I was probably around 5 years old. It was a TV edit. Of course.

[Jed Cooper]

Loved the dog

Finally!  I've been searching high and low for an image of Meathead and I finally found one! 



Of course, whenever I hear that name, this is who I think of... 

[Jed Cooper]

^^ Does he not made a great job..... It's adorable english bulldog?!!..... 


" 30 years ago this week: Dirty Harry makes our day with 'Sudden Impact' "

 http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/80s/30-years-ago-this-week-dirty-harry-makes-our-day-with-sudden-impact/2156378

 
 

Thanks higashimori!  What still amazes me is whenever a Remember The 80's-type magazine hits the newsstands, Sudden Impact is never mentioned!  The film was enormously successful and had the catch-phrase of the decade that was quoted multiple times but many celebrities.  For some odd reason, "I'll be back" has become more popular over time. 

[Jed Cooper]

I was in my final year of high school when Sudden Impact came out.  My brother took me to see it and I returned for a second viewing with a friend and a couple of dates.  We got a kick out of one of the girls' last name being D'Ambrosio, very similar to D'Ambrosia in the movie.

I think I first discovered this film via a standee in a cinema lobby.  That was cool.  I don't think I noticed the poster until after seeing the movie.  I used to have one, also.  My first impression was that I was glad to be able to see a Dirty Harry movie for the first time on the big screen.  I enjoyed watching it on the big screen, when it appeared on cable and then having my own copy on VHS.  There was just something about it that I couldn't place, though.  It seemed a bit ...off.  I was just glad that a better movie had come out than what he'd done the previous year.

My take on this film now is that it hasn't aged well.  That is, in comparison to Dirty Harry movies that came before it.  For me, those 3 stand alone and are much better than the sequels that came thereafter.  Still, being an Eastwood fan it's great having all five of them to return to from time to time.  There are aspects of Sudden Impact and The Dead pool that I appreciate very much nowadays, even if I'm not satisfied that they're among the best of the series.

[Jed Cooper]

Ok, so I watched Sudden Impact again this week.  It's been quite a while since I've seen it and with the 30th anniversary of its' premiere having been this past Monday, I decided to give it another viewing.  I also decided to keep a very opened mind and not be as critical of it as I've come to be over the years.  For the first time in quite some time, I found myself enjoying this film all over again.  Throwing my expectations and negatively formed opinions about Sudden Impact that have developed over the years out the window, I've come to like the movie again.  It felt really good just sitting back and let myself be entertained by it all over again, reminiscing about what it was like to see the film for the first time back in 1983. 

This was the 2nd time in as many years I found redemption in a movie hero's film.  The previous year saw the release of the mega-hit Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and I could proudly hold my head up high again as a fan.  The same went for Sudden Impact, after having been unable to deliver something very good and entertaining since Any Which Way You Can 3 years to the month earlier, the latest Dirty Harry installment was perfect timing.  I've come to somewhat like Firefox and Honkytonk Man (both 1982) over the years, but neither are great.  No offense meant to those who enjoy those films more than I do.

Clint had a decent box office run throughout the 80's with subsequent releases.  Some didn't do as well as others and unfortunately he didn't end the decade as well as he started it.  Among his other films of the decade, Sudden Impact does still stand as a very enjoyable film to watch and return to.

[Whistledixie]

      ...first became aware of Honkytonk Man the year before buying the aforementioned Dodge Dart when my brother-in-law and I took it to go hunting up north... and after a long tiring drive, meeting his mother for the first time, who had Honkytonk Man on her TV just at the scene were the prostitute "preps" Kyle Eastwood. Zoinks. Nice to meet you, ma'am... no sorry, just got distracted for a minute.

     ...had some distinct thoughts about Sudden Impact at the time, though they're escaping me. Always liked the "Every day for the past ten years I've been coming in here and ordering a large black coffee" speech. Also the "Lots of things can happen to dog s**t" scene where he grabs the kid's tie. Watched it a year or so ago and thought the special Magnum they made for him actually looked less bad a** than the classic lines of the original, though didn't think so at the time... also the colors had a touch of the pastel palette that afflicted many an 80's film, which also served to makes the blacks not as rich as the older films (although Surtee actually did this one too, didn't he?) And the music became lighter and more Eighties-ized than the others it seemed...though still Lalo Schifrin.

    Oh yeah, and the "vapor lock" scene where he gives the guy a heart attack...also just the overall demented weirdness of the story...

[KC]

... also the colors had a touch of the pastel palette that afflicted many an 80's film, which also served to makes the blacks not as rich as the older films (although Surtee actually did this one too, didn't he?) And the music became lighter and more Eighties-ized than the others it seemed...though still Lalo Schifrin.

In honor of the anniversary, I thought I would post this brief excerpt from Fuensanta Plaza's excellent Clint Eastwood/Malpaso (©1991), page 143, about Surtees' and Schifrin's contributions to the film:

After The Enforcer's correct, but uninspired photography, Surtees' masterly play with light and shadow is doubly welcome. For example, the sequence in which Harry appears, eerily outlined in light, to save Jennifer and revenge Horace reflects Eastwood's and Surtees' flawless sense of drama. "That was all set up by Eastwood," explained Surtees. He had this frame made over the road, like an arch, and that was built for the end-shot. So he was in that frame, and I had a backlight to outline his body."

Skillful as Fielding's music was in The Enforcer, it is a pleasure to hear Harry Callahan musically commented by Schifrin once more. All the contrast between the festive appearance of the merry-go-round and the nightmare horror that goes on within it is expressed in the unicorn's theme. And the song "This Side Of Forever" brings that particular melody, present since Dirty Harry, to a crowning point and contributes to our feeling that two solitudes have recognized and acknowledged each other:


Composed by Lalo Schifrin. © Copyright 1983 by Warner Brothers, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

That shot referred to by Surtees is one of my favorites in the whole Eastwood canon ... well, the Dirty Harry canon, at least:

[Whistledixie]

    ...that is an awesome shot, and another iconic part of the movie. That scene also involves another great part of the film, Paul Drake, who plays the bad guy. What a trip he was...besides a quintessential dirtbag, almost a throwback to the extreme nuts kinda drunks and killers in westerns and such of earlier eras, done by courageous character actors...
 
    ...as far as the overall color, I just think that films at that point are of a different order than what they did at other times. The color in Dirty Harry is probably more related to the Technicolor of Gone With The Wind or Rebel Without A Cause than what was being done around the time of Sudden Impact. One scene where the colors are just obscenely beautiful in DH, and saturated in a pool of black, is when Harry's on the roof at night watching for Scorpio, and the woman/couple through the window with binoculars. The reds and blues of the neon sign within a field of black as rich as the other colors... Sudden Impact had a lighter, diffused kind of lighting, having to do with the industry having moved a world away from where it was in '71 and prior...

    ...I'd like to give the music another listen, and never have just on its own. I'm somewhat familiar with the part you mention, which I believe comes later. My impression of it comes from the beginning, and thinking...pretty much the same critique as the color palette, but in regard to music. It was just a totally different approach at that point, but just because that's how things go. To do otherwise would have been outdated...and short of a Quentin Tarantino homage, would still probably never be done again.

[KC]

Jack Garsha, the color timer on the film, is quoted at length in the Plaza book. If I'll get a chance, I'll post it or at least some excerpts.

[Jed Cooper]

      ...first became aware of Honkytonk Man the year before buying the aforementioned Dodge Dart when my brother-in-law and I took it to go hunting up north... and after a long tiring drive, meeting his mother for the first time, who had Honkytonk Man on her TV just at the scene were the prostitute "preps" Kyle Eastwood. Zoinks. Nice to meet you, ma'am... no sorry, just got distracted for a minute.

     ...had some distinct thoughts about Sudden Impact at the time, though they're escaping me. Always liked the "Every day for the past ten years I've been coming in here and ordering a large black coffee" speech. Also the "Lots of things can happen to dog s**t" scene where he grabs the kid's tie. Watched it a year or so ago and thought the special Magnum they made for him actually looked less bad a** than the classic lines of the original, though didn't think so at the time... also the colors had a touch of the pastel palette that afflicted many an 80's film, which also served to makes the blacks not as rich as the older films (although Surtee actually did this one too, didn't he?) And the music became lighter and more Eighties-ized than the others it seemed...though still Lalo Schifrin.

    Oh yeah, and the "vapor lock" scene where he gives the guy a heart attack...also just the overall demented weirdness of the story...

The elevator, coffee shop and wedding party scenes are favorites of mine, too.  Lots of great quotes in Sudden Impact.  "Call D'Ambrosia at the D.A.'s office, ask him if coffee is psychic."  I always got a kick out of the guy that line was delivered to and joked that he looked like he was from the cast of Hawaii Five-O.   

[Jed Cooper]

In honor of the anniversary, I thought I would post this brief excerpt from Fuensanta Plaza's excellent Clint Eastwood/Malpaso (©1991), page 143, about Surtees' and Schifrin's contributions to the film:

That shot referred to by Surtees is one of my favorites in the whole Eastwood canon ... well, the Dirty Harry canon, at least:

I agree, that's a great image.

[Jed Cooper]

I meant to comment on the soundtrack.  I love the theme to the original Dirty Harry movie but I have to say the Sudden Impact theme is probably my favorite of the series.  I remember the video that was made for it when it aired on MTV.  I believe it was released as a single but can't recall whether or not it charted on Billboard.  I think it did.  At the end of the video is Eastwood sitting at the bar as Callahan saying, "A man's got to know his limitations."

[Gant]

I recently passed the cinema in London's West End where I saw Cronenberg's Videodrome and Sudden Impact's trailer was featured.. At the time I had no idea another Dirty Harry film was in the offering so it was very exciting.. Great trailer..

[Jed Cooper]

I recently passed the cinema in London's West End where I saw Cronenberg's Videodrome and Sudden Impact's trailer was featured.. At the time I had no idea another Dirty Harry film was in the offering so it was very exciting.. Great trailer..

That's very cool.  I remember seeing Videodrome but don't recall seeing the trailer for Sudden Impact.  Videodrome starred James Woods and Deborah Harry, yes?  Long time since I've seen it. 

[Gant]

I saw Sudden Impact in Londons Leciester Square.. The cinemas was full and I think its the only time ever I can remember an audience screaming and shouting at the screen with excitment... The scene near the end where Harry re-appears on the pier...(see pic below) the crowd really went nuts....

Was there a similar reaction Stateside ?