DBWI: What if Clint Eastwood was Dirty Harry?

I watched Dirty Harry on TCM last night. It was an interesting picture with Marlon Brando as the lead. It was more of an old-time crime drama. And, the scene at the end is interesting when he meets Scorpio at the Airport with the kids in the bus and the bus driver. He hands him the money, and then shoots him several times and walks away, concluding the film.

Anyhow, I was on IMDB.com reading the trivia on Dirty Harry. They talked about guys that they considered or were thinking of considering. Paul Newman was one of them. When he was asked about the movie, he said that he thought the film was good, but he also said that he would have liked Clint Eastwood in that role a lot better. So, how would Dirty Harry have been with Clint in the lead role?
 
Well if he had been a part of the Dirty Harry Series would it had affected his portrayal of Han Solo in the Star Wars Series? I for one can't imagine Dirty Harry without Marlin Brando. It'd be like watching Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford not Tom Selleck! Talk about weird!
 
Eastwood was really more of a franchise star, like we saw in his spaghetti westerns and in the Star Wars series. I can't picture Dirty Harry working as a series. He was an essentially grim character, and while Eastwood might have been able to pull that off in a "Man With No Name" sort of way, I can't see it holding up in a sequel, much less a number of sequels.
 
Besides the original Dirty Harry Movie was never as successful as the late eighties series sequels starring Bruce Willis.
 
Besides the original Dirty Harry Movie was never as successful as the late eighties series sequels starring Bruce Willis.

Well, sure, but most fans of the original don't consider them to really be "Dirty Harry". Dirty Harry didn't joke around, he didn't do amazing stunts, and he didn't flirt while on the job. I'm not sure who Willis was trying to play, but that wasn't the Harry Callahan I knew.
 
TV Series

Well, sure, but most fans of the original don't consider them to really be "Dirty Harry". Dirty Harry didn't joke around, he didn't do amazing stunts, and he didn't flirt while on the job. I'm not sure who Willis was trying to play, but that wasn't the Harry Callahan I knew.

I heard that they were thinking about a Dirty Harry TV series in 1990 with Bruce as Harry Callahan, but he turned it down. Then, they offered the lead role to, get this, Clint Eastwood, and he turned it down. Then, they scrapped the idea. Just as well, because we were entering a decade of political correctness and uptightness where a guy like Harry Callahan wouldn't be appreciated.
 
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