Most men alive in North America today know something about Det. Harry Callahan, a fictional renegade San Francisco cop played with a magnificant stoicism by Clint Eastwood. And most can quote something the tough guy said in the five Dirty Harry movies, from Dirty Harry (1971) to The Dead Pool (1988).

"Go ahead, make my day," he tells a hostage taker. "You have to ask yourself one question," he barks at another in a riff about counting bullets. " 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" To yet another criminal he refers to himself as "we" and finds himself explaining: "Smith, Wesson and me!"

Now the man with the .45 Magnum gun is back to haunt, taunt and electrify us again in the Dirty Harry Series, a box set that Warner Home video released last week. It is part of Warner's series called the Clint Eastwood Collection.

The 1971 Dirty Harry was also in another set in the series, along with westerns such as Unforgiven. But this release has significant extras included on the disc, along with a beautiful widescreen version of the movie. In addition, you get the other four Dirty Harry flicks in sparkling new digital transfers. Two of the movies, Magnum Force and The Enforcer, also have documentaries as extras.

On the new Dirty Harry disc, there are two documentaries, the grainy, unrestored, seven-minute 1971 featurette Dirty Harry's Way -- which serves as a now-qaint intro -- and the new 30-minute piece, Dirty Harry: The Original. In this terrific new piece, a gang of 10 commentators, including Eastwood, screenwriter John Milius and action star Arnold Schwarzenegger wax poetic about Harry.

'NONSENSE'

Curiously, Eastwood downplays Harry's socio-political importance. "There was some feeling at that time that there was some kind of great political statement in Dirty Harry," Eastwood says. "But that was just kind of nonsense. We we just trying to make a good detective story. We didn't care too much about all that other stuff." We care now. Dirty Harry is an icon and his movies are Hollywood history.


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