I have no idea how many times I have watched Dirty Harry. I know it made me trot right out and buy a 6 1/2" 29 though many, many years ago.

So, its been on cable several times recently and I watched it on my DVR. And, something caught my attention that I have missed all these many years.

In the beginning, our hero drops the bank robbers while munching on the hot dog. He walks up to the one laying on the ground and delivers the famous line "I know what you're thinking..." The bad guy says "I got to know!"
Harry thumb cocks the big .44, that massive cylinder slowly rotates around to the next round...the robbers eyes get wide........
And, Harry pulls the trigger, the gun indexes and goes click. Yup, Harry's cocked 29 cycles the cylinder when you pull the trigger, must be broke, mine won't do that.

Never noticed that before....

I have no idea how many times I have watched Dirty Harry. I know it made me trot right out and buy a 6 1/2" 29 though many, many years ago.

So, its been on cable several times recently and I watched it on my DVR. And, something caught my attention that I have missed all these many years.

In the beginning, our hero drops the bank robbers while munching on the hot dog. He walks up to the one laying on the ground and delivers the famous line "I know what you're thinking..." The bad guy says "I got to know!"
Harry thumb cocks the big .44, that massive cylinder slowly rotates around to the next round...the robbers eyes get wide........
And, Harry pulls the trigger, the gun indexes and goes click. Yup, Harry's cocked 29 cycles the cylinder when you pull the trigger, must be broke, mine won't do that.

Never noticed that before....

Motion Picture Magic!

C'mon - Haven't you ever seen Walt Disneys Herbie the Love Bug jump all the way across that Pond or drive in two pieces on the side of a cliff with Buddy Hackett in the back seat?

I've seen it before in movies. It's a continuity thing. There's something about the sound of cocking the hammer or racking the slide that movie people just love.

Chances are he cocked the hammer then when they did another take the hammer wasn't cocked and he simply pulled the trigger DA.

I saw one movie where the bad guy distinctly cocked the hammer on a revolver based on the sound but when they gave you a shot of the gun the hammer wasn't cocked.

Oh I can see it happening, its a movie afterall. But, we're talking about DIRTY HARRY for goodness sake. Between that movie and reading No Second Place Winnere until the pages were tattered, I thought i was a genuine gunslinger...I have no idea how many times I watched that movie and just now noticed it! Thats the same as Bill Jordan suggesting you take the safety off your Model 19 when you draw!

The rabbit hole is even deeper than that. In the scene where Harry chases the suitcase guy down an alley, his barrel has mysteriously grown to the 8" version, and the shrinks to the 6.5" the next scene.

I've heard rumors that the movie was filmed with a model 25 .45 long colt because blanks were unavailable for the .44 magnum. But I have no idea how true this is.

Everyone should learn to disengage the safety on their revolver as they draw.

Two Model 29-2s were assembled in S&w's toolroom for the movie Dirty Harry as this model was not in production at the time the guns were needed. The guns were shipped to Kelly Lookenbaugh, S&W's sales representative in Los Angeles...and the rest, so to speak, is history.

The particular scene referred to in this thread has always been the result of "movie magic" to me.

Bill

More "Movie Magic" is in the Movie "Sunset" where James Garner(as Wyatt Earp) and Bruce Willis(as Tom Mix) are out at Tom's Ranch 'In the Valley' for the Big Shoot Out. They go at it drawing their Six-Guns and fire away at the Bad Guys. As the dust settles on the scene they stand there as the "Love of Toms' Life" comes running up to them and you might notice that while both of them are still standing "Gun in Hand" there are also guns in their holsters!!! Oops

I have read in several places that the gun was a .41 magnum in disguise, I also saw it on that movie show that puts subtitles with all the details on the screen. Don't know if its true, but thats what they said.

No different from the movie 'Stand by Me'. The little boy fired his 1911 45 ACP into the air, then slowly lowered the gun onto Kiefer Sutherland...he THEN made a big show of pulling the hammer back with his thumb!

Hello? The hammer would have already been back!!

Urban legends, all. It was always a model 29. The only point of note was that in various movie posters he was holding an 8-3/8ths model for effect. In the movies it was always a 6-1/2" model 29. John Milius has spoken at great length about this, and he was there. 41 magnums were never involved.

I still can’t figure out how John Wayne could kill all them Indians with a six shooter and not reload.

Or put the little key in the little lock to unlock the revolver!

I think I have an explaination for this;

I only counted 5 shots.

When the badguy asks, Harry cocks the revolver, but immediately lowes the hammer, then pulls the trigger double-action to make the badguy think he was empty, when in reality he actually had one more shot.

Watch the movie,and be entertained--It will mess with your mind if you try to explain everthing

On both my versions of the film (I bought one in a Mexican shop that said it was Widescreen and it wasn't, so I had to go buy another one. Just try returning an already opened DVD in Mexico, even if you speak fluent Spanish, which I do) he fires 6. However, one of the shots is not shown, as I recall, but HEARD.
Up until seeing either of the DVD's, I had always thought he only fired 5 as well.

It was another bit of "movie magic" in a later film when they got that guy who looked just like Eastwood to fill in that scene where he says "nobody puts ketchup on a hotdog..." but they didn't fool me there.

Sometimes the movie was clumsily cut for commercials. In this clip it was 6, if you count one shot fired off camera.

Link

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You're shy a few manners.

Sparkyshooter..as to the M25 using 45 Colt blanks, the 25-5 in 45 Colt was not in production until almost 12 years after the movie was made...so it is a rumor.

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Have Canon, Will Travel

I think the punk actually replied "I gots to know".

J.B.

This is my take on it also.

I always love it when they cock a hammer on a Glock.

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Formerly know as Lucky Derby

Another sop to the impressionable and ignorant viewing public, is the screen practice of racking the 1911, or shotgun, in the middle of the plot action. Gotta hear the gun being jacked. The gunshooter is ready to shoot, or has just taken a few shots, and after a sneaky pause, he readies his gun by racking the slide again, but they don't show the already chambered bullet being ejected whole, and wasted. Or if the gun was not chambered, why was the shooter acting like he was prepared to shoot it, then racking it again just for effect ? Even if I don't have a 1911, everyone knows that serious gunners always carry it loaded, chambered, cocked-and-locked.

If I had to worry everytime Hollywierd continuity EXPERTS gummed-up a gun scene I'd be old and grey. Wait, I am old and grey, guess I got it right!

Alittle side step here on Dirty Harry Warner books had a series of Dirty Harry paperback Novels about 15 of them at the time I bought each book as it came out every few months they are in mint condition, I was just wondering if any one else on the forum has any of these paper backs from Warner books & what they would be worth to a collector, I have read mine maby once or twice and stored them away in new to mint condition

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AA

The first Dirty Harry film came out in 1971, the second in 1973, the third in 1977. The 25-5 was announced in 1978, but didn't hit dealers shelves until 1979. FWIW

Just typical "movie magic" I guess.

Kinda like when John Wayne puts his arm around the Vietnamese boy in "The Green Berets" and watches the sunset into the ocean.

Uh...Hello? There's no WEST coast in Vietnam!

Here is a video clip of John Milius with THE Dirty Harry 6-1/2 inch Model 29. I know it made me buy a Model 29, and a Model 57, and then a couple of more of each just to make sure I got it right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltBhm64WrQQ

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Five screws and 3-1/2 inches.

You are a weenie, with a weenie Model 29. Harry obviously ain't no weenie. You probably also cant shoot one handed, across a football field, hit him in the leg and flip him end over end. I know this 'cause i'm a weenie too. I also can't hit a bucket offhand with my sharps at 1000 yards (or whatever it is) like Quigley.

In the theater in 1971, there were five shots.

The recent issue DVD added a shot, and even Milius would appear to have given up arguing the point.

I've seen edited for TV versions with four shots. That's really confusing.

"Harry" fires SA all through the first movie. Cocked on sixth round, he lowers the hammer, then cocks again to click on the empty.

Even if "Harry" didn't know whether he fired five or six, he would know that he was going to click empty after re-cocking.

As I always say, if he didn't know whether or not he was about to fire a round, he was a psychopath. If he knew he was going to click on an fired chamber, he merely had an impish sense of humor.

I think it was always clear that the Callahan character knew his .44 wouldn't fire. You have to remember the bank robber had just shot Harry with his shotgun, so the impulse to mess with the guy might be irresistable.

This is a little diffferent, but rather funny...

I am a big fan of a TV series that was called The Lost World. The male lead, Lord John Roxton (Will Snow), used a .416 Rigby rifle as well as several Colt and Webley handguns. And there were resin or plastic dummies of the guns, used in scenes where he didn't have to fire them. Safer for the actors, and the studio didn't have to pay the gun rental place on some filming days.

Anyway, in one scene, Roxton finds his friend Prof. Challenger out cold on the floor of a cavern. He kneels to help him and sets down the .416. He must have dropped it the last couple or three inches, and one distinctly hears the sound of a plastic rifle on the stone floor!

I re-ran the DVD again to be sure.

In another episode, cutie chick Finn (Lara Cox)has one of Roxton's MK VI .455 Webleys tucked into her brief black shorts. Runs, etc. A real Webley would be too heavy, so she must have had the plastic one. (She later fired the real one.)

Another scene showed Finn holding the cocked Webley, then spinning the cylinder! They must have removed a part or two for that scene...
It is just amazing what gun foolery one sees on the screen.

Finn was presumably checking to see how many shots she had left. But even if she COULD spin the cylinder that way, all that she'd see are the case rims. She'd have to open the gun and see which primers had been hit by the firing pin. But directors like to use dramatic techniques, even when gunwise viewers will notice the silliness of the scene.

T-Star

whats funny is the "i gots to know" big black guy appears in the first 3 movies. as differnt characters.

movie continuity flubs make me laugh. quite bit on youtube. star wars has many.

was watching "Saving Private Ryan" last nite on TNT and the shootout at the end where Barry Pepper is the US sniper in the belltower with the 03 Springfield. seems like that thing had about a 10 round mag... otherwise thats a pretty good movie.

Thank you for that. The crazy rumors of what Clint Eastwood actually carried have run rampant, and it seems that no matter how well documented and no matter what authoritative source is quoted, it seems that people would just rather repeat the lies and rumors than just let it go.

You are correct. A pair of 29-2s in 44 magnum with 6 1/2 inch barrels were assembled, most likely by Archie Dubia, and the fact that 44 magnum models were actually used has been confirmed by John Milius, the director of the film. I have seen one of the two.

Roy Jinks published a small blurb in the S&W Collectors Association Journal confirming that an 8 3/8 inch Model 29 in 44 magnum was provided as a photo prop for the pictures used on the movie poster for, I believe, The Dead Pool, or it could have been the one before The Dead Pool, I cannot remember, and do not wish to go dig it up and look for it.

Thus, for seemingly the one thousandth time, it was not a Model 25, 27, 28, 19, or any other model. It was, in fact, a Model 29, 6 1/2 inch barrel, in - drum roll - 44 magnum, not 45 to use movie blanks, not any other caliber, no tricks, no bull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBJzJgYjto

What about when they run an empty automatic to slidelock and then dub in the "click click" sound of a wheelgun that has fired all the cartridges in it once already? Usually the bad guy then looks at the gun and hurls it at the cop or good guy.
That always gets me.

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I'm your huckleberry

Didn't have to on my 29-2, 37 or C*** Diamondback .22. Austin Behlert did it for me when he did action jobs on those three guns. I replaced them, of course, and it didn't make any difference to the trigger pull.

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Formerly Model520Fan

well that is hollywood for you from a bunch of libitrtls (sp)

I like the John Wayne westerner where Walter Brennan is next to him, throwing sticks of dynamite at a house where the bad guys are.
Never does he light the fuse-he just throws them and they go off like grenades.

That's "Rio Bravo" and The Duke sets of the die-knee-mite by shooting it with his carbine at the right instant.

Dean Martin shoots the die-knee-mite out of the air, left handed with a 5 1/2" SAA - that's some shooting.

Ever notice how Superman just stands there, bullets bouncing harmlessly off his chest, as a thug runs his handgun empty, but then the Man of Steel ducks when the thug throws the empty gun at him?

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You're shy a few manners.

The more I read about the Dirty Harry revolver, the more I suspect there was a wheelbarrow full of N-frames on set and whatever was grabbed was OK
All I know for sure is, when I walk through the woods with my 6.5" 29-2 in my Lawman leather shoulder holster, with my switchblade taped to my ankle, eating a hot dog the deer SCATTER for other mountains!

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13.5-2400

the third installment, the enforcer, was released in 1976

never have seen that

I catch movie mistakes all the time, but there was one in Saving Private Ryan that was just too bad to have allowed through the editing. Towards the end, at the big battle over the bridge, there is a very tight closeup of the .30 cal machine gun ammo being fed into the gun to show how low they were getting on ammo while Private uppon was crapping his pants and letting his fellow soldiers die. The rounds are CLEARLY blanks, with just a case and no bullet in them. I don;t know how a perfectionist like Spielberg, who hired all sorts of advisors, let that one get by him.

You are correct. Did you notice the actor who played the punk also played the pimp in the second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force?

Clay

How many times have you "heard" the hammer being cocked on Glock in the movies. Or worse yet, when the Glock misfires, you hear a "click-click" sound. I see this all the time when my wife is watching the LMN channel, or as I like to call it, the "How to kill your man" channel. It's funny but every one of their movies usually involves a gun of some sort and some real poor gun handling.

And in Sudden Impact he played Harry's cop friend.

He played Ed Mustafa in The Enforcer, too.

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jj