“That’s a steal”: the LA crime classic Clint Eastwood loved so much he blatantly ripped it off
There are many valid reasons why they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Clint Eastwood took that sentiment to heart when he blatantly ripped off one of cinema’s finest LA-set crime stories.
Of course, the actor and filmmaker is no stranger to Californian capers where he plays characters who blur the lines between both sides of the law, with San Francisco’s own ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan becoming one of the most iconic antiheroes of them all in Eastwood’s more than capable hands.
The four-time Academy Award winner was born in the city where Dirty Harry unfolds, his Malpaso Productions has maintained an office on the Warner Bros studio lot in Burbank since the 1970s, and he even spent time as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, so he’s a Californian through and through.
His favourite actor of all time may have hailed from New York City, but one of their best pictures unfolded in the Los Angeles area. As a youngster growing up in and around the city, it was only natural that he’d become even more infatuated with James Cagney when he delivered one of his most iconic and unforgettable performances in 1949’s White Heat.
Eastwood was 19 years old when the film was released, and he would have been as enthralled as everyone else in the audience when Cagney’s Cody Jarrett bellowed his seminal line, “Made it, ma! Top of the world!” before he disappears in a blaze of pyrotechnic glory, presumably being reduced to a fine paste, not that it was ever under consideration to show the protagonist onscreen as a puddle of goo.
Earlier in the story, Jarrett escapes from prison with Paul Guilfoyle’s Roy Parker in tow, even though the inmate had unsuccessfully attempted to murder him when they were in jail. Remembering that he’s locked in the boot of his car outside of the safehouse, Cagney starts munching on a chicken leg, says, “Stuffy, huh? I’ll give you a little air!” and proceeds to empty his gun into the back of the vehicle before walking away, still stuffing his face.
It was a sequence that Eastwood never forgot, and when the perfect opportunity presented itself, he pilfered it. “When he comes out in White Heat eating a chicken leg and blasting a guy in the trunk of a car, you go, ‘Yeah, that’s offsetting, but in a nice way,'” he explained to Entertainment Weekly. “The scene in Dirty Harry where I’m eating a hot dog in that shootout? That’s a steal.”
Not everyone who’d seen Cagney’s classic would have noticed that Eastwood was copying his homework, especially when the scene in Dirty Harry is iconic in its own right. After all, right after he’s chowing down on his hot dog, the rogue cop gets up, walks across the street, shoots a bank robber, and then asks him a very important question.
The most memorable question of his career, in fact, since he quizzes the man on whether he noticed if Callahan fired six shots or five, before asking the most pertinent question of all: “‘Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?'”
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Clint Eastwood Newsletter
All the latest stories about Clint Eastwood from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.