Read This: Clint Eastwood’s 1977 Thank You Letter to Critic Andrew Sarris for ‘Dirty Harry’ Article

Check out this unearthed 1977 letter from Clint Eastwood to film critic Andrew Sarris, wherein Eastwood thanks Sarris for his Village Voice article on the “Dirty Harry” franchise, titled “Is Harry Too Dirty?” Eastwood gets to expound on the perceived messages in his films, complaining that ones with anti-capital punishment agendas like “Hang ‘Em High” got little media attention, while vigilante crime classic “Dirty Harry” and its sequels — which are about, in his words, “concern for the victim” — results in Pauline Kael calling “fascism.” 

By February of ’77, three of the five Dirty Harry films would have come out — 1971’s “Dirty Harry,” 1973’s “Magnum Force” and 1976’s “The Enforcer.”