I find it odd that Zodiac never (that we know of) commented on the first "Dirty Harry" movie, whose villain was very loosely based on Zodiac. It’s assumed that Zodiac was a huge movie buff (he supposedly wrote anonymous letters about "The Exorcist" and "Badlands"), so I would think that he’d have had something nasty to say about the Scorpio character.
On the fantastic podcast that Morf recently did, Tom Voigt asserts that the police are in possession of Z letters that have never been made public. Wonder if one of them references "Dirty Harry"?
Zodiac certainly was an egotist, yet failed to capitalize on two films in his name- the Zodiac Killer movie released in the April of 1971 and the ‘Dirty Harry’ movie starring Clint Eastwood, released in December of the same year. Yet, the Badlands movie was released on October 13th 1973, and featured in his ‘Citizen Card’ correspondence seven months later, along with The Exorcist released December 28th 1973 and his letter mocking this film one month later. It is extremely telling, that a man who craved attention so much, seemingly let both of these 1971 films escape his critical acclaim. In fact, he stayed quiet for nearly three years. Vetted correspondence in prison is not an option that was desirable to him, when you open up with the line ‘This is the Zodiac Speaking’, so his quietness speaks volumes. Prison incarceration and release dates from California prisons may hold the clue, but obtaining them is like digging through permafrost with a spoon, as with so much other unreleased information and why this case will never find a resolution.
Reportedly, the actor who played Scorpio, Andrew Robinson, received so many death threats that he had to change his phone number. Makes you wonder whether Z might have actually called him.
"There are such devils."
-The Pledge
Dirty Harry premiered on December 22nd, 1971 at Loews Theater in San Francisco, at a benefit for the Police Athletic League. Eastwood and Siegel attended, along with Mayor Joseph Alioto, several dozen policemen and a bevy of local celebrities. Members of the Progressive Labor Party protested the premiere, waving signs reading “Cops are no pals to Clarence Johnson.” Not all the attendees appreciated Harry, either: Dave Toschi, Harry’s real-life counterpart, left the screening halfway through.
When in-patient timelines ever get revealed, we may see Zodiac was unable to get to a theater to see his counterpart Scorpio…certainly no home video existed until 1979 and it did not play on television until after 1977, heavily cut for content. It is then conceivable he may never have had the occasion to see it….
In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".
