The Zodiac Killer was an egotist and braggart, but often would refer to older material in his correspondence such as the Mikado (1885), probably The Most Dangerous Game (1924), maybe Charlie Chan (1926) and quite possibly The Red Phantom (1908). Along comes Dirty Harry (1971), a film based on the Zodiac and nothing. He doesn’t even mention it once, but when he resumes correspondence in January 1974 guess what he starts mentioning movies such as The Exorcist, Badlands and Red Phantom in three of his next four letters, but never felt the urge to mention Dirty Harry at all. The reason why- he was locked up in jail before the release of Dirty Harry in the December of 1971, which is why his letters dried up. If he had started blabbing about Dirty Harry in 1974 instead of the Exorcist, it would have been a give away. How could a killer with such verbal diarrhoea fail to spout his mouth off about a film made while he was still around. The answer is, he couldn’t.
‘WELL DO YOU AGREE PUNK’. 
I agree, Harry! You’ve made a valid point, UKS. As egocentric as was Z, you’d think he’d leap at the opportunity to generate spin-offs from "Dirty Harry." Perhaps there was something in the film, included inadvertently, that pointed to him.
I was looking at the Exorcist Letter symbols and wondered whether he covertly placed it in somewhere. I was looking out for the symbols somewhere in the film, but alas no luck.
Exorcist Letter- "If I do not see this note in your paper,"
Dirty Harry- "If I do not hear from you it will be my next pleasure to kill a Catholic priest or a ……"
Exorcist Letter- "I will do something nasty, which you know I’m capable of."
Dirty Harry- "The most powerful handgun in the world and capable of blowing your head clean off."
Ok it was worth a shot (sorry about the pun). 
It’s an interesting question. The answer to which is anyone’s guess. Maybe he was in jail and missed his window of opportunity. Maybe he wasn’t in the country. Maybe he didn’t care. I know we view him as a media hungry attention seeker but I’m not sure it’s a reliable and consistent indicator of how he will react to anything. Or if he’ll react. He might not have liked the ending. 
Z – related trivia. In the opening sequence where it scans over the names of officer’s killed in the line of duty, Eric A Zelms 1970 is one of the last names.
“I don’t know Chief, he’s very smart or very dumb.“
Or he was in Vietnam from march 70 to 73 .
once the movie had run there would not be a good chance to see it back then.
After the film came out, Andy Robinson was subjected to numerous harassing phone calls and death threats to the point where he had to change to an unlisted phone number. I’ve always wondered if some of these might have been from a miffed Zodiac, lashing out at the fictional Scorpio killer for failing to do him justice.
"There are such devils."
-The Pledge
Maybe he didn’t care. I know we view him as a media hungry attention seeker but I’m not sure it’s a reliable and consistent indicator of how he will react to anything. Or if he’ll react.
Good point. It’s obvious that he is an attention seeker, and that he uses the media to promote himself, but we don’t know exactly what triggers his moves or what the mechanics of the whole…thing really is.
He’s obsessed with the idea of people wearing Z buttons – but seemingly not interested in this movie at all, in spite of it clearly boosting his reputation as such.
Perhaps he simply didn’t like it. Didn’t care for the way "he" was portrayed. But it could also be that a fictional representation of him wasn’t something he felt compelled to comment on – perhaps he didn’t think it was relevant, somehow.
I think I made this post on the old forum, or some other forum, or somewhere else…but hey, it’s new here!
In Fincher’s Zodiac he has Graysmith and Toschi going to the Dirty Harry premier. I don’t think that really happened, but it’s interesting to think of that in connection to the ’78 letter, which of course Toschi was accused of writing that says, "I’m still waiting for a good movie about me." Since Dirty Harry is based on David Toschi.
I think in the real version it was Graysmith at the Zodiac Killer movie. But it’s odd because in Zodiac he writes that he saw the movie in ’81, but now I think that is just a typo and it’s supposed to say ’71.
Also really weirdly, he says the Scropio killer’s writing in Dirty Harry is an "exact copy of the Zodiac’s printing." Say what? Who exactly was it that was in charge of copying Zodiac’s printing? I’ve heard a theory that it was Graysmith who forged the ’78 letter because he talks a lot about trying to copy and reproduce the Zodiac’s writing.
Who knows, maybe a possible scenario is that they both were in on it as some kind of inside joke between them and it was meant to be innocent and accidentally discovered by someone else who thought it was real, and you know the rest.
It’s a possibility. But he could have been in a mental institution, away in the military, temporarily moved away,etc.
I always wonder why he never mentioned the movie, Bullitt which was shot around SF and based in part on Dave Toschi.
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/
http://zodiackillersite.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/Morf13ZKS
I’ve heard a theory that it was Graysmith who forged the ’78 letter because he talks a lot about trying to copy and reproduce the Zodiac’s writing.
Yes, Graysmith practically boasted about his ability to fake Z’s printing style.
The ’78 business is a murky one. Could be this or that – or the other thing. Toschi was, as we know, cleared of having produced the fake. But I wouldn’t rule out that he knew who the responsible party was.
Maybe he didn’t care. I know we view him as a media hungry attention seeker but I’m not sure it’s a reliable and consistent indicator of how he will react to anything. Or if he’ll react.
Good point. It’s obvious that he is an attention seeker, and that he uses the media to promote himself, but we don’t know exactly what triggers his moves or what the mechanics of the whole…thing really is.
He’s obsessed with the idea of people wearing Z buttons – but seemingly not interested in this movie at all, in spite of it clearly boosting his reputation as such.
Perhaps he simply didn’t like it. Didn’t care for the way "he" was portrayed. But it could also be that a fictional representation of him wasn’t something he felt compelled to comment on – perhaps he didn’t think it was relevant, somehow.
I watched Dirty Harry last night, never seen it before. What I could coin from the film from a Zodiac perspective is that if I were him, I would not be pleased with how I was portrayed in the movie. The Scorpio guy is basically ridiculous. He’s "a bad guy" for about two minutes in the beginning, the rest of the movie fully mocks him. I’m not sure if Dirty Harry was supposed to be a comedy in any way but I sure giggled. He makes hilarious noises (that scene where he gets stabbed in the leg), wears a silly ski mask and worst of all gets defeated in the end.
Either Zodiac never saw Dirty Harry, or if he did, he probably had a lot of work not to boil over about it.
News footage in S.F. the night of the Dirty Harry premiere…w/Clint Eastwood.
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/185987
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
News footage in S.F. the night of the Dirty Harry premiere…w/Clint Eastwood.
Zodiac spotted 
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he were there.
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
