It is hard to believe that just a year before Clint Eastwood created the definitive loose-cannon cop in the first Dirty Harry film, he was talking to the trees in the smash hit musical Paint Your Wagon.
Made a worldwide star through the unexpected success of the spaghetti western A Fistful Of Dollars in 1964 and its sequels, the lean, laconic Eastwood wisely chose to vary his roles - though playing a singing prospector could have been pushing his luck.
Yet, whether it was sporting a flat-brimmed sombrero and poncho or a Magnum 44, what Eastwood's characters have all been is undeniably 'cool'.
Ironically, he only took the character of Harry Callahan, the role with which he will be forever identified, after Frank Sinatra dropped out.
Sudden Impact (Pearl, 9.30pm), the fourth Callahan outing, sticks to the reliable formula of maverick cop ridding society of its scumbags.
This time, he is on the trail of Sondra Locke (Eastwood's then lover and co-star in many films) who is out to kill the thugs who raped her and her sister many years earlier.