This is another movie where . . .

The yelling by Charles Durning's character toward the team is classic. Hard to be cliché in 1981 when you're laying the foundation for the behavior you've called out as such.

In fact, I own both versions of this film for this reason. In the scene in the field where the "machine" is discussing leads and passing around a sheet of paper, Charles Durning's character rips it out of John Fiedler's before he can view it and the brief, heated exchange is hilarious. In one version Durning says, "I don't care," and in the other he says, " I don't give a fvck." The latter is so priceless in its delivery it really summed up this movie's theme of masculinity.

The behaviors between the characters was rather impressive in its deliberate nature. The film itself is not only surprisingly meta for a Burt Reynolds piece, but also a slice of life closing pop culture of the 70's into the 80's.

The screaming lieutenant has become a parody....although the stereotype is really of the screaming black lieutenant or captain, so maybe Sharky's Machine was ahead of it's time?

But since Burt Reynolds admits this was his Dirty Harry-esque take-off, of course he had to have the yelling lieutenant just like Dirty Harry always did.




Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

I didn’t mind it. Burt made it work.