CLINT EASTWOOD - EASTWOOD SHOOTS DOWN DIRTY HARRY RUMORS

Clint Eastwood fired his .44 Magnum point blank at rumors that he is planning to star in a sixth and final Dirty Harry movie. Appearing today (Tuesday) at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Eastwood said that the rumors, which first appeared in the London tabloid The Sun and spread quickly on the Internet, were "untrue." The actor-director who was in Cannes to promote his latest film, The Changeling, which is competing for the Palme d'Or award, said that he had "no intention" of ever making another Dirty Harry film. "There are certain things you have to be realistic about," Eastwood said, and one of those things is that "Dirty Harry wouldn't be on a police department at my age." (Eastwood turns 78 on May 31.) Asked why he agreed to allow The Changeling to be presented as part of the competition -- many producers take the position that the competition is a risky business -- Eastwood, who himself presided over the Cannes jury in 1994, remarked that playing a film out of competition "is like playing it safe." Eastwood's jury selected Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction for the Palme d'Or, leading some French critics at the time to accuse him of boosting an American film. But Eastwood said today that the Tarantino film was not his first choice, "but it was collectively the choice of the jury."

20/05/2008