Factual error: When Harry is confronting the bank robber and the robber says he has to know if Harry had any shots left, Harry cocks the hammer which rotates the cylinder. If you watch closely when he pulls the trigger the cylinder rotates again. This can happen only when the trigger is pulled in double action mode (hammer down). (00:14:00)
Dirty Harry (1971)
1 factual error - chronological order
Directed by: Don Siegel
Starring: Clint Eastwood, John Vernon, Andrew Robinson, Reni Santoni
Continuity mistake: During the scene on the football pitch where Callahan is torturing Scorpio to force him to say where the kidnapped girl is, there are several shots as if from Callahan's viewpoint. As the camera switches between the two characters, the white painted lines on the pitch mysteriously move or even vanish underneath Scorpio. (01:06:50)
Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking."Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?
Trivia: In real-life, Andy Robinson (Scorpio) is a pacifist who dislikes guns. Every time he fired a gun during the early stages of principal photography, he would flinch violently, so director Don Siegel was forced to close down production for a time and send Robinson to a school where he would learn to fire a gun convincingly. In spite of this, he still blinks when he shoots.
Question: When Harry delivered his famous "do you feel lucky" monologue at the start, did he know his gun was empty? And when he repeated it at the end, did he know the gun was loaded?
Chosen answer: That question is the entire point of the first scene. You're meant to wonder whether he knew or not. At the end of the film, you're given the impression he does know, and is hoping the killer will attack him, giving him an excuse to fire.
The way I see the scene, he knows that he still has one round, and he is giving Scorpio a chance to live. He will only fire if he has to.
Answer: He certainly knew at the start, which is why he felt confident in pointing the gun at the (disarmed) robber and pulling the trigger. Harry knew he was bluffing, but passed it off so well the robber wasn't sure. At the end of the film, again, he knew he had one bullet left and wanted to bait Scorpio into attacking him, giving him an excuse to fire.