MovieChat Forums > Magnum Force (1973) Discussion > Bomb Harry found

Bomb Harry found

posted 13 years ago by marmac2768
5 replies | jump to latest

I love Harry!! I've watched this movie a hundred times and am watching it on AMC. I have wondered about something; the bomb that Harry finds in his mailbox has a stopwatch on it. He disarms it by stopping the stopwatch and that is it. It is disarmed. The one that blew Early up was one activated when he put the key in his lock. Later, Harry turns the clock back on to blow Briggs up.

Why the stopwatch?? What if Harry had stopped off somewhere to get a beer and didn't get home for an hour or so? Would it have detonated? It doesn't make any sense for it to have a timer.

[–] jason-brooks15 12 years ago

The timer wouldnt start until the mailbox door was opened. Probably had a 5 second delay. Today a bomber would use an electronic timer

[–] Gaslight1888 12 years ago

So had Inspector Callahan accepted the vigilantes offer to become one of them, does anyone here think that the rookie cops would have warned him about the mailbox?

Davis to Inspector Callahan: Congratulations for becoming a vigilante. Oh, by the way, we left a bomb in your mailbox, just in case you refused our offer. Have a good day.

Inspector Callahan: *Blink-blink* I'll just disarm it before my hot Chinese-American girlfriend tries knocking on my door with a bowlful of chow mein and beer...

That's a fine lookin' fricassee, ma'am

[–] stones78 10 years ago

I've wondered that myself, my gut says they warn him. Harry would be a great vigilante, imo, an Briggs would know it.

[–] grbettencourt 10 years ago

Actually the timer wasn't activated. The stopwatch button wasn't what he pushed when he took it from his mailbox; it was the dark red power button behind the stopwatch he pushed, which turned off the power supply (and lights) to disarm the bomb. He later, in his last encounter with Briggs, pushed the power button to re-arm it and then pushed the stopwatch button to turn on the timer.
There really was no point in the villains putting a timer on it, except I guess to show the audience the two different ways the bomb is used.

[–] MBerlant 9 years ago

I also noticed the unused stopwatch and was ready to post a goof here, when I heard Calahan tell Briggs that there were both a trigger and a timer on the device. That's when I remembered that Calahan was to use this versatility later in the plot.

To make this peculiarity work, though, it must have been that the bad guys bought pre-made bombs in quantity from their local Bombs-Я-Us store.