Director Don Siegel’s 1971 thriller Dirty Harry is rightly regarded as a landmark, providing Clint Eastwood with one of his signature roles, giving action movie theater one of its most memorable catchphrases (“Do I feel lucky…?”) and setting the template for a legion similar cop movies.

Yet while Dirty Harry‘s influence on movies like 48 Hrs. and Lethal Weapon is readily acknowledged, the importance of its villain is less commonly discussed. But the nihilistic killer Scorpio, as played by Andy Robinson, is arguably one of the best villains in movie theater, and his performance has surely had a subtle influence of its own.

Dirty Harry begins with one of the coolest opening sequences in any thriller. On the roof of a San Francisco skyscraper, Scorpio, all wild hair and staring blue eyes, takes aim through a sniper rifle. His target is a young woman swimming in a rooftop pool, and as Lalo Schifrin’s unforgettable theme tune plays out, we anticipate the coming shot with dread – and when it does, its effects are a real gut-punch.

It’s in this deceptively complex opening sequence that director Don Siegel packs in a startling amount of information with just a few beautifully composed shots. Scorpio is established as a villain, who ostensibly kills in order to hold the city to ransom (he later issues a note demanding $100,000, but his maniacal demeanour suggests that he probably just murders people for the fun of it). Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood’s laconic ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan is established as the cop on Scorpio’s trail, calmly picking through the scant bits of evidence left in the killer’s wake.