CHARLEY VARRICK: Blu-ray (Universal, 1973) Kino Lorber

Endlessly championed by the critics, but a real commercial dud, director Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick (1973) disappointed the audience and baffled its star, Walter Matthau who, upon seeing it put together for the first time, sent Siegel a note saying, “I am of slightly better than average intelligence but I still don't quite understand what's going on.” And indeed, the role of the unrepentant con, ruthless to his core, and without even a shred of understanding for humanity beyond his self-preservation, Charley Varrick just seems like a real odd duck for the Walter Matthau most of us know and love. Perhaps, Matthau was hoping to branch out with this role. But Charley Varrick – the character – is about as unscrupulous and morally bankrupt as anti-heroes can get. And Matthau – even when playing a pain in the ass - is lovable. But Charley shows little remorse when cohort and wife, Nadine (Jacqueline Scott), dies after a botched robbery, and partner-in-crime, Harman Sullivan (Andy Robinson) has his throat slit by mob hitman, Molly (Joe Don Baker). Charley indiscriminately douses his getaway car, with Nadine’s body still inside, setting a timer for a hellish bomb to remove all incriminating evidence of their crime spree, and thereafter, simply goes through the motions of making Molly’s manhunt for the stolen mob money as unpleasantly awkward as he can. Initially, Siegel had wanted the motto on the side of Charley’s crop-dusting van – ‘Last of the Independents’ – to be the movie’s title – a decision vetoed by execs at Universal, the studio, footing the bills.

Siegel, who began his career as a director of second unit montages in movies like Across the Pacific and Casablanca (both made and released in 1942) quickly honed his craft of short-shrift storytelling, and, after a spate of unremarkable movies, culminating in the cult sci-fi classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) emerged as something of a renegade film-maker in the late fifties – respected, if not revered in his own time, but whose reputation since has only grown. Personally, and with one exception (1971’s Dirty Harry) I am not a fan of Siegel’s work; his movies always beginning somewhere in the middle and usually to conclude on an even more ambiguous note of uncertainty with no finality in sight – again, pitched squarely in the middle of a yarn we never get to see through to its absolute fruition. Ironically, this has made Siegel’s body of work more relevant with today’s cinema-goer – endlessly fascinated by such curious lack of closure.  Does it make for good storytelling? It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose, and one favoring the strain of ‘reality’ on the screen for which yours truly has little stomach and absolutely zero fascination.  If I want ‘reality’ I can look out any window and see it for free. Movies ought to be an escapism. If possible, they should start at the beginning, follow a three-act structure, and conclude in a way that denotes all that ought to be said has been stated, clearly, concisely, and, in a timely, well-spent manner, to encourage repeat viewings. Siegel’s movies rarely get to ‘the end’. They seldom start at the beginning. And what comes between the first moment of screen time and the last just seems endless, raw and unappealing. Charley Varrick is no exception.

Charley Varrick was begun with only one star in mind - Clint Eastwood. Alas, Eastwood turned it down, reportedly, because he found no redemptive qualities in the character. Indeed, in reviewing Matthau’s performance, the seams of a serious lampoon of Eastwood’s public persona in the movies emerge – Matthau’s stoic loner of very few words, steely and slightly careworn, a transplant of Eastwood’s man with no name to the backwoods’ peripheries of modern society. And, if Matthau was truly perplexed by Siegel’s final edit, he certainly was not alone. Based on John H. Reese’s novel, The Looters, and, as scripted by Dean Riesner and Howard A. Rodman, Charley Varrick is an unevenly paced actioner/mystery yarn at best. The picture repeatedly stalls as Siegel wastes valuable screen time on the sideshow elements. Yet, these add up to nothing; the contemptuous lack of ‘buddy/buddy’ chemistry between Charley and Harman done after Charley realizes the backwoods’ bank they have just robbed in Tres Cruces is a front for the Mafia. Siegel shot most of his movie in northern Nevada, a favorite location, despite the fact Charley Varrick is set in New Mexico. Instead, Dayton and Genoa stood in for the border town, with Genoa’s Douglas County court house the scene of the grizzly robbery that kick starts this elusive and generally dull crime caper. We get little back story on who and what these characters are; Varrick – an ex-stunt pilot and crop-duster, who has since turned to a life of crime to supplement his income. Ably abetted by Nadine, longtime accomplice, Al Dutcher (Fred Scheiwiller) and Harman - a newbie to this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation, the stick-up of a small town bank in the boondocks begins in earnest as Nadine and Charley (the latter, disguised as a much older man with a broken leg) pull up in their car.  

Delaying their discovery from a passing police officer, Nadine quietly awaits Charley’s return. Alas, the officer recalls the car from another robbery, performs a trace on the license plate, and, calls for backup. Ill-advised, he approaches the vehicle for a second ‘better’ look at his prime suspect. Not about to get caught, Nadine opens fire, shooting the officer in the head, and, injuring his back-up in the leg. The second officer returns fire, shooting through the car door and mortally wounding Nadine. Meanwhile, inside, a bank guard (Bob Steele) ambushes Dutcher with a fatal shot before being gunned down by Charley. Grabbing all they can, Charley and Harmon retreat to the car. Nadine drives off, skillfully eluding police. Only now, she pulls off to the side to reveal a huge gash in her abdomen – a fatal wound, soon to claim her life. Undaunted, and even more strangely uncaring, Charley kisses his wife goodbye, drives their getaway car to the prearranged destination, and, sets it afire with a car bomb – a decoy for the police while he and Harman drive off in workman’s disguise in Charley’s crop-dusting van.  The pair are briefly detained by another officer. Unaware of who they are, the officer is distracted by the bomb and hurries to the scene, leaving Charley and Harman free to casually drive off.  

Back at the ramshackle of motor homes that serve as their base of operations, Charley and Harman quickly realize $765,118 is too much money for such a small bank to carry. After a local news broadcast reports only $2,000 was stolen, Charley concurs the bank is involved in a money-laundering operation for the Mafia. Hence, their only chance for survival is to lay low for three – maybe four – years. This leads to a major rift between the two men as Harman reasons he did not pull off this heist to sit on his ill-gotten gains. He intends to immediately start living the high life. For the time being, Charley relents. Meanwhile, the bank’s president, Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) dispatches hitman, Molly to recover the money. Recognizing Harman's recklessness has the potential to get them both killed, Charley double-crosses his cohort by breaking into the dentist's office and swapping Harman’s dental records for his own. To obtain passports, Charley contacts Tom (Tom Tully), Dutcher’s accomplice, who directs him to local photographer, Jewell Everett (Sheree North). Charley has his photograph taken, but gives her Harman’s driver’s license instead, thus guaranteeing Molly will find Harman first. Tom and Jewell inform on Charley, who never returns for the passports. Instead, Molly arrives at Charley's trailer and tortures Harman to death.

Now, Boyle journeys to Tres Cruces for a little tete-a-tete with its bank manager, Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey), inferring the Mafia already suspects the robbery was an inside job. Fearing reprisals, Young commits suicide. Meanwhile, Charley purchases dynamite, boards his crop-duster and flies to Reno. He has an attractive bouquet of flowers delivered to Boyle's secretary, Sybil Fort (Felicia Farr) in order to follow her home where, with seemingly little effort, he seduces her. Afterward, Fort forewarns Boyle is not to be trusted. Rather ingeniously, Charley contacts Boyle, offering to return the money. A meeting is arranged at a remote automobile wrecking yard. And although Charley has insisted Boyle come alone for the exchange, he takes notice of Molly’s car as he overflies the yard in his biplane. After landing, Charley buoyantly hugs Boyle. Duped by this display of affection into believing Boyle has double-crossed him, Molly runs Boyle down with his car. Pursuing Charley, Molly damages his crop-duster's tail with his car. The biplane flips over, apparently to have trapped Charley underneath in its wreckage. Charley tells Molly the money is in the trunk of a nearby car. However, when Molly pops the trunk, he finds Harman's body and the dynamite booby trap inside. Molly is instantly killed in the explosion, and Charley, not trapped at all, hurriedly scatters a few hundred-dollar bills around the burning wreckage, stealing away with the rest of the loot in his getaway car, presumably, to reunite with Miss Fort.

Charley Varrick is a picture to revel in its revenge narrative. Siegel’s renown for extolling the vices of men – denying any, even the most basic of virtues – is working overtime here. But perhaps, it is also working against Matthau’s well-ensconced screen ‘type’. For although Matthau is brilliant as the unscrupulous Charley, he is problematically off kilter as God’s lonely man – aloof and apart from the rest of humanity at large. We keep expecting Matthau to offer up at least one or two moments of his trademarked curmudgeonly glibness, and, are marginally disappointed when - instead - Matthau remains true to his Eastwood-esque reincarnated anti-hero; cruel and calculating, to outfox, derail and otherwise indiscriminately destroy friends as well as his enemies. It is difficult, if not impossible, to unearth ‘the charm’ in Matthau’s Charley. Indeed, Matthau’s poker face resolve – uncannily never to wane, in whatever predicament Charley is inveigled – would have suited Eastwood, or even Lee Marvin much better. And yet, Matthau’s professionalism is so strong, he almost rewrites the hallmarks of his actor’s acumen. The real problem with the picture is Siegel’s inability to draw the narrative threads together in any sort of meaningful way until very late in its third act. The first two thirds of the picture play as a highly disjointed manhunt; Siegel, toggling between the botched police investigation and this rake’s progress, repeatedly stalled by bad timing and unscrupulous characters of every shape and kind, out to see Charley Varrick fail – or worse. These factions act as more than the proverbial ‘road block’ in Charley’s master plan. Instead, they repeatedly exorcise the picture’s suspense to the point where the final showdown between Charley’s crop-duster and Molly’s car just seems a tacked on/foregone conclusion at best. In the final analysis, Charley Varrick is a movie that, instead of offering up its share of roller coaster highs and lows continues to sink and slump from point to point in its abject revenge tragedy, its finale to remain as ever bleak and unsatisfying as all that has gone before it.

Charley Varrick arrives on Blu-ray state’s side via Kino Lorber in a 1080p offering that is radically different from the ‘region B’ locked disc released a whole year earlier via Powerhouse/Indicator in the U.K. For starters, this edition of Charley Varrick is sourced from a new 4K remaster with vastly improved color fidelity, minus the artificial DNR and sharpening applied on the Indicator. So, fine details now adopt a very organic and film-like gradation, with razor-sharp crispness in background detail and exceptional contrast. Grain structure appears indigenous to its source. Color grading is much improved; natural flesh tones, and some gorgeous ruddy oranges depicting the stark natural beauty of the landscapes. Uni has also applied necessary image stabilization. The DTS 2.0 audio is wonderful, with crisp dialogue and well-integrated music and effects. Extras here are virtually identical to the Powerhouse/Indicator release and include, for kick-starters, a thoroughly comprehensive audio commentary from Toby Roan. But that’s only an appetizer to ‘Last of the Independents - The Making of Charley Varrick’ – at 76 minutes, a thoroughly comprehensive look back at the evolution of Siegel's career and film-maker’s style, with a plethora of interviews conducted in 2015, featuring Andrew Robinson, Jacqueline Scott, and Craig R. Baxley, screenwriter Howard A. Rodman, composer, Lalo Schifrin, and Siegel's son, Kristoffer Tabori. There’s also, Refracted Personae – a 36 min. appreciation video essay by critic, Howard S. Berger, again, to re-examine and deconstruct Siegel’s directorial style. ‘Trailers from Hell’ features screenwriters, Josh Olson and Howard Rodman summarizing, in barely 6 minutes, their affection for the movie. A trailer, TV spots, and a printed booklet, featuring an essay from critic, Nick Pinkerton, round out the goodies. Bottom line: Charley Varrick is a failed bit of escapism, heavily weighted down by Don Siegel’s verve for exploring the seedier underbelly of humanity at large. Alas, Siegel has picked a poor example to launch his character study. The Blu-ray is spiffy. The movie is not. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

3.5