GREAT fucking movie, like an earlier No Country For Old Men with a better ending.
One thing I didn't really understand though, so Varrick apparently went to the fence (and then to the photographer) to set up Sullivan, because he knew it would end up getting Molly on their trail. How did he know this exactly? I mean, how did he know that the fence and Sheree North would end up betraying him?
How did he know this exactly? I mean, how did he know that the fence and Sheree North would end up betraying him?I think the point is just that CV knows *both* that the sorts of people with petty criminal-side-lines that he'll need for passports & money-fencing aren't to be trusted (esp. if the mafia is putting out the word) *&* that the sort of hitman the mob will send after them as soon as they stop laying low *will* be able to get anything out of any surprisingly principled confederates. In sum, CV knows what's coming (though not the details of *how* it will arrive - very No Country! Woody Harrelson is swiftly able to find Moss and tells him that Chigurh will find him soon enough too.) & that it'll be enough to kill Harman & Boyle if CV plays his cards right as things develop. share
Also, I feel like I may have missed something but how did he find out who Boyle was? He just sort of seemed to be looking for him out of nowhere.
share@Andrew. I'd need to rewatch CV to answer that. My experience in the past with CV, however, is that every time I *thought* there was a plot-hole a re-watch or quick check confirmed that I'd either forgotten or failed to notice something, and that CV had in fact a deliciously tight script. I do prefer No Country For Old Men, but the less flashy CV is its own little gem.
shareI think overall I prefer No Country, but I really do think Charley Varrick had the better ending.
shareOK, rewatching key scenes, when Charlie goes to Miss Fort's apartment to set up his contact with Boyle we can probably just assume that he'd get her to show him a photo. The film, however, cinches that connection for us by repeatedly showing a big photo of Boyle prominently displayed on Miss Fort's bedside cabinet, i.e., next to the bed where Charlie & Miss Fort whoop it up.
I probably didn't notice this myself first time through since I remember distinctly that my attention then was taken over by scoffing at Miss Fort so quickly jumping into bed with Charlie, even cracking wise to the person I was seeing the film with, 'Ha, it's that '70s thing again!'. We'd recently seen Three Days of the Condor together and had laughed *there* at how quickly and unrealistically Redford & Dunaway had sex. 'It was the '70s/a '70s thriller honey.'
That whole sex scene was the only part of the movie I didn't like, I'm sure there must have been some reason for including it but it felt totally unnecessary to me.
I was thinking also about ironic the movie is in a meta sense when you think about it. Siegel directed the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was supposed to end on a bleak note, but had its ending completely desecrated by the fascistic Hays Code. Charley Varrick on the other hand, by the same director, ends with what could be considered a huge middle finger to the by then abolished Hays Code.
GREAT fucking movie,
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Indeed it is. Its rather, I think, a "seminal movie," one of the first to posit the criminal underworld as happening "right under our noses" -- in a Chinese restaurant, in a pawn shop, in a photographer's studio, in a banks, both large and small. Charley Varrick navigates many of these places with "inside knowledge"as to their criminality(his old prison buddy and bank robbing partner Al Dutcher told him about them), and Molly navigates them too.
Flash forward to the crime series "Breaking Bad" in the 2010s. Like Charley Varrick, much of Breaking Bad is set in Albequerque, NM. And like Charley Varrick, Breaking Bad reveals that criminal enterprises can be found in such places as a Mexican Chicken fast food franchise; a car wash; a house fumigation service, a vacuum cleaner sales and repair shop, and a welding company(among other places.) Plus, a local "ambulance chaser" lawyer(Saul) maintains that practice AND a law firm for criminal enterprises under the same roof.
There's a lot of laughter modernly about Walter Matthau as a tough criminal type, or a tough cop .but he was good enough an actor to make three 70's thrillers in a row -- Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, and The Taking of Pelham 123 in which we believed the WAY Matthau was tough. He actually beats people up in the The Laughing Policeman, but in Charley Varrick, the whole delight of the enterprise is "brains versus brawn." From the moment he realizes he has stolen Mafia loot, Varrick is ALWAYS thinking...and always thinking ahead(usually chewing gum to help his thought processes.)
When Harman reveals early on that he is a physical, mortal danger to Varrick(who otherwise would have retained him as a partner in crime), Varrick figures out what he must do: take the money away from Harman -- and get Harman killed. ("You called it, kid" -- Varrick remarks to Harman's corpse.)
Varrick uses the brutal, hulking Molly as a "weapon" to kill Harman, but the "main event" for Varrick is to defeat Molly himself...before Molly can kill him. That Varrick manages to use Molly to kill Boyle in the process is...well...part of an excellent plan.
How did he know this exactly? I mean, how did he know that the fence and Sheree North would end up betraying him?
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I think the point is just that CV knows *both* that the sorts of people with petty criminal-side-lines that he'll need for passports & money-fencing aren't to be trusted (esp. if the mafia is putting out the word) *&* that the sort of hitman the mob will send after them as soon as they stop laying low *will* be able to get anything out of any surprisingly principled confederates. In sum, CV knows what's coming
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That's right. He has a line about this to Harman in the trailer early on "Word will get out and every two-bit hustler in town will be trying to rat us out." Varrick confides his thinking to Harman a few times early on -- but once he realizes that Harman is dangerous...Harman is cut out of the planning.
Given Varrick's knowledge that "every two bit hustler in town will be trying to rat us out..." he plants his bread crumbs, first with the pawn shop guy,(who reports his lead to the Chinese restaurant owner, who int turn tells Molly) and then with the photographer(to whom he gives his home address -- thus sealing Harman's death.)
SPOILERS
I think overall I prefer No Country, but I really do think Charley Varrick had the better ending.
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Well,Charley Varrick is the "Hollywood entertainment" version of the No Country story -- confrontations are set up, promised...and delivered (not that Matthau has to fight or shoot Molly...he's too clever for that.)
No Country is an art film at heart...various confrontations are set up, promised...and don't happen. Brolin is killed by others before he can confront Jardem; the very evil Jardem pretty much gets away(even after killing Brolin's innocent wife unnecessarily), and sheriff Tommy Lee Jones can't stop anything.
Irony: the "art film" No Country for Old Men was a pretty big hit; the "entertainment" Charley Varrick was not(I remember how bad it felt when, less than a year after playing in theaters, Charley Varrick opened the NBC Saturday Night at the Movies season..."for free.")
Walter Matthau was a big enough star to be hits like The Bad News Bears and The Sunshine Boys in the 70's, so the failure of Charley Varrick seems to be that folks didn't want to see him play a bank robber whose team kills cops(Charley doesn't) in a movie that SEEMED like a TV movie at times(so small, so quick) but was really much more complex and rich and well-plotted than a Movie of the Week.
No Country for Old Men had the same "plot" as Charley Varrick(with Brolin as Varrick, Bardem as Molly and Jones as Sheriff William Schallert), but it was steeped deeply in novelistic art roots and had a certain poetry in the narration. There's also that great early scene where Bardem and the (great) old guy running the gas station have their little talk about the life or death fate of a coin toss.
Me? I like Charley Varrick better than No Country for Old Men. The earlier film is tight and tough and very stimulating for the mind. It has its own "art scene" -- where John Vernon and Woodrow Parfrey do one long take near cow field as a huge shadow fills the area. Personally, I prefer the company of Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, and even William Schallert to Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem(so weird, he's a symbol more than a man) and Tommy Lee Jones(all three of these men are fine actors, but Charley Varrick plays to a different response.)
I also love the opening credits of Charley Varrick, "setting the stage for the wrong movie" -- morning in America...a montage of a sleepy New Mexico rural community waking up and starting the day, with pretty, warm music..that slowly morphs into Lalo Schifrin's trademark 70's thriller funk.
OK, rewatching key scenes, when Charlie goes to Miss Fort's apartment to set up his contact with Boyle we can probably just assume that he'd get her to show him a photo. The film, however, cinches that connection for us by repeatedly showing a big photo of Boyle prominently displayed on Miss Fort's bedside cabinet, i.e., next to the bed where Charlie & Miss Fort whoop it up
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The photo of John Vernon (Boyle) next to Miss Fort's bed is a funny gag and also part of the film's impeccable plotting. Looks like Miss Fort has to be Boyle's mistress as well as his secretary and I'm guessing she doesn't particularly like either job.
Shall i here make a bow to John Vernon, one of the best character guys of the 60's and 70's. You can find him falling naked from a penthouse to his death in "Point Blank"(the Lee Marvin crime thriller) and then as Castro-ite "sympathetic bad guy" Rico Parra in Hitchcock's Topaz, then as the impotent Mayor in Dirty Harry, then in Charley Varrick, and on to a fine role in Eastwood's Outlaw Josey Wales and on to his "Piece de Resistance" -- Dean Wormer in Animal House("Somebody's got to put his foot down with those punks -- and that foot is ME.") And always with that big, basso profundo voice and that rather pockmarked moonface. (Which kept him from leading man status.)
I probably didn't notice this myself first time through since I remember distinctly that my attention then was taken over by scoffing at Miss Fort so quickly jumping into bed with Charlie, even cracking wise to the person I was seeing the film with, 'Ha, it's that '70s thing again!'. We'd recently seen Three Days of the Condor together and had laughed *there* at how quickly and unrealistically Redford & Dunaway had sex. 'It was the '70s/a '70s thriller honey
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Ha. Much to discuss here.
For openers, we can stipulate that a woman falling into bed with Robert Redford is more believeable than her falling into bed with Walter Matthau. And yet, in both films, the man is newly arrived and menacing (which rather adds to the sexual charge, I suppose -- the menace, I mean.)
That said, I was a Matthau fan in the 60s and 70's and I recall reading the results of an early seventies poll that put Matthau on a list of "male movie stars most liked by women" that included Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford...and Walter Matthau. He seems to have had a deadpan, grouchy-grumbly "regular guy" persona that attracted women. And he always played very confident and capable men. (Like Charley Varrick.)
I expect he was a role model FOR men , too -- men who didn't look like Robert Redford. Consider this about Matthau bedding the sexy Miss Fort: the "Walter Matthau's" in the movie theater got a fantasy of scoring a woman like that. The movies are about this , all the time.
Hitchcock in 1972 said that there was a shortage of movie stars at that time, and Walter Matthau benefitted from this. Matthau got so many roles that a New York Times critic wrote he was oversaturated ("Matthau is coming at us fast and thick these days.")
And Matthau ended up with some romantic roles. He got Goldie Hawn AND Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower; he was a cheating husband(on Carol Burnett) in Pete and Tillie; he landed Barbra Streisand in Hello, Dolly, and he was a newly widowed doctor besieged by women in House Calls(he ended up with the not terribly attractive, "mature" Glenda Jackson, in a Tracy/Hepburn sort of hit.)
Matthau was also smart enough to take a lot of roles with no romance for him: The Taking of Pelham, The Sunshine Boys(he plays elderly), Kotch(he plays elderly), The Bad News Bears...like James Stewart as he aged, Matthau knew to drop the romantic lead act at the right time.
..but back to the "Charley Varrick beds Miss Fort" scene, which, I contend is the "psychiatrist scene" of Charley Varrick -- almost immediately rejected by some critics and by anyone(especially women) to whom I have shown Charley Varrick.
And yet -- as with the psychiatrist scene in Psycho -- I like it, and I can justify it to myself.
Here:
What Varrick needs to set up here is...Maynard Boyle. He uses Miss Fort as the "middle woman" to get Boyle to the air strip the next day. We can assume that Miss Fort knows a fair amount about the Varrick bank robbery(pillow talk from Boyle) and she knows that Varrick is a man marked for death (by Boyle, via Molly.)
So if Miss Fort decides to hop into bed with Varrick, she's got her reasons: (1) She thinks this is his last night alive(Boyle and Molly will kill Varrick the next day); (2) it gives her a chance to break free from Boyle's shackles(Boyle isn't very nice to her on the phone ); she has admiration for Varrick's bravery going up against Boyle; (3) Varrick IS menacing(maybe better to bed him that confront him -- he's a bank robber.) (4) Is John Vernon all THAT much better looking than Walter Matthau?(He's heavier, for one thing.)
And this: part of Charley Varrick takes place at the Mustang Ranch(under another name)...a brothel. Hookers are shown to be a part of the "Mafia lifestyle." I'm guessing that the lovely Miss Fort was, at one time, a hooker, and thus its no big thing for her to take Charley Varrick or Walter Matthau(or John Vernon) to bed.
Finally, there's a great "in joke" : Miss Fort is played by Mrs. Jack Lemmon(and remained his wife to his death.) So here's Oscar Madison jumping into bed with Mrs. Felix Unger...
SPOILERS for CHARLEY VARRICK AND THE STING
I was thinking also about ironic the movie is in a meta sense when you think about it. Siegel directed the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was supposed to end on a bleak note, but had its ending completely desecrated by the fascistic Hays Code. Charley Varrick on the other hand, by the same director, ends with what could be considered a huge middle finger to the by then abolished Hays Code.
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That's an interesting angle. Charley Varrick was one of a series of movies in the 70's in which "the bad guys win."
But under careful circumstances. As one critic put it "there aren't good guys and bad guys -- there are only bad guys and WORSE guys." And the bad guys(Charley Varrick) beat the worse guys (the Mafia.)
As much as we can connect Charley Varrick to No Country for Old Men, a movie came out ONLY TWO MONTHS after Charley Varrick that had the same plot: The Sting(like No Country, ANOTHER Best Picture winner.)
Same plot: low level crook(Robert Redford) accidentally steals from the mob(Robert Shaw) and is hunted; concocts major plot (with Paul Newman) to survive and make money.
And both Charley Varrick and The Sting end the same way: Matthau, Redford, and Newman are "dead" -- but not. Part of the sting, in both movies.
Bonnie and Clyde and Butch Cassidy started the "bank robber protagonist" trend, Charley Varrick continued it (as did McQueen and MacGraw in The Getaway one year earlier -- Varrick and The Getaway have very similar bank robbery car escape scenes.)
Other "bad guys versus worse guys" 70s movies include The Hot Rock, The Outfit, The Longest Yard and even Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot.
Shall I here make a bow to John Vernon, one of the best character guys of the 60's and 70's.Yep, he was the perfect 'establishment guy' in so many films from the mid '60s to early '80s. In general, I notice that both in this thread and in the Jaws thread we've ended up praising a lot of character actors - Vernon, Murray Hamilton, Lee Fiero (Mrs Kintner), Sheree North. A lot of what gives these films their basic credibility and staying power over the years just *is* that all the small roles are so well cast and the character actors of various wattages (Fiero was just a drama teacher on Martha's Vineyard/Amity Island and no Hollywood career outside Jaws at all) *kill* in those roles. And somehow the basic scale of the films in question is small enough that the small pieces of casting& acting matter and add up. Once you get to the blockbusters of the '80s & beyond there are too many explosions and sfx for the scale on which character actors matter to be preserved. share
Shall I here make a bow to John Vernon, one of the best character guys of the 60's and 70's.
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Yep, he was the perfect 'establishment guy' in so many films from the mid '60s to early '80s.
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I take back my comment about his "pock marked moonface." I took a look at Charley Varrick this week again, and actually Vernon had a tougher,more handsome face than that -- I think maybe it was later that he aged into a less handsome face.
Still, he was a character guy selling -- above all -- his VOICE. Which reminds me: stars Hitchcock may not have had in his final three films, but he sure cast a lot of actors and actresses with great VOICES. Close your eyes and imagine the voices of John Vernon, Roscoe Lee Brown, John Forsythe,..Barry Foster, Jon Finch, Alec McCowen....Bruce Dern, William Devane...and -- perhaps a bit less "specific": Dany Robin, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh Hunt, Barbara Harris, Karen Black. No, actually, it WAS the men.
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In general, I notice that both in this thread and in the Jaws thread we've ended up praising a lot of character actors - Vernon, Murray Hamilton, Lee Fiero (Mrs Kintner), Sheree North.
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Lee Fiero(Mrs. Kintner) is a "special case." She was a "non-actress" -- a Martha's Vineyard local who "looked right"(sad, sympathetic, a bit stoic) and really sold her painful scene as a woman who has lost a son ("You KNEW there was a shark out there.") And I guess -- on Roy Scheider's insistence, she REALLY slapped him hard.
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Its funny. On this board(Psycho) we talk about character actors like Martin Balsam, John McIntire, and Simon Oakland, all of whom held on to character guy parts for about two more decades after Psycho, give or take. But as the 60's merged into the 70's...NEW and different character guys started to show up: John Vernon, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Ed Lauter(Family Plot). Meanwhile, somehow, Murray Hamilton -- so used in the late 50's -- got to come back for one big splash: Jaws.
Sheree North. Interesting lady.
I think some folks confuse her role in Charley Varrick, sometimes. She's not Mrs. Fort(that's Felicia Farr, aka Mrs. Lemmon)...she's the photographer in hot pants and just enough "mileage" on her sexy face and body to suggest at once some desperation and some "desireable experience." (Matthau may get Farr; but Baker goes North -- hah, I had to say it.)
Charley Varrick director Don Siegel used Sheree North in his 1968 film Madigan as the sultry singer who valiantly tries to get cop Richard Widmark into bed with her even as both of them know he is married and won't leave that marriage(to gorgeous Inger Stevens.) After Varrick, North did a fine turn in a cameo scene with John Wayne in Siegel's The Shootist -- as an old flame come to seek the dying Wayne's hand in marriage...for publicity purposes when he dies (Wayne actually treats North a lot meaner and rougher than he needs to -- its a painful scene.)
In between all those movies, Sheree North was hilarious in a short part in the funny Charles Bronson action movie Breakout(1975.) Bronson seeks to enlist North for a "fake seduction job" -- over the objections of her huge, hulking husband(the husband allows it, but tells Bronson in no uncertain terms what will happen if anything sexual REALLY occurs). Its funny.
And I know Sheree North can be found in 50's and 60s movies, too. One of the great character GALS.
I know Sheree North can be found in 50's and 60s movies, too.She played a kindly stripper who gets together with Gene Hackman in The Gypsy Moths (1969). North was excellent & *very* sexy in the role. CV pretty much has her repeat that role. I guess she found it hard to break out beyond these small supporting parts. There's so much competition for leads that simply being an OK actor & damn gorgeous in an all-American kind of way is not going to be enough. (I guess I was thinking this a bit about Kelly Preston too in the light of her death today.) share
I know Sheree North can be found in 50's and 60s movies, too.
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She played a kindly stripper who gets together with Gene Hackman in The Gypsy Moths (1969). North was excellent & *very* sexy in the role.
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A kindly stripper...a bit overaged...typical Sheree North role. But she maintained equal parts sex appeal and vulnerability.
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CV pretty much has her repeat that role. I guess she found it hard to break out beyond these small supporting parts.
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Yes...I think in the 50s there was an attempt to "star build" North as a Marilyn Monroe type. Still, she sure got work in the 60s and 70s...I expect men in the industry liked working with her.
Her scenes with Matthau(first) and hulking Joe Don Baker as Molly (second) are both good. She maintains a clipped and professional manner with both men, but rightly susses Molly out as a dangerous man and -- in a nasty bit -- accepts a slap from Molly before going to bed with him. She knows the world in which she works; a woman in the Mafia-run men's kingdom..
Funnier: When Matthau peels off MORE cash for her, Siegel gives us a great, super-quick close-up of North "licking her lips" almost in sexual(or hungry) delight. Its the incisive little moments like this that make "Charley Varrick" great.
There's so much competition for leads that simply being an OK actor & damn gorgeous in an all-American kind of way is not going to be enough. (I guess I was thinking this a bit about Kelly Preston too in the light of her death today.)
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Kelly Preston, gone at 57, leaving behind her husband John Travolta. And they lost their young son Jett, some years ago. Travolta's star career is a thing of wonder(I'm a BIG fan)...but his personal life has been marked with tragedy. Decades ago, a young Travolta lost his older girlfriend (the beautiful Diana Hyland) to cancer; now it happens again.
The death of Kelly Preston hit me surprisingly hard (for a "celebrity" death --no, we don't know these people, but we DO follow them.)
Kelly Preston had, I always felt, the "total package" for female stardom(sexy division): a beyond gorgeous face(to gaze upon it was to hurt a little for a man), a great body. I had friendly debates with female friends over the years: Jennifer Aniston's beauty seems to be most appreciated by women; but Kelly Preston's beauty was "for men only." Wow.
In the 80's, Preston brought new meaning to "nudity for the sakeof the picture" in two movies: Mischief and 52 Pick Up. The former was a 50's teenage sex comedy(when the young hero manages to bed Preston -- even only once -- every male in the audience shares his spiritual glee).
The latter was a very nasty bit of business from an Elmore Leonard novel in which Preston is both a sexbomb(she plays a stripper) and...the victim of a horrific murder which Preston "sells" with every inch of her being as the victim. You never forget it when you see it(star Roy Scheider spends the movie getting sweet revenge on Preston's killlers.)
For the 1988 comedy "Twins," Preston kept her clothes on and was sunny-sexy as Arnold's girlfriend -- this ALMOST launched a star career for Preston, but it never really happened. My theory: she was simply too gorgeous for women to relate to on screen, she couldn't really play "regular roles." (A bitchy, villainous turn as Tom Cruise's ex in "Jerry Maguire" -- in contrast to sweet Renee Zellwegger -- was the kind of role she ended up with.)
A woman as gorgeous as Kelly Preston seemed to be available only for relationships with a small parade of "hot men"(looks and wealth): Charlie Sheen(that guy; what the hell did he have?); George Clooney, and finally Travolta.
There was always a lot of mystery to the Travolta/Preston marriage. Outwardly, it looked very happy, but...there were rumors about its "reality."
Both Travolta and Preston were confirmed Scientologists and preached it in public. Still, quite the great couple to look at -- somehow even an overweight, badly wigged Travolta has always kept his star persona(he does straight to streaming stuff now, but BOY what a lot of comebacks before then), and Preston kept her beauty with every passing year.
So that's a bunch of good "movie memories" about the kind of actress that the movies actually ARE about(sometimes)...women who drive fantasy, women who make you weak in the knees just looking at them. Kelly Preston was never a star, but she was always memorable.
And she will be remembered.
It's rather, I think, a "seminal movie," one of the first to posit the criminal underworld as happening "right under our noses" -- in a Chinese restaurant, in a pawn shop, in a photographer's studio, in a banks, both large and small.Yes, even the nonchalant presentation of the idea that your local bank might be mob-run (hence something that could trip up lower-level thieves) felt a little novel.
Yes, even the nonchalant presentation of the idea that your local bank might be mob-run (hence something that could trip up lower-level thieves) felt a little novel.
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I suppose with modern international banking and computers, money laundering is more sophisticated but back in 1973, the idea of "having a little bank on hand" locally to do the job reflects the "local" nature of the criminal enterprises in Charley Varrick.
Though one of them is rather "criminal" on its face: the brothel. Scenes there were filmed at the real-life Mustang Ranch outside of Reno, Nevada -- but in the film, its got another name and its in New Mexico, which would make it...illegal. And clearly mob-connected. ("You can take and send messages there," Honest John the Chinese crime boss tells Molly the big enforcer.) I liked that touch, too -- that crime takes place in the "sleazy places" as well as the innocent.
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Having said that, I guess it's the greater realism of '70s movies that's the real change. For example, noirs & semi-noirs from Big Sleep to The Killers (1946) to Asphalt Jungle to Night and the City to Sweet Smell of Success always kind-of-postulated that criminality was everywhere in plain sight. But there was always a form of movie-land distance associated with those films. Grittiness notwithstanding, Hollywood black and white always seems to lend a certain glamour
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Yes, I was thinking about this when I wrote about Charley Varrick's "particular pleasures." Lots of b/w crime movies from the 30's through the 50's gave us "localized crime" but glamourized in the look of Expressionism and noir. The camerawork in "Charley Varrick" is dead-eyed and somewhat documentary-ish.
Personal note: I've been to Reno, Nevada and environs a few times in my life, and it looks just like it did in 1973, today. A little dumpy in the business district around the casinos, lots of little shops. The building where the Chinese restaurant was, is still there but -- no Chinese restaurant(I think that was just a "front" in the movie, no such restaurant existed.)
And if you know the "30 mile radius," there is this angle to "Charley Varrick." The opening rural scenes set in "Albequerque New Mexico" were all filmed in small towns and open lands just 30 miles south OF Reno, still in Nevada (and near capitol Carson City.) It seems a bit of a "Hollywood cheat," now(especially given that we can see Albquerque at length on Breaking Bad.) But...oh, well.
I have personally entered the "Tres Cruces Bank" from Charley Varrick. Its a local museum now, about 30 miles south of Reno. I told the woman at the front desk about "Charley Varrick" , wrote the name down on a piece of paper, and recommended that the museum look into putting the DVD on a TV for the first scene. (Of course, people get bloodily shot in that scene, maybe it wouldn't work.)
A little extra trivia for "Charley Varrick" watchers, about ANOTHER movie that has deep connections to it: Jinxed (1982.)
The director of "Charley Varrick" was Don Siegel, who forged a career first in 50s black and white "B" movies(including the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the well-regarded Riot in Cell Block 11), and then spent the 60's and 70's directing "tough loner crime films" with the majority of ranking male stars of those decades.
Siegel worked four times with Clint Eastwood, climaxing in Dirty Harry (1971), and then worked with Clint one more time on Escape From Alcatraz(1979.) Dirty Harry was a blockbuster and ALSO as seminal as Charley Varrick(which Siegel made right after Harry; Eastwood turned the Matthau role down, and quite correctly so. Brains versus Brawn?)
But even as Siegel was known as "Clint Eastwood's house director," the two men parted ways after Dirty Harry -- Eastwood would BECOME a director, and Siegel forged his own path. Evidently, the two men only grudgingly agreed to re-unite on Escape from Alcatraz because a studio head offered them more money.
Still, Don Siegel worked with plenty of OTHER male stars, both before Clint and after Clint:
Before Clint: Elvis Presley, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Lee Marvin, Ronald Reagan(in his final film role, as a gang boss bad guy!), Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark.
After Clint: Walter Matthau, Michael Caine, John Wayne(in his final film, the great The Shootist), Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds.
and yet...after working with all those men...Don Siegel's final film would be with a female star -- Bette Midler, in Jinxed.
That movie kind of WAS jinxed, but oh the trivia:
"Jinxed" is about a casino card dealer (Ken Wahl), who is followed from casino to casino by a gambler(the great Rip Torn -- we can add HIM to the list of "Don Siegel tough guys") who manages to beat the dealer for big bucks, every time, always getting the dealer fired. Bette Midler is Torn's wife and Wahl's lover(yeah, right)...and a small time casino lounge singer. And the lovers elect to kill the husband.
"Jinxed" starts in the casinos of Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and then moves to the casinos of..Reno, Nevada and so ..Don Siegel, in his final film, returns to "Charley Varrick country." There are shots of Reno that are very reminiscent of Varrick and, as I recall, three supporting actors FROM Charley Varrick. Its like a "Charley Varrick reunion."
And this: Sam Peckinpah, the legendary director of The WIld Bunch and a bunch of other movies, including Steve McQueen's big hit, The Getaway -- couldn't get work by 1980. Drinking and drugs had killed his reputation. Well, Peckinpah had been an assistant director to Don Siegel on Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the 50's , and now he came to Siegel for help: Peckinpah...the GREAT Sam Peckinpah...worked on "Jinxed" as "Second Unit" and filmed a scene of a truck going over a cliff.
And this: Don Siegel does a cameo early in Charley Varrick. Wearing his trademark moustache and his trademark "floppy hat," Siegel plays a man who loses cash to Honest John in a ping pong game. Look at that and remember how Siegel LOOKS.
Because: In the movie "Beaches" - the Bette Midler tearjerker about two female friends(one dies), Midler plays a movie actress who, in one scene, gets into a raging argument with her director: a man in a floppy hat and a moustache.
For Midler HATED working for Siegel on "Jinxed"(he was a "man's director" who couldn't connect) and she got her revenge by mocking him in Beaches.
And that's all the Jinxed/Charley Varrick/Beaches/Peckinpah trivia I got.
Though I do recommend a watch of "Jinxed" some time in the context of an "unofficial Charley Varrick sequel."
Why is this on the Psycho board?
share@Paladin. This board has its own customs (inherited from the IMDb Psycho board) including a tolerance for flagged as such 'Off Topic' threads. This is one of them. In many cases, however, those threads *do* circle back to Psycho and Hitchcock eventually.
Beyond that, it just *is* the case that directors of polished action-thrillers such as the Coens and Don Siegel, Tarantino, Peckinpah quite naturally come up as important comparison cases for Hitchcock overall.
Finally, we've had threads before on specific comparisons between No Country and Psycho, e.g., starting from
http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2010/01/no-country-for-old-psychos.html
This thread continues those and others effectively. If you're just 'dipping in' to this board now you're joining conversations that have gone on in some cases for a decade or more. Of course, there are plenty of non-OT threads if you want to avoid anything like that. Everyone can be happy.
Indeed. I think the count of "Psycho" specific topics and threads outweigh the OT threads by a ratio of about 10 to 1. Still, the allowed for "OT" content here allows a sense of "Psycho" in the larger film world before it, around it, and after it.
Not to mention, hey: all roads lead to Psycho.
Waldon O. Watson was the key sound man on both Psycho in 1960 and Charley Varrick in 1973.
THAT's on topic!
Meanwhile, nothing has been posted on the Charley Varrick (1973) MC board here in two months. So I agree, it should have been posted there.
shareThat's part of the problem....something about how Moviechat "works" means that entire boards go "dead" for months on end, sometimes a year or two.
At least here, we have a knowledgeable audience willing to discuss these movies -- and they don't always visit those other boards.
Case in point: Hitchcock's "Frenzy" may or may not be at the level of "Psycho" -- but it was considered a very major work in 1972. And yet, the "Frenzy" board is dead, dead, dead. Only here have some of us(starting with me) gotten any sort of conversation going on it at all. And yet, the discussion of "Frenzy" DOES tie into "Psycho"(of course), because both films are by Hitchcock, both films are about psychos, and "Frenzy" plays off of our knowledge OF "Psycho" in Hitchcock's work(example: Bob Rusk, the killer of Frenzy, has only his mother's photo on his mantle.)
Put another way, this "Psycho" board has -- as an adjunct -- a "general discussion" component that seems to ensure some movies getting discussed that would NEVER be discussed on their home boards.
I confess -- I fashioned my paragraph above on Hitchcock's elegant introduction of the motel and the house in his classic "tour guide trailer" for Psycho:
"This motel has -- as an adjunct -- an old house, which, if I may say so, is a bit more sinister than the motel itself..."
PS. In addition to sharing Waldon O. Watson on sound, "Charley Varrick" shares with "Psycho" a certain compact, tight storyline with superior characterization and plotting. They are roughly the same TYPE of movie, production-wise.
"Frenzy" is of the same, small, tight nature -- and shares with Charley Varrick what I call "snap your fingers" boom-boom-boom all the story points come together finales.
SPOILERS for Charley Varrick and Frenzy:
Charley Varrick:
Bad guy Molly(Joe Don Baker) opens the trunk of the car which is supposed to have loot in it(SNAP.)
But a long-missing dead man(Harman, Varrick's henchman), killed by Molly, is in there! (SNAP)
Close-up: the money bag that HAD the Mafia cash in it(no more) (SNAP)
Close-up: the ring of Charley Varrick's dead wife ..on Harman's finger (Charley switched dental records with Harman-- the cops will think this is "dead Charley"(SNAP)
Close-up: A flashing light with a wire (SNAP)
Close-up: Molly -- he realizes its a bomb, tries to movie(SNAP)
BOOM: Molly is blown up and flung across the junkyard, the trunk is aflame(SNAP)
"Unable to move Charley Varrick" MOVES, quickly -- (SNAP)
Sprinkles some cash around Harman's body (SNAP)
Takes off his jumpsuit to reveal he's wearing a suit(SNAP)
Escapes (after his car almost doesn't start) alive with the money(SNAP)
Camera move to Charley's burning jumpsuit -- an image which stared the movie(SNAP and END.)
SPOILERS FOR FRENZY
Frenzy
Blaney brings the tire iron down on the sleeping Rusk's head (SNAP)
But a woman's arm falls and hangs alongside the bed, her bracelets clinking (SNAP)
CLOSE-UP: Blaney, confused (SNAP)
Blaney pulls back the bed cover to reveal: Its not Rusk! Its the corpse of another strangled victim, naked, necktie round her neck) (SNAP)
The door to the flat bursts open, it Inspector Oxford, who freezes in disappointment and stares at Blaney(SNAP)
Blaney protests: "No, I didnt'" (SNAP)
Oxford holds up his hand to demand silence; a "clunking" sound outside the door grows louder(SNAP)
Close up Blaney(SNAP)
The door opens and Rusk comes dragging in a large shipping trunk; Rusk suddenly sees Oxford and Blaney; Oxford blocks the door(SNAP)
Oxford's line: "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie." (SNAP)
Group shot: Blaney, Oxford, Rusk...and the naked corpse in bed Rusk drops the trunk(SNAP)
Close-up: The trunk hits the floor (SNAP and END.)
Yes, the "small" Charley Varrick and Frenzy have in common the hugely satisfying final moments in which "it all comes together" -- moment by moment , shot by shot(with our memories activated BY the shots -- that's right, we saw Charley switch his dental records with Harman! Oh, God -- Rusk has done it again! The tie!). Great filmmaking by two master directors(Hitchcock and Don Siegel), perhaps a level or two apart in importance. Great scripts ("the end is the most important.") Great actors.
Satisfying movies, Charley Varrick and Frenzy. But Psycho -- just as small and low-budget in conception -- did much bigger, more shocking, more historic things.
Great breakdown & paralleling of the intricate closing scenes of CV & Frenzy ecarle. I dare say that these sorts of 'leave 'em wanting more' films with their slam-bam endings are less common these days than they used to be. And the most recent attempt I'm aware of, The Invisible Man (2020), was a disaster.
Nolan's made a few good ones ('leave 'em wanting more' films with slam-bam, highly analysable endings): Memento, The Prestige, maybe Inception. Peak Coens too: Serious Man, True Grit, Fargo, Barton Fink, and a few others. Also Celine Sciamma: Water Lilies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire has the knack too. I guess these gem-like endings, an aspirational legacy of Preston Sturges, Welles, Wilder, as well as Hitchcock aren't dead, just hard to pull off.
Great breakdown & paralleling of the intricate closing scenes of CV & Frenzy ecarle.
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Thank you. I've seen a LOT of movies -- thrillers especially -- and I think that one feels a certain exhilaration when they really "pull off the ending" and you can sense the entire movie coming together. In Charley Varrick, we FINALLY realize EXACTLY how Charley's plan works -- and it pays off. Frenzy -- in a more structural way- FINALLY brings together the three key men in the story(The Wrong Man, The Right Man, the Cop) for the first(and last) time in the movie.
Also, I think "getting specific" about why Charley Varrick and Frenzy work so well deflects from viewing them the wrong way, i.e. "Well, Frenzy is just about a horrible rape-murder; Well, Charley Varrick is a really little movie.")
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I dare say that these sorts of 'leave 'em wanting more' films
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but "leave 'em wanting more" in a GOOD way...not a BAD way, i.e. The Sopranos with no ending at all...
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with their slam-bam endings are less common these days than they used to be. And the most recent attempt I'm aware of, The Invisible Man(2020) was a disaster.
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You need really good writers -- and really good directors(often the same persona, or at least the co-writer) to pull great endings off.
Hitchcock famously just couldn't come up with a really good ending for Topaz -- there are THREE that were filmed or edited together -- so it was wonderful when he provided such a great one for Frenzy one year later. But the two films back to back tell the story: the ending is EVERYTHING to send the viewer home happy -- and maybe remembering that particular film for the rest of their lives.
And Hitch had a GREAT record for endings. Topaz and maybe Suspicion aside, just PICTURE the endings to: Notorious, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much '56, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho, The Birds....Frenzy." And even Family Plot(the wink at the end of his career.) He hit more than he whiffed.
Nolan's made a few good ones ('leave 'em wanting more' films with slam-bam, highly analysable endings): Memento, The Prestige, maybe Inception. Peak Coens too: Serious Man, True Grit, Fargo, Barton Fink, and a few others. Also Celine Sciamma: Water Lilies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire has the knack too.
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That run tells me that maybe one reason certain director/writer/producers get long careers in Hollywood is because they CAN deliver a movie with a fine ending, most of the time. This reflects both professionalism AND talent, and Hollywood will always hire that.
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I guess these gem-like endings, an aspirational legacy of Preston Sturges, Welles, Wilder, as well as Hitchcock aren't dead, just hard to pull off.
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Hard to say if the "Golden Era" writer/directors (Sturges, Welles and Wilder were "official," but Hitch was one too) came from a better story telling tradition ...or what...
Interesting: Hitchcock delivered two of his greatest endings(final SHOTS) back to back in NXNW (1959) and Psycho(1960.) The same two years, Billy Wilder delivered two of his greatest CURTAIN LINES: Some Like It Hot(1959 -- "Nobody's perfect"); The Apartment(1960--"Shut up and deal.")
What's not to like about the movies? The good ones, at least.
After some thought, it occurred to me that the "snap your fingers" one-two-three-four great endings of Frenzy and Charley Varrick share this element in common:
A character pulls something back or open...and a dead body is shockingly revealed.
Frenzy: Rusk's latest victim -- female, naked, tongue hanging out, necktie round her neck.
Charley Varrick: Varrick's greedy and dangerous young partner Harman -- discovered by "Molly" the big sadist who killed him.
A bedspread is pulled back to reveal the Frenzy victim -- a car trunk is opened to reveal Harman.
But there are differences, of course.
In Charley Varrick, Molly -- in the split seconds of recognition and realization before he gets blown up -- realizes that he is looking at the body of a MAN HE HAS KILLED. As if come back to confront him.
And it gets us to thinking: the last time we saw Harman's body , it was inside of Charley Varrick's small trailer where he lived. Our minds flash backwards and "put it all together": Charley had to move that body out of the trailer(so the cops wouldn't find it), wrap it(likely), put the late Mrs. Varrick's ring on its finger, then fly it in the light plane with Varrick from New Mexico to Reno..then MOVE it into that car trunk with the money sack(empty) and the bomb.)
Charley Varrick went to a lot of trouble. And had to fly with a corpse. ICK.
As for the female victim in Rusk's bed, we DO wonder how Rusk got her there. Brenda and Babs knew Bob (as Mr. Robinson with Brenda and through Blaney, with Babs.) But what about THIS poor young woman? Simply a date? (a cop says of Rusk, " You're one for the birds" - suggesting a ladies man type.) Or a pick-up? Or a hooker?
An unfounded rumor is that the actress playing this body can be seen alive walking past the two lawyers in the pub discussing the Necktie Killer. Maybe. And there is "cheeky" footage of Hitchcock, on set, talking to this "corpse" while she is alive and wearing a cover-up, before Hitch says "action" and the cover-up is removed, and the woman assumes the "freeze of death" with her breasts exposed. (Before this happens, Hitch asks the corpse "How's your mother?" -- the mother evidently once acted for Hitch in England, years before.)