Jinxed: The Sequel to Charley Varrick (1973)
Minor SPOILERS
I had pretty much seen every Don Siegel movie from "The Killers" (1964) on, which I consider to be the start of his "modern era" of loner crooks, cops, and cowboys.
Except one: his final film, "Jinxed" (1982.)
The movie was famous for several things, but most famously this: it was the final film of Don Siegel...and it was supposed to be horrible.
After using nothing but male tough-guy actors for so long (McQueen, Marvin, Eastwood, Bronson, Wayne, Reynolds, even Matthau and Caine), Siegel in "Jinxed" used a female tough-al star: Bette Midler. And things went downhill from there.
Midler hated Siegel. Midler hated her young co-star, Ken Wahl ("Wiseguy.") Midler hated her older co-star, the Great Rip Torn. And all those guys hated Midler. Rumor has it, when the movie wrapped, they all kissed and made up, but the movie -- which changed titles about three times -- truly was jinxed, and bombed.
Trivia: Down-and-out auteur Sam Peckinpah was so desperate for work that he signed on to do second-unit on "Jinxed," principally a big truck-and-trailer crash over a mountain cliff. Peckinpah had started as an assistant to Siegel on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
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I finally saw "Jinxed" this week, and while it has its moments, it is indeed, pretty bad. I lay the blame on Midler. Beautiful voice she may have, but she was far too unattractive a woman to play the femme fatale to young Ken Wahl, and she wears unappealing eye make-up that makes her look like Hatchet-Face in "CryBaby."
When Midler is off-screen, Rip Torn is great, and has a truly gripping blackjack duel with Ken Wahl that almost saves "Jinxed." But alas, Torn leaves the movie early.
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The best thing about "Jinxed" for this "Charley Varrick" fan, however, was this: the movie starts in Lake Tahoe and then settles down in Reno.
And a lot of "Charley Varrick" was filmed in Reno. And Don Siegel playfully populates "Jinxed" with FOUR of his Charley Varrick supporting cast:
Jacqueline Scott (Matthau's doomed wife): as the woman at the blackjack table who hates Rip Torn's cigar smoke.
Woodrow Parfrey: (The doomed Mafia bank manager): as the insurance company manager.
Benson Fong: (The Asian Reno Mafia Guy "Honest John"): as the Asian Reno guy who sells Ken Wahl a motorcycle to use in his murder caper.
AND:
Don Siegel himself (the guy who loses at ping-pong to the Asian guy) as an adult bookstore owner who parries verbally with Midler.
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To see Scott, Parfrey, Fong, and Don Siegel himself back on the "Charley Varrick" turf (remember, Siegel even shot that film's New Mexico scenes near Reno) was warmly nostalgic of a much better Don Siegel film.
Also: Siegel had shot exteriors to John Wayne's final film, "The Shootist" in Reno, too, so "Jinxed" has some of that visual flavor.
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One interesting thing to me about "Jinxed" is that it looks very much like an EIGHTIES movie. After the "no-nonsense flat tones" of "Charley Varrick," Siegel had successfully moved on the look and feel of the next decade's films. Perhaps thanks to that famous Vilmos Zsigmond guy's cinematography here, "Jinxed" looks pretty and plastic and sheeny-shiny and just like an 80's movie like "48 HRS" or "Die Hard" to come.
"Jinxed" isn't THAT jinxed. It starts well, Rip Torn is always great, his scenes versus Ken Wahl at the blackjack table have tension, and all that Reno/Charley Varrick nostalgia hangs heavy on what would be Don Siegel's final "A Siegel Film."
But it goes south fast, with a truly dopey third act and Bette Midler flat out horrible.
Midler survived the debacle of "Jinxed." Came the mid-eighties, the New Disney picked her up cheap and used her correctly in a series of comedies: Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Outrageous Fortune (she is hilarious there), that twin thing with Lily Tomlin, and, famously, "Beaches," which has a scene in which Midler's movie star character punches out a director made up and costumed (floppy tennis hat) to look exactly like...Don Siegel!