Review: Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick on Kino Lorber Blu-ray

Siegel’s ultracool heist film comes to Blu-ray with an exquisite transfer and several top-shelf extras.

Charley VarrickFlush from the success of Dirty Harry, Don Siegel at last found himself possessed with sufficient clout to imprint his next work, Charley Varrick, with the auteurist stamp “A Siegel Film,” a rubric that appears on screen before any other title cards. Siegel’s identification with the film’s doggedly professional protagonist extended even to its working title, Last of the Independents, a slogan we see emblazoned across the side of the eponymous character’s crop-dusting company van.

The film opens with a deceptively bucolic credits sequence, in which day dawns over the sleepy town of Tres Cruces, New Mexico. We witness the morning routines of various residents, sun-dappled sketches in domesticity that easily could have been rendered by Norman Rockwell. Then Lalo Schifrin’s heretofore laidback score turns ominous as, beneath a benevolently waving American flag, a bright yellow Lincoln Continental slides into the local bank’s parking lot, like the entrance of the serpent into the Garden of Eden.

Siegel stages the subsequent bank robbery with all the no-nonsense, clockwork precision that had become his stock in trade. There’s barely a word of dialogue, actions are brusque, brutal even, the violence sudden and uncompromising. Siegel carries the tension through the fraught aftermath, as complications with the local constabulary continue to mount, as well as the body count. Charley Varrick’s first act is one extended set piece of staggering efficiency and impact that culminates in the first portentous glimpse of disharmony between mastermind Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) and his young sidekick, Harman (Andy Robinson).

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The second act switches scenes to introduce bank president and mafia front Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) and the hitman he hires to recoup the mob’s money, Molly (Joe Don Baker). This section extends and deepens the theme of duality and duplicity that was introduced by having a rural bank double for a mafia money drop. The most amusing example is the Chinese restaurant run by Honest John (Benson Fong) that covers for a gambling den. (Keep an eye out in this scene for a cameo from Siegel himself as a ping-pong loser.)

Everything and everyone in the world of Charley Varrick has a second or hidden nature, except for Molly, the sadist, racist, and misogynist with the strangely feminine name. He also, notably, has only the one name. He is, to quote William S. Burroughs, the only complete man in the industry, and he’s a force of nature. His closest analogue, in terms of sheer ruthless efficiency, is Charlie Strom (Lee Marvin) from Siegel’s 1964 remake of The Killers.

Charley Varrick, for his part, is as fastidious as a watchmaker, a skill set he acquired as a onetime barnstormer and circus performer. Once he realizes that he’s going to fall out with Harman, not to mention that there’s a mob enforcer on his trail, Charley figures out a way to account for all further contingencies. Siegel punctuates the remainder of the film with snippets of Charley putting his plan into effect. But there’s so much else going on that, at least on first viewing, it can be difficult to put it all together until the film’s final moments.

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There’s a remarkable scene between Maynard Boyle and bank manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) that begins with a swooping crane shot from a car pulling off the road to a field full of cows, then unfolds in one long four-minute take, until Siegel abruptly cuts to enhance the dramatic intensity of a reaction shot. The timing here is paramount, catching the failing light as afternoon turns to dusk. What’s more, John Vernon’s delivery of the line “They’re gonna strip you naked and go to work on you with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch” is bound to burrow its way beneath your skin. It’s a line, incidentally, that Quentin Tarantino appropriated for Ving Rhames’s Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction.

What with all the cars, planes, and mobile homes scattered throughout Charley Varrick, it’s hardly surprising that the film’s finale takes place in a wrecking yard. There’s something archetypal about such a location, standing in for the almost post-apocalyptic ruins of the post-industrial American landscape, all its wreckage and spoliation. But here the wasteland also sets the stage for Charley Varrick’s miraculous rebirth, like the proverbial phoenix painted on his company van, his old existence and identity gone up in flames. In this way, the film ultimately presents itself as a sort of secular parable on ceaseless self-renewal.

Image/Sound

Kino Lorber’s 4K restoration of Charley Varrick is a revelation. Image depth and the fine details of dress and décor register strongly. The earthy browns and verdant greens of the New Mexico landscapes appear warm and deeply saturated. Grain looks well-resolved and suitably cinematic, without any distracting artifacts visible, while black levels are deep and uncrushed. The Master Audio mono mix puts the dialogue and few ambient effects front and center, as well as Lalo Schifrin’s relentlessly propulsive score.

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Extras

Kino assembles a few excellent bonus features, with little in the way of overlap or redundancy. The commentary track from film historian Toby Roan delves informatively into all the usual suspects, like shooting locations and cast and crew filmographies. Roan provides some intriguingly specific details about the various types of vehicles on display throughout the film, from cars and planes to the brand of mobile home the that Varrick and his wife, Nadine, live in. He also does a succinct job of situating the film within the context of different genres (car films, neo-noir, gangster films) that had been freshly refurbished in the New Hollywood era.

Film historian Howard S. Berger’s visual essay “Refracted Personae: Iconography and Abstraction in Don Siegel’s American Purgatory” may possess an imposing title, but it astutely and articulately analyzes Siegel’s formal techniques and thematic concerns in Charley Varrick, with a particular emphasis on those of a spiritual or religious bent. “Last of the Independents: The Making of Charley Varrick” is a feature-length documentary with contributions from Kristoffer Tabori (Don Siegel’s son), actors Andy Robinson and Jacqueline Scott, stunt driver and actor Craig R. Baxley, composer Lalo Schifrin, and Howard A. Rodman (son of screenwriter Howard Rodman). There are plenty of fascinating firsthand recollections: especially intriguing are revelations concerning Walter Matthau’s gambling addiction and how it ultimately affected his choice of acting roles. There’s an episode of “Trailers from Hell” for Charley Varrick with comments from screenwriters John Olson and Howard A. Rodman, and Kino also includes a booklet with a characteristically incisive essay from film critic Nick Pinkerton.

Overall

Don Siegel’s ultracool heist film comes to Blu-ray with an exquisite transfer and several top-shelf extras.

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Score: 
 Cast: Walter Matthau, Andy Robinson, Joe Don Baker, John Vernon, Sheree North, Felicia Farr, Norman Fell, William Schallert, Jacqueline Scott, Woodrow Parfrey, Benson Fong, Tom Tully  Director: Don Siegel  Screenwriter: Dean Riesner, Howard A. Rodman  Distributor: Kino Lorber  Running Time: 111 min  Rating: PG  Year: 1973  Release Date: November 12, 2019  Buy: Video

Budd Wilkins

Budd Wilkins's writing has appeared in Film Journal International and Video Watchdog. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

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