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The Flip Side of Dirty Harry (and a Classic)

posted 19 years ago by ecarle
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Director Don Siegel followed up his mega-hit "Dirty Harry" (1971) with "Charley Varrick"(1973) The second film was, in some interesting ways, the flip side, or dark mirror image, of the first:

--"Dirty Harry" was about a cop (Clint Eastwood.) "Charley Varrick" is about a robber (Walter Matthau.)

-- "Dirty Harry" puts Westerner Eastwood in big city San Francisco. "Charley Varrick" puts Easterner Walter Matthau in back country New Mexico (with a side-trip to high desert Reno.)

-- Dirty Harry is a chase in which the hero is the HUNTER -- Harry trying to catch mad killer Scorpio. Charley Varrick is a chase in which the hero is the HUNTED -- brainy regular guy Matthau trying to elude a big, brutal sadist of a hit man (Joe Don Baker.)

--"Dirty Harry" was a hit. "Charley Varrick" was not -- perhaps because, despite Matthau's deadpan charm as Varrick, he is a bank robber whose gang kills cops and "Dirty Harry" had been dedicated to officers dead in the line of duty.

Perhaps burned by critics like Pauline Kael who called "Dirty Harry" "fascist," Don Siegel was returning to looking at the crooks' side of the law (as he had in "The Killers"), with Charley Varrick the most likeable and centered of crooks in a movie filled with them.

Varrick finds himself in trouble when his heist of a tiny backwater New Mexico bank quite unintentionally nets big money -- Mafia money, shipped in from Nevada. The mob dispatches the implacable, pipe-smoking good ol' boy "Molly" (Joe Don Baker in a memorable performance that came the same year he made minor history in "Walking Tall.")

The fun comes from watching Matthau's brain pitted against Baker's brawn, with plenty of twists as Matthau tries to escape certain death.

The charismatic Matthau plays it straight here, and plays almost his entire part by chewing gum and silently thinking about what to do next. Watching Matthau THINK is very entertaining -- especially when you see him decide to give up a threatening partner, without saying a word.

When he made "Charley Varrick," Matthau was an established comedy star with a specialty in Neil Simon stuff ("The Odd Couple," "Plaza Suite.") But he'd started out as a good deadpan straight guy in thrillers like "Charade" and "Mirage," and in the fine modern Western "Lonely Are The Brave" (set, like "Varrick," largely in New Mexico; its almost like "Varrick" is somewhat of a sequel.)

"Charley Varrick" was part of a three-movie attempt on the charismatic Matthau's part to break out of comedy and return to dramatic thrillers. Two out of three of these were small classics:
"Charley Varrick" (1973) and "Taking of Pelham 123" (1974.) The third ("The Laughing Policeman" between the two in '73) was merely good. Alas, all three films didn't do well ("Charley Varrick" premiered on American network televison less than a year after its theaterical release!), and Matthau went back to comedy (Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys" "Bad News Bears.")

That "Charley Varrick" ended up on TV less than a year after theaters reflected veteran director Don Siegel's penchant for making tight, economical thrillers. In some ways, "Charley Varrick" seemed small and short and inconsequential -- like a TV movie. But repeated viewings reveal the film to be far better than any "made for TV" movie could be.

"Charley Varrick" is as expertly constructed and plotted as a great Elmore Leonard thriller, with great characterizations. Matthau's the lead, but Baker is his dark double, and a great cast of characters supports them both: John Vernon's pompous mob banker; Norman Fell's unctuous FBI man; Woodrow Parfey's milquetoast bank manager; Tom Tully and Sheree North as two mercenary purveyors of back country larceny (proving crooks network as well in small towns as in the big city.) I also liked Asian mob boss, Chinese restaurant owner and car dealer "Honest John" (shown beating a guy at ping-pong for money -- Don Siegel himself.)

Siegel knew how to keep the action minimal and the suspense involving. The movie had explosive action "bookends" -- a bank robbery to open, a car vs. bi-plane chase to finish -- with nothing much in between but pure plot and suspense (as when Molly beats, tortures, or kills people working his way towards Varrick.)

Moreover, this movie came out about two months before "The Sting" -- and features a pretty damn similar sting of its own, courtesy of wily Charley Varrick, who gets everything done as a one-man job, with no need for Paul Newman, Robert Redford, a score of con men and a fake race betting parlor to pull it off.

A perfectly made, tight thriller, with a great ending. Watch for the single-take scene between a mobster and a very scared underling as a shadow fills the cow pasture in which they talk. And Matthau beds a beautiful woman played by Felicia Farr -- wife of Matthau pal Jack Lemmon.

This is one of those movies that makes me miss Walter Matthau. And Don Siegel. And movies as good as "Charley Varrick."

PS. The film's first image is its last. Beautiful.

[–] joekiddlouischama 19 years ago

PS. The film's first image is its last. Beautiful.

Eastwood himself would employ the same device on his A Perfect World (1993), a film that makes use of similar locations and features a vaguely similar plot. Charley Varrick is "just" a genre movie (a tight little crime drama), whereas A Perfect World transcends genre in terms of breadth, emotional depth, and pacing, but the similar emphasis on visuality and ambience is noteworthy. Both "road/crime" films feature particularly verdant and vivid "greens" and pay impeccable attention to rural atmosphere. Both movies are also morally ambiguous, although Charley Varrick, befitting its director and its early seventies' moment, is more cynical.

Of note: Universal president Lew Wasserman changed the title of Siegel's film from The Last of the Independents to Charley Varrick. I guess that Wasserman preferred shorter titles for his advertising ...

[–] ecarle 19 years ago

"Charley Varrick" also, I think, suggested an analogy to "Dirty Harry."

"Harry" and "Charley" (or "Charlie") are rather raffish sounding names, see: "The Trouble With Harry," "The Truth about Charlie." (But not Cliff Robertson's Oscar winning retarded man, "Charly.")

There is perhaps an interesting piece to be written about movies in which the lead character's name is the title of the film. Reflecting a powerful star ("Joe Kidd" for Clint Eastwood?) or a "giving up" on the part of the producers ("Charley Varrick" for "The Last of the Independents," or the ambiguous title of the novel, "The Looters.")

I mean, you got your "Forrest Gump" and your "Jerry Maguire" and your "Erin Brockovich." Why?

P.S. Your "Perfect World" analogy is interesting. That movie might be closer to "Lonely Are the Brave," which cross-cuts from the lawman chasing a fugitive (Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau) to the sympathetic fugitive (Kevin Coster, Kirk Douglas).

Personally, I like the "crime story" flavor of "Charley Varrick" better than the drama of "A Perfect World." Matthau's Charley is in a race against a scary killer (Baker) and surrounded on all sides by untrustworthy criminals. That's more fun that " A Perfect World," which slowly winds down to tragedy -- with Costner's "friendly" convict doing something rather shockingly nasty, if justifiable, near the end.

[–] joekiddlouischama 19 years ago

There is perhaps an interesting piece to be written about movies in which the lead character's name is the title of the film. Reflecting a powerful star ("Joe Kidd" for Clint Eastwood?) or a "giving up" on the part of the producers ("Charley Varrick" for "The Last of the Independents," or the ambiguous title of the novel, "The Looters.")

I mean, you got your "Forrest Gump" and your "Jerry Maguire" and your "Erin Brockovich." Why?

Incidentally, Joe Kidd was originally titled Sinola (after the fictional town in the film), which was probably worse. Those types of "name" titles can work for an absolute superstar such as Eastwood or Hanks or Cruise or Roberts, because people identify the characters so closely with the stars. But although Matthau was a star, his persona in and of itself wasn't going to bring people to a crime movie such as Charley Varrick. As a result, perhaps the title needed to offer something more descriptive.

Personally, I like the "crime story" flavor of "Charley Varrick" better than the drama of "A Perfect World." Matthau's Charley is in a race against a scary killer (Baker) and surrounded on all sides by untrustworthy criminals. That's more fun that " A Perfect World," which slowly winds down to tragedy -- with Costner's "friendly" convict doing something rather shockingly nasty, if justifiable, near the end.

Charley Varrick is more fun, more spicy. A Perfect World is a larger, more "important" film that packs an emotional wallop. As you note, it's a deeply fatalistic movie where humor and vibrancy slowly, invariably unwind into hapless tragedy. Costner is a "friendly" convict, a surrogate father figure to the boy, but he's also dangerous and he carries a barely suppressed, explosively violent temper. Eastwood took Costner's golden boy persona and layered it with darker, tragic shades. But A Perfect World is also a lyrical road movie that owes much of its lyricism to its backcountry locations, and Charley Varrick is much the same way. Obviously, the films' respective thematic concerns and ambitions are quite different.

[–] chandler-47 19 years ago

"Charley Varrick is "just" a genre movie (a tight little crime drama)"

That's true. It's a well constructed crime story without any deeper meaning. The best description is solid. In the early seventies there were a lots of such movies. Like Richard Fleischer's Mr. Majestyk.

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"They don't give you the leads, they don't give you the support, they don't give you dick." (Dave Moss)

[–] ecarle 19 years ago

"Solid" is indeed a good description.

The solid smallness of "Charley Varrick" makes its greatness hard to sell.

I've always contended that "Star Wars" didn't just usher in more space movies and special effects films like "Indiana Jones," -- it changed the nature of the crime thriller, too. The big explosions and echoing, flashing guns of "Lethal Weapon" and "Die Hard" were as influenced by "Star Wars" as they are by "Dirty Harry" or "Charley Varrick." But they are more like fantasies, too.

That's one reason why "Charley Varrick" is so "flavorful." Everything is built to a very realistic scale, telling us: crooks are all around us, we just don't notice them at work.

The film seems to get the details right on how the crime world REALLY works: with the Mafia using guys like Joe Don Baker's good ol' boy Molly and Chinese restaurant owner "Honest John" to move freely within the margins of society getting the job done.

Molly is given temporary quarters at a REAL whorehouse that was open until only a few years ago: the Mustang Ranch outside of Reno, Nevada. They call it something else in the movie, but the REAL owner, Joe Conforte, is introduced on screen, and some of those hookers are clearly "for real," too. (I love Molly's nasty rejection of an offered hooker: "I don't sleep with whores. At least, not knowingly.")

"Charley Varrick" I think also took the risk that "The Godfather" didn't: actually used the word "Mafia." If you look at "Bullitt" a few years earlier, the group is always called "the Organization." Other movies called it "the outfit." Or, of course, the mob. Protests against "The Godfather" were met, somewhat, by promises not to use the "M" word. But Charley Varrick comes right out and says it, "we've stolen Mafia money. They'll keep coming after us until we're dead."

Anyway, small, tight, economical, "Charley Varrick" is. But that doesn't make it any less meaningful than, say, a really well-written crime novel classic.

P.S. "Mr. Majestyk," from a novel by the great crime writer, Elmore Leonard, is of that ilk, to, to be sure, if not quite as polished and complex as "Charley Varrick".

I like the scene where the villain sits down with Bronson and says, "I'm gonna kill you. Somehow, someday, I'm gonna kill you" -- and Bronson just punches him out, noting, "I guess there's no talking to you."

Later, the mobsters machine gun Mr. M's watermelon crop, which led the Time film critic to note, "There is entirely too much pulp and rind in today's violent crime thrillers."

[–] Doc-McCoy 19 years ago

"Charlie Varrick" is a really underrated film. Great script, direction, casting, and a tremendous performance from Walter Matthau. I actually prefer him in films like this one and "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" compared to the comedies he was more well-known for.

Like any Don Siegel film, it has many mememorable moments: when Molly repossesses the red Chrysler Imperial, when Matthau goes to Tom's Gun Shop and tries to find out about a fence for the stolen money, Molly's visit with Harman, the great ending sequence, and too many others to list here.

Inn its own way, "Charlie Varrick" is as good as "Dirty Harry", but for different reasons.

[–] ecarle 19 years ago

I actually prefer Matthau in films like this one and "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" compared to the comedies he was more well-known for.

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At a certain point, Matthau's "bread and butter" was in comedies, but he made a concerted effort, with three films in a row -- "Charley Varrick," "The Laughing Policeman" and "Pelham 123," -- to show that he could function in a thriller as well.

Of course, with two of those films, "Varrick"and "Pelham," Matthau maintained a fair amount of comic presence. He gets a few laughs with his deadpan manner, or has a comic scene or two (with the sex-crazed old lady in "Varrick," with the Japanese contingent touring the NYC subway system in "Pelham.") He was pretty humorless in "The Laughing Policeman," and that was a bit of a mistake. He came across as grim and dour in that film, rather a jerk.

The Walter Matthau career fascinates me. As a character man in the early sixties,, he almost stole "Lonely Are the Brave," "Charade," and "Mirage" from the stars. Everybody expected to him to remain a top CHARACTER actor, but he set his sights on stardom, and pulled it off with "The Fortune Cookie". Matthau's star career wasn't the Clint Eastwood career by any stretch, but for about 14 years ('66 to '80) it was a solid star career. He was NOT a B actor; he was the first choice for A-film entertainments.

Two things helped Matthau become a star. (1) He was very tall. Without his height advantage to dominate scenes and other actors, he might have gone the way of, say, Martin Balsam. (2) He was, with the right hair style (fluffy and longish as befit the 60's/70's) a relatively handsome man even with that big nose and hangdog face. He jokingly called himself "the Ukranian Cary Grant," and he actually pulled that off (winning Ingrid Bergman herself in "Cactus Flower"), thanks to his timing, his presence, his height and his OK looks. Matthau also had some starry forbears like Wallace Beery and WC Fields before him: character-star wiseacres.

"Charley Varrick" is one of those movies where I can't picture another star in the role. Certainly not Eastwood. A tough guy like Lee Marvin wouldn't have been quite right, either. Charley needed to be an older guy (with the wife and the past as a crop-duster/sky show pilot), so younger guys like George Segal or Elliott Gould wouldn't have fit. George C. Scott would have been too intense. Matthau was just right.

P.S. My enthusiasm for Matthau unfortunately wanes in the 80's, when his face finally got too old and wrinkled to enjoy on screen, and his manner became forced. I'm glad he got "Grumpy Old Men" for some comeback success in his older age, but the "Charley Varrick" era was his best time as a star. Also the comedies: "The Odd Couple," "A New Leaf," "Bad News Bears" -- he was fine in all of them, and evidently ranked high in a poll of "actors most loved by women" along with Paul Newman and Robert Redford!

[–] joekiddlouischama 19 years ago

Of note, Leonard wrote Mr. Majestyk with Eastwood in mind.

Here's what I've written elsewhere:

Actually, Elmore Leonard, who had penned the Eastwood Western Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972), wrote the Bronson vehicle Mr. Majestyk (Richard Fleisher, 1974) with Eastwood in mind. According to an interview with Leonard in Film Comment a few years ago, Eastwood told the writer that Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) was making a ton of money (in late 1971 and early 1972), and he wanted something broadly similar, featuring a loner with a gun who speaks cryptically. As a result, Leonard wrote Mr. Majestyk, but by that time, Eastwood had moved on to his own High Plains Drifter, and the script eventually fell to Bronson. Whether Eastwood decided that he didn't like the idea of playing a Vietnam veteran/watermelon farmer, or he didn't care for the script, or he just became too wrapped up in other films, I'm not sure. The second half of 1972 and 1973 marked a busy time for Eastwood, as he starred in and directed High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973), directed Breezy (Eastwood, 1973), starred in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973), and starred in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974). Amid all the other projects on his docket, perhaps he lost interest in Mr. Majestyk and let it go to Bronson instead.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/board/thread/37072629?d=39272364#39272364

[–] ecarle 19 years ago

Interesting. Well, I guess Eastwood was in top demand at the time, and he HAD done "Joe Kidd" from an Elmore Leonard novel recently, to middlng results (I like the movie, I like Eastwood's character, it just seems to meander. I believe even Eastwood said he favored the improvised train crash at the end, "...just to end the thing.")

I suppose Charles Bronson should have thanked Clint a bit for his career. Did not Bronson also take "Once Upon A Time In the West" when Clint turned it down?

Charles Bronson was not without some star quality, and, like Eastwood, he was one of the first American actors to score as an INTERNATIONAL star. Still, it always felt like Bronson's movies were a cut below the Eastwood product.

Eastwood made tight little movies but for a big studio: Warner Brothers, which could give Eastwood whatever budgetary, technical and marketing support he needed. Bronson tended to land in grittier movies on lower budgets. He had a very brief window of opportunity with top stuff -- "Mr. Majestyk," "The Mechanic," "Breakout" (very entertaining, that one), and his signature hit "Death Wish." Bronson even made one with Eastwood's usual director Don Siegel (the so-so "Telefon.")

But eventually, Bronson faded in terms of commanding top action roles, as he ended up cashing in on "Cannon movies" -- very low-budget actioners, all through the 80's, to diminishing returns.

[–] joekiddlouischama 19 years ago

Interesting. Well, I guess Eastwood was in top demand at the time, and he HAD done "Joe Kidd" from an Elmore Leonard novel recently, to middlng results (I like the movie, I like Eastwood's character, it just seems to meander. I believe even Eastwood said he favored the improvised train crash at the end, "...just to end the thing.")

Whenever I've watched Joe Kidd, I have invariably thought to myself afterwards that it was a solid, satisfying Western all across the board. However, it's also one that doesn't stick in one's memory with much power, and I'm not sure why, except that not every film can be memorable. There has been talk that the aging director John Sturges was drinking heavily at the time, but apparently he and Eastwood enjoyed a solid working relationship.

On a somewhat similar note, I initially felt that Blood Work (Eastwood, 2002) was a better film than Space Cowboys (Eastwood, 2000), but over the last few years, it's the latter that's proven more memorable. I prefer True Crime (Eastwood, 1999) to both films, but that's another discussion.

Also of note, in that Film Comment interview, Leonard basically said that Eastwood was the easiest guy to work with.

I suppose Charles Bronson should have thanked Clint a bit for his career. Did not Bronson also take "Once Upon A Time In the West" when Clint turned it down?

Yes. Eastwood was still interested in working with Leone, but not in another Western, because he was wary of being typecast in Italian Westerns, he was tired of playing an abstract, mysterious drifter for Leone, and most of all, he could see that as Leone's visions were expanding, Eastwood's role in them was contracting. In that regard, he had seen the writing on the wall in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966), where Eastwood found his part relatively diminished, although he remained the "hero." But no longer was Eastwood the center of attention, as he had been in A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964).

Initially, I resisted the shuffling Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968), but eventually his stoic poignancy grew on me. Henry Fonda and Jason Robards, Jr. offer similarly moving and vividly iconic performances.

He had a very brief window of opportunity with top stuff -- "Mr. Majestyk," "The Mechanic," "Breakout" (very entertaining, that one), and his signature hit "Death Wish." Bronson even made one with Eastwood's usual director Don Siegel (the so-so "Telefon.")

Telefon (Siegel, 1977) has never worked for me. I guess that it's too mechanical, flat, and detached, lacking Siegel's usual energy and intensity. But Siegel, re-teaming with Eastwood for the first time in over seven years, bounced back masterfully with Escape from Alcatraz in 1979, a classic of the prison genre that is objective without being detached.

Speaking of Bronson, have you seen From Noon Till Three (Frank D. Gilroy, 1976)? Here's what I wrote about it in an e-mail to an acquaintance dated September 20, 2003, shortly after Bronson's passing:

Also, are you familiar with the Bronson Western "From Noon Till Three?" I recently saw it and found it quite graceful and intelligent, with Bronson succeeding in the unexpected context of light, droll satire and romantic comedy. Although the ending is a letdown and averts the logical conclusion of the film's comic madness, it's a sly meditation on the phenomenon of mythmaking commercialism and the paralysis of mythic celebrity. In short, it's an unexpected treat.

It was surprising to see Bronson so effective in a comedic role, but he'd usually projected a sense of droll, dry humor.

[–] ecarle 19 years ago

Telefon (Siegel, 1977) has never worked for me. I guess that it's too mechanical, flat, and detached, lacking Siegel's usual energy and intensity. But Siegel, re-teaming with Eastwood for the first time in over seven years, bounced back masterfully with Escape from Alcatraz in 1979, a classic of the prison genre that is objective without being detached.

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After hitting it big with "Dirty Harry," Don Siegel's career became a decided case of "hit and miss."

The "hits" -- and I mean in quality, if not always box office -- were "Charley Varrick," "The Shootist" and "Escape from Alcatraz."

The misses were "The Black Windmill" (with Michael Caine), "Telefon" and "Rough Cut" (a "To Catch a Thief" homage with Burt Reynolds.) Siegel's final film, with Bette Midler, was a disaster rightfully called "Jinxed" (Midler so hated Siegel on that movie that she had an actor PLAY Siegel -- complete with trademark floppy director's hate -- in "Beaches," and beat the character up.)

It would seem that Siegel was more comfortable working American turf - crime and Westerns -- and less so working in Europe ("The Black Windmill" "Rough Cut" ) and in the spy genre ("Telefon.") MGM wasn't a terribly solid company when Siegel made "Telefon" there (the effects scenes in the film are pretty cheap), and Bronson wasn't a terribly cooperative star. "Telefon'"s sole "touch of Siegel," I feel, comes at the very end, with a showdown involving a rattlesnake in a small bar. Tense, funny, exciting, quick and over. Tres Siegel.

It's funny. I like Don Siegel very much, even if his work seems about 50/50 in terms of success. I guess that great 50% makes up for the lesser 50%. And even the lesser Siegelfilms at least have some good action and charismatic male stars (Burt Reynolds is suave and commanding in "Rough Cut," the story fails him).

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Speaking of Bronson, have you seen From Noon Till Three (Frank D. Gilroy, 1976)? Here's what I wrote about it in an e-mail to an acquaintance dated September 20, 2003, shortly after Bronson's passing:

Also, are you familiar with the Bronson Western "From Noon Till Three?" I recently saw it and found it quite graceful and intelligent, with Bronson succeeding in the unexpected context of light, droll satire and romantic comedy. Although the ending is a letdown and averts the logical conclusion of the film's comic madness, it's a sly meditation on the phenomenon of mythmaking commercialism and the paralysis of mythic celebrity. In short, it's an unexpected treat.

It was surprising to see Bronson so effective in a comedic role, but he'd usually projected a sense of droll, dry humor.

--

A great little movie. It went almost straight to cable, but was a "word of mouth" favorite in the 70's. Bronson was funny and had a nicely romantic encounter with his real-life wife, Jill Ireland.

"Breakout" (1975) was also well-regarded. A pulpy little "mini-Casablanca" (pilot Bronson helps Jill Ireland bust her framed-hubby Robert Duvall out of a Mexican prison), the movie gave Bronson ample opportunity to loosen up and give a funny performance.

One more interesting Bronson film was "Hard Times" (also 1975), in which Bronson stripped down to show off his extremely muscular body as a bare-knuckle boxer in the Depression. Nobody had a body like Bronson, and the stoic role fit him like a glove (though he wasn't too funny in this one). I can't believe this movie didn't influence Clint Eastwood to do the funnier but equally brutal bare-knuckle-boxing movie "Every Which Way But Loose." As someone pointed out, the somewhat aged looking Bronson actully seemed at risk of getting beaten up by his younger, bigger opponents in "Hard Times," which added suspense to the fights and triumph when he won them.

[–] joekiddlouischama 19 years ago

"Telefon'"s sole "touch of Siegel," I feel, comes at the very end, with a showdown involving a rattlesnake in a small bar. Tense, funny, exciting, quick and over. Tres Siegel.

Yes, I'd forgotten about that. That scene is colorful, quirky, and exciting, with Siegel back on more comfortable turf. It's surely Telefon's best scene.

Somewhat ironically, Eastwood, like Siegel, also ran into trouble when he directed a cold espionage film partly set in the Soviet Union (Firefox, 1982). I'll take Firefox over Telefon because Eastwood's film features more at stake in terms of character (he plays a fragile, guilt-ridden Vietnam veteran struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and prone to suffering flashbacks at the most inopportune times), and because Eastwood effectively creates a creepy, claustrophobic Soviet spy world, not too far from the decrepit universe of Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). I also feel that Firefox is more impressive visually than Telefon. Still, Eastwood, as a director, doesn't seem comfortable with the material (shadowy espionage and special effects), and his usual sense of pacing, rhythm, and script management is off the mark. Indeed, the same is true of Siegel in Telefon. Eastwood did have some experience in the espionage genre with The Eiger Sanction (Eastwood, 1975), but that one was more of a liberated, outdoor film with a heavy Western flavor (in fact, much of the film is set in and around Monument Valley). Eastwood, like Siegel in Telefon, was treading into "foreign" territory with Firefox, and the discomfort is evident.

[–] chandler-47 19 years ago

"The misses were "The Black Windmill" (with Michael Caine), "Telefon""

"Telefon" is a very uninteresting movie to me, but "The Black Windmill" was a solid movie with good tension. A bit outdated now like all spy movies of that time.

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"They don't give you the leads, they don't give you the support, they don't give you dick." (Dave Moss)

[–] chandler-47 19 years ago

"Charles Bronson was not without some star quality, and, like Eastwood, he was one of the first American actors to score as an INTERNATIONAL star. Still, it always felt like Bronson's movies were a cut below the Eastwood product."

Here's an European point of view.
I think Bronson was a bigger star in Europe than Eastwood. That's because Eastwood played in a lot of "Spaghetti-style" western that were not rated high in Europe though they were european products. In the early seventies the critics began to see the American western movies by John Ford as artistic products with some existentiell impact (a point of view that I didn't share much). Eastwood never got rid of this spaghetti image. It changed since he began to direct movies himself. An exception is Siegel's movie The Beguiled, perhaps Eastwood's best movie that time.

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"They don't give you the leads, they don't give you the support, they don't give you dick." (Dave Moss)

[–] Doc-McCoy 19 years ago

"Charley Varrick" is one of those movies where I can't picture another star in the role. Certainly not Eastwood. A tough guy like Lee Marvin wouldn't have been quite right, either. Charley needed to be an older guy (with the wife and the past as a crop-duster/sky show pilot), so younger guys like George Segal or Elliott Gould wouldn't have fit. George C. Scott would have been too intense. Matthau was just right."

I agree - I can't see anyone other than Matthau in the role of Charlie Varrick. As good as those other actors were, such as Scott, Eastwood or Marvin, Matthau's range, especially in comedic scenes, is perfect. There were also many sides to that character - he could be tough (or not), he had a sense of humor, and proved to be very intelligent.

Matthau also had an everyman quality which I think was the secret of his success for his entire career - he once said people liked him because when moviegoers saw him they thought "maybe he (Matthau) once served in the Army with me or something".

[–] ecarle 18 years ago

bump.

what the hell.

[–] 18 years ago

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