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Charley Varrick Gets a "Blu-Ray Package" with Some Interesting Extras

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
6 replies | jump to latest

For a few years now, my DVD copy of "Charley Varrick" has been one of those "no frills jobs." The movie. One trailer. Chapter stops, That's it.

But I have been given a "new"(coupla years old) Blu-Ray DVD that finally gives his fine little movie the "package treatment." The extras are of personal interest to me, and might be to some of you.

The first extra is simply one of those "Making Of" Documentaries that all new releases get,and certain old releases get. Its no great shakes but at least now Charley Varrick HAS one.

Two surviving actors are interviewed: Andy Robinson(Varrick's dangerous bank robbery sidekick, "Harman") and Jaqueline Scott(Charley's wife who kills and wounds cops and is killed in return int he opening bank robbery.) I believe Ms. Scott has passed away since this was filmed.

As interesting(if not more interesting) : An aged Lalo Schifrin talks the music of the film. Lalo was quite the music man in his day. Mission Impossible and Mannix on TV. Bullitt at the movies. Then Siegel's Dirty Harry(a BIG hit) at the movies. Then Siegel's Charley Varrick(NOT a hit) at the movies. Schrifrin here digs in not only on Charley Varrick but on Dirty Harry.

And something different but heartwarming: Don Siegel's son -- named Kristoffer Tabori -- talks about his father, his father's movies and Charley Varrick in particular.

In his youth (60's/70's) Tabori was cute enough to do a lot of TV and a few movies. His face back than AND now rather reminds me of Robert Downey Jr.; conceivably , he COULD have been a star. But as with a number of "show biz kids" in Hollywood, perhaps Tabori's real career now is to honor his more famous parent. As he describes Charley Varrick with real interest and enthusiasm, he's pretty much "just another guy with an opinion" on the movie, but as son to a famous father, his opinion counts just a bit more.

Indeed, we learn in juxtaposed interview clips that Kristoffer Tabori got Andy Robinson his famous part as the psychopath Scorpio in Dirty Harry. The story: director Don Siegel asked his son -- he worked on the New York Stage, more off Broadway than on -- "Who is the best New York stage actor right now?" And Tabori answered "Andy Robinson." Siegel couldn't make it out to see Robinson on stage in NYC ...but Clint Eastwood could. And Robinson was hired. (Scorpio was at one time pitched for WWII gun hero Audie Murphy, but he died; then Rip Torn was sought; Robinson got it.)

Siegel worried that he had hurt Robinson's career by giving him the Scorpio role(but Robinson played it so well, who was really to blame.) To make up a little, Siegel gave Robinson his very next role in a "Siegel film" Harman. Which was funny. Unlike Scorpio, Harman seemed like a fairly normal guy. Except he was a criminal with a background killing the Cong in Viet Nam, and he was the worst "partner" a cool criminal like Walter Matthau's Charley Varrick could end up with (the other two partners, including Varrick's wife, die in the opening bank robbery.)

Robinson and Tabori, in the main, guide us through Charley Varrick, with Jacqueline Scott(a very old woman when her interview was filmed) gives us some grace notes about her early scenes and early death in Varrick. I liked this: on screen, Scott dies in the front seat of the parked getaway car and Matthau gently kisses her corpse goodbye. Scott didn't know that Matthau was going to kiss her and -- she wanted to cry. She relates: "I wanted to cry, but I was supposed to be dead." ACTING.

Tabori gets to review his famous father's hard-boiled career, which I will relate here by reminding folks that these tough guy actors all worked with Siegel: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Lee Marvin, Richard Widmark, Clint Eastwood(five films), Michael Caine, Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, John Wayne. AND Walter Matthau(tough in Varrick.) AND Ronald Reagan(playing a crime boss and only villain of his career in his final film of his movie career.) Plus making Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Riot in Cell Block 11. Helluva career.

---

The DVD "extras" give us trailers for Charley Varrick plus two other Siegels: "Madigan" (1968) an OK late entry for Widmark (as a cop) and Fonda(as the police commissioner) and "The Black Windmill" which followed Dirty Harry and Charley Varrick and somehow didn't play well at all, despite Michael "Get Carter" Caine in the lead.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The DVD "extras" also illustrate how Charley Varrick launched a great "one-two-three" thriller trilogy for funny guy Walter Matthau, at his own instigating. In order, the movies are Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, and The Taking of Pelham 123,(we see all three trailers) and the first and last are small classics. Alas, none of them were hits, and Matthau went back to Neil Simon(The Sunshine Boys) and The Bad News Bears.

The WEIRDEST extra is a "video essay" by some sort of scholar-philosopher on Charley Varrick, done in the hushed, silence-spaced tones of a professor's lecture with the lights off. Its one of those "deep think" pieces that ranges from ridiculous (there are pictures of butterflies on the wall of pretty mob secretary Miss Fort -- and she is a butterfly breaking free, says this guy.
Huh?) to rather thoughtful(when bad guy enforcer Joe Don Baker arrives to reposess a guy's car there is a close-8p of a cross on the front lawn -- perhaps a pet was buried there? -- and Baker's "Molly" walks right over it, but "Honest John"( an Asian Mafia man) won't walk past it. Never noticed that close-up before, never thought about the meaning.

One angle starts OK and goes "cuckoo." It is noteable that Varrick's getaway driver wife Nadine NEVER leaves the front seat of the car for all of her short performance. She is in the car with Varrick to "set up" the robbery with a story for the cop; while Charley is in the bank with his gang, Nadine KILLS the cop and wounds another, being wounded fatally in return; then Nadine drives the getaway car until her wounds are too wounding and Varrick switches to the driver's seat; and then Nadine dies in the parked car. So, fair enough -- Nadine lives, plots, kills and dies in this car. But the philosopher goes an extra mile: "Nadine IS the car." Huh?

This philosopher also posits the final death poses of Harman and Molly as "Christ like" (fair enough) but also says that the LIVE Matthau under his flipped biplane is in a Christ pose, too. Meanwhile, the philosopher has a ready-made line from the movie to accompany this analysis: the local sheriff(William Schallert) saying "When I catch these people, I am going to nail them to the CROSS!: Hmm. Maybe.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I like how Kristoffer Tabori, in his interview, notes that all the supporting performances in Charley Varrick are great, but that the BEST is...Sheree North, as the slightly aged sexpot in hot pants who makes fake passports at her photography studio. Hey...I think maybe he's RIGHT. Tabori remarks on her curt manner, her pride in her professionalism, her sensuality -- I would personally add how she licks her lips when Varrick pulls out bills to pay her.

The Charley Varrick Blu-Ray package(which also includes a long review in booklet form) is indeed what this movie always needed. I particularly liked the three "Matthau 70's thrillers" trailers back to back. Those were GOOD movies, and Matthau was good in them(I think it was Patton Oswalt who noted that only in the 70s could Matthau be an action star.)

Its a very practical package -- and that weird "Deep Think art film analysis" of the film is perhaps a great addition to. It is there to make the case that Charley Varrick is a greater film even than we thought it was.

Even as -- several people note -- a total box office flop at the time.

Its a cult sleeper classic now.

[–] yatzo376 (7717) 4 years ago

Damn!
I have the CV Blu-ray but my player won’t play that region!
I’m actually considering on buying an all region player just so I can watch it!
I did rent it on Amazon last night and it looked incredible! No extras though

[–] Satan2016 (25525) 4 years ago

Try https://www.directutor.com/content/how-remove-region-codes-dvd-or-blu-ray-players

[–] johnmarti59 (2356) 4 years ago

I'm not reading all of that. Just kidding.

[–] TimMC (9143) 3 years ago

Just watched this on TUBI so I didn't get the extras.

Thanks for posting.