Sunday, December 07, 1997

Charley Varrick

081990 / 16 cut / US / 1973 / Siegel, Don / / thriller

Charley Varrick / Tappakaa Charley Varrick! PC: Universal. EX: Jennings Lang. P+D: Don Siegel. SC: Howard Rodman, Dean Riesner - based on the novel by John Reese. DP: Michael Butler. M: Lalo Schifrin. CAST: Walter Matthau (Charley Varrick), Jacqueline Scott (Nadine Varrick), Andrew Robinson (Harman Sullivan), Felicia Farr (Sybil Fort), Sheree North (Jewell Everett), John Vernon (Maynard Boyle), Joe Don Baker (Molly). PAL TV transmission 5 December 1997 MTV3: 106’13” /25 fps/ = 110’39” /24 fps/. Cut: the scene where Molly tortures and slaughters Harman Sullivan (same scene was cut in the Finnish cinema release version). Cropped from 2,35 Panavision to 1,35 Academy. Finnish subtitles by Sirpa Glantz. Viewed on video Saturday, 6 December 1997. ***½ The screenplay is excellent. The dynamics between the bucolic scenes and the crisp bursts of action is perfect. They don’t make action films like this anymore. Almost everything in the 1990s is nervous and hysterical with the exception of Clint Eastwood who has not changed since his apprenticeship with… Don Siegel. Here the total sense of control is to be relished. Small things stand out. ”Nadine was a hell of a driver”. ”I never thought I’d be willing to trade places with a cow”. The complaint: Siegel’s customary nihilism. All betray. Trust nobody. So then: why care?

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