Charley Varrick [DVD]

Previously available on a crummy full screen DVD.KL delivers on this one: TONS of extras - please see below.Inexplicably rated PG - the violence and thematic turf portrayed here would earn an "R" nowadays. Keeps pace with other Don Siegel classics. Features supporting players (and Siegel regulars) such as Andy Robinson (Scorpio in Dirty Harry), John Vernon (Dirty Harry, Animal House, Point Blank), Norman Fell (The Killers) Woodrow Parfrey (Dirty Harry) and Sheree North (past her starlet prime, now metamorphosed into an eminently watchable character actress).Especially good are Jacqueline Scott and tall and imposing - before he got chubby - Joe Don Baker (truly sleazy and menacing). Scott plays the lady in the car, Varrick’s aerial-stunting wife, who secretly takes a bullet through the car door and hangs on long enough to wheel the getaway vehicle out of range, and who, in an indescribably subtle, essentially wordless scene, makes and ratifies a contract for her husband to desert her. Baker, cast as a Stetsoned, suit-wearing gunman at the Organization’s beck and call, confirms his standing as one of the most dangerously dynamic young character actors from the 70s; the monumental violence of the man, so disturbingly out of directorial control in his Walking Tall Savior-with-a-big-stick role, is here mesmerizingly contained by both director and actor, whose most lethal gesture is to smile. Surely this was an inspiration for Woody Harrelson's character in The Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men.Moment by moment, Charley Varrick is amazing, from its breathtaking action montages to one of the most effectively sustained takes in filmdom: a Mafia junior exec (Vernon) sitting on a rail fence and slipping the bureaucratic shaft to bank manager Woodrow Parfrey (Dirty Harry, Planet of the Apes) while cattle low in the distance and a slant of afternoon sun dies along a verdant slope. And there’s this one scene - Charley Varrick contemplating Felicia Farr’s circular bed (in a rare moment of levity)—that is just…. put it this way: Varrick asks her how she sleeps—north to south? east to west?—and she says, “What’d you have in mind?” and he says, “What I had in mind was boxing the compass.” After (re) watching, I had about four different notions of what he meant, and they all coexisted pretty well. I didn’t know for sure, but coming out of Walter Matthau in a Don Siegel movie...well, oddly poetic. Then again, it's been said that Matthau is funny when he walks across a room. (I agree.)Great outdoor photography juxtaposed with claustrophobic interiors: a trailer home, a small town bank, Chinese restaurant, a bordello, a gun shop, etc. It's worth noting that all seemingly "legitimate" businesses are fronts for Organized Crime.A great companion to the urban crime thriller, The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3. and The Laughing Policeman - two other Walter Matthau crime thrillers.(You can also toss in the vastly underrated Hopscotch - on Criterion. A comic CIA/ spy thriller with Matthau, Ned Beatty, Glenda Jackson and Sam Watterson - based on the Brian Garfield (Death Wish) for good measure. But I digress...)Video:Subtitled in English. I'm thankful that this is seemingly standard for KL lately. Inexplicably, subs were the exception, not the rule.Kino brings Charley Varrick to Blu-ray by way of a new 4k scan of the original negative framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition on a 50GB disc. The picture quality here is excellent, rich in detail and texture and nicely cleaned up, retaining the expected film grain but showing no print damage at all. Skin tones look nice and natural and colors are very well reproduced. Black levels are also very good and there are no noticeable issues with compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction problems.The Audio:The English language 16-bit DTS-HD Mono track on the disc is clean and nicely balanced. Lalo Schifrin's score sounds quite good here and the dialogue is always easy to understand and to follow. The levels are nicely balanced and there are no problems with any hiss, distortion or sibilance.The Extras:Extras start off with an audio commentary by film historian Toby Roan who speaks about how and why it's one of his favorite movies while also offering up plenty of info about the picture. He starts off by talking about the Nevada locations used in the film and what it was like on set, how camera test footage wound up being used in the opening credits, how Matthau's son Charles shows up in the film (in some scenes that were directed by Matthau rather than Siegel), the tenderness of the final scene between Charley and Nadine, biographical details and other credits for pretty much every member of the cast and crew, Siegel's own cameo in the film, the details of some of the vehicles that are used in the film, the uniqueness of the way some scenes are staged (think Vernon at the playground), the precision of the film's pacing and editing, the influence of film noir on the picture and quite a bit more. It's a good track, there's a bit of dead air here and there but Roan knows his stuff and is conversational, insightful - lots of trvia, too. Worth listening to.The disc also contains Refracted Personae: Iconography And Abstraction In Don Siegel's American Purgatory which is a look at Don Siegel's directorial style and the themes explored in Charley Varrick that comes courtesy of film historian Howard S. Berger which runs thirty-five-minutes in length. He traces Siegel's work at a low level for Warner Brothers as he climbed the ladder doing work here and there, directing his first feature in 1946, the storytelling skills that the director showed even this early in his career, his penchant for low budget (and often times violent) genre material, and how all this came to develop into Varrick's work. From there, we learn about the themes that are evident on the surface as well as some that aren't so obvious unless you start to dig a bit. A good example of this is the self-reflection that Berger sees in the film, the dual nature of every character in the film, the use of the American flag and religous iconography in the film and lots more. It's quite interesting - and not pretentious as the featurette's title might lead you to believe.Also featured is the seventy-two-minute doc The Last Of The Independents: The Making Of Charley Varrick documentary that is made up of interviews with Kristoffer Tabori (Don Siegel's son), cast members Andy Robinson and Jacqueline Scott, stunt driver and actor Craig R. Baxley, composer Lalo Schifrin and Howard A. Rodman (screenwriter of the TC classic, Savage Grace and the son of Varrick's screenwriter). Titled after Siegel's originally intended title for the film, this is an excellent look back at the making of the picture that also includes plenty of insight into where Siegel's career was at this point, how his style evolved over the years and some of the themes that it explores. They also cover Matthau's involvement in the picture and what he was able to bring to the production (not all positive!) as well as scoring the picture, what it was like on set, taking direction from Siegel on this feature and quite a bit more.The disc wraps up with trailers and TV spots, as well as the Trailers From Hell episode featuring Josh Olson (Cronenberg's A History of Violence) and Howard Redman (Savage Grace), a few KL trailers (The Taking Of Pelham 123, The Laughing Policeman, Madigan, The Black Windmill), menus and chapter selection.Included inside the case along with the disc is a full-color limited edition booklet containing an essay on the film by film critic Nick Pinkerton entitled Charley Varrick: The Last Of The Independents as well as cast and crew information.Great bluray!