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DER GROSSE COUP(Charley Varrick)
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ANALYSE |
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DER GROSSE COUP(Charley Varrick)
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ANALYSE |
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 Geschichte eines mißglückten Bankraubs und anschließender Flucht. Charley und sein Partner Harman geraten in Komplikationen, als sich herausstellt, daß das geraubte Geld der Mafia gehört. Diese ist nun ebenso wie die Polizei hinter den beiden her. |
| Walter Matthau
Joe Don Baker Felicia Farr Andrew Robinson John Vernon Sheree North Rudy Diaz Al Dunlap Marjorie Bennett Norman Fell Benson Fong Priscilla Garcia Scott Hale Christina Hart Monica Lewis Charles Matthau Craig Baxley Jim Nolan Colby Chester Kathleen O'Malley Woodrow Parfrey Albert Popwell William Schallert Jacqueline Scott Don Siegel Hope Summers Tom Tully Charlie Briggs Virginia Wing |
- Charley Varrick
- Molly - Sybil Fort - Harman Sullivan - Maynard Boyle - Jewell Everett - Rudy Sanchez - Taxifahrer - Mrs. Tall - Mr. Garfinkle - Honest John - Miss Ambar - Mr. Scott - Jana - Beverly - Boy - Van Sickle - Ladenangestellter - Steele - Jessie - Howard Young - Randolph Percy - Sheriff Bill Horton - Nadine Varrick - Murph - Miss Vesta - Tom - Highway Deputy - Chinese Hostess |
Don Siegel
Jennings Lang Dean Riesner Howard Rodman Michael C. Butler Frank Morriss Fernando Carrere Helen Colvig Joe Cavalier Robert L. Hoyt John K. Kean Waldon O. Watson
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- Regie/Produzent
- Produzent - Drehbuch - Drehbuch - Kamera - Musik/Komponist - Schnitt - Art Director - Kostüme - Asst. Director - Sound/Sound Designer - Sound/Sound Designer - Sound/Sound Designer |
| Drehbuch: I worked differently with
the second writer, Dean Riesner (...) I would show eych location to Dean
and he would write the script, now entitled 'Last of the Independents'.ME:
After you've finished writing the first sequence, we'll go over the second
sequence. While you're writing that, I'll write down my suggestions on the
first sequence. After rewriting the first sequence, you'll now have a third
draft, instead of a first draft. We'll work this way throughout the picture.
(...) Erklärungen: Walter Matthau was set to star and he was the only person I knew who did not like the script. (...) The tape is muc too long to include here, but selections from it will give an idea of what a director is up against:'The two cops, Sanchez and Steele, may be superfluous. I don't believe them in the first place. I don't believe that Nadine would have a car running in front of a bank and Charley, with a cast on his foot, would go in and cash a cheque. I believe that the woman would naturally go in and cash a cheque if her husband had broken his ankle. (...) I think that there should be a devide which explains what is happening. Since I have read it three times, and am of slightly better than average intelligence - 120 IQ - I still don't quite understand what's going on. (...); so why don't we explain it? (...) For example, you show at the beginning of the picture a man telling this story to a story editor in a motion-picture company (...). Or you could have Charley on a psychiatrist's couch in Argentina (...) so that before each of the things happen, they are explained: his motives are explained, his reasons are explained, the thing's he's going to do are explained. (...) The above small portion of Walter's recorded notes is typical. Walter wants to see the banana before he slips on it I don't want everything explained and then see it. I want to see the banana after I slip on it. Opening Titles, die Familie: We shot at dawn, starting with Walter's twelve-year-old son, Charles Matthau. He tried to put a saddle on an uncooperative burro. It was a draw. Kit, my younger daughter, aged seven and a half, ran through sprinkler heads as they were suddnely turned on. Anne, my elder daughter, aged thirteen, pushed a lawnmower with surprising strength. nowell, my elder son, fourteen and a half, lurked in a wagon, whistling at passing girls(...) Schwierigste Szene: The car comes up past a farm with silos and barns. Young veers off the blacktop on to the shoulder, past a fenced pasture with a herd of Holsteins grazing. he stops. The two men get out. it is late afternoon. The two car doors slamming has a feeling of openness and echo. They walk away from the car. Young waits for Boyle to speak first. The camera moves with them as they walk alongside the fence. (...) This sequence, shot in its entirety from a Titan boom, is one of the most difficult I've ever attempted. The sun is setting slowly behind us. Throughout the valley, a shadow is crossing, matching the setting sun. I had to time the length of the scene with the time it took for the sun to set. The acotrs had to be letter-perfect. (...) My first effort ended in failure. Isimply ran out of sunlight. The second attempt, late the next afternoon, failed because I startetd shooting too soon. (...) My third try, the third afternoon, proved successful due to luck, the wonderful acting of John Vernon and Woodrow Parfrey and the superb work of Michael Butler and his magnificent crew. Doppeldecker-Verfolgungsjagd: ME: I'd like it to be as exciting as possible. Do as much damage as makes sense, but remember, nobody gets hurt. You are on your own, excepting I don't want to overturn the biplane in this shot. I'll have one wide angle that will hold the Chrysler and the biplane. A second, closer camera will follow the Chrysler wherever it goes. A third camera will follow the biplane close, wherever it goes. I'll have two cameras with close-up lenses that will follow the Chrysler and biplane. On the Chrysler I'll hide an Army Iron .16 camera. I'll do the same with the biplane. The Great Waldo Pepper: I was notified - not asked, but told - that George Roy Hill, an excellent director, was coming out to see me shoot the biplane attached to the gimabl on the large flatbed truck (...). Later, when he made The Great Waldo Pepper, he used the rig that Larry Butler had invented and I had used successfully on Charley Varrick. Hill used it a great deal, as his picture was all about flying. Musik: ME: I'm fully aware that loud sound effects usually don't work with music. Come up with something that will make the sequence excite me. SCHIFRIN: (A long pause) This is a wild idea. I've never tried anything like it before. (...) I have perfect pitch. What if the music that plays for the Chrysler is in the exact pitch of the Crhysler's motor? And what if the music that plays for the biplane is in the exact pitch of the plane's motor? When the care and the plane are together, the music will sound exactly like the two of them (...) When we heard the sequence with the music and sound effects, we loved it. Frank couldn't believe the improvement the music brought. Its energy and intensity made the sequence. Most people who saw the picture were unaware that music was used at all.. Don Siegel: A Siegel Film. S. 376-405 |
| "Charlie Varrick is reminiscent of The
Hanged Man in its dealing with the 'manipulation of reality' and in its
charm and humour. The opening of the film is brilliant: tightly controlled,
inventive, full of surprises and modulating with fine judgement from comedy
into extreme violence and then solowly back into comedy. The middle does
not live up to this, the complications produced by the different strans of
the narrative becoming confusing and breaking the rhythm of the film. The
conception of the hero's character is particularly intersting in relation
to Siegel's other work. Charlie Varrick is both action man and manipulator.
As an action man he is a small-time operator who hedges his bets; as a
manipulator he is a big-time operator who outfoxes the Mafia.
Alan Lovell: Don Siegel. American Cinema. S. 76 |
| "Charley Varrick (...) doesn't even look
good; the color is blah and runny, the compositions are squat
and nor more than functional, and the director, Don Siegel, slogs along
from scene to scene. (...) Liberalism rears a bedraggled, feeble-minded head
in the implicitly illiberal action-film world of Charley Varrick.
(...) (It) is just burtal and tiresome. Even Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the
score, falls down on the job;(...) he just ghrows in noise this time. (...)
Charley Varrick is merely a gimmick picture: the movie cannot explain
what the decent, sagacious Varric - brainy and with the wisdom of the heart,
too - is doing carrying a gun and robbing banks. There's no correlation between
his charming, homely character and his livelihood. (...) In Charley Varrick,
the numerous violent scenes are cloddishly staged; Siegel's victims drool
blood while staring at us. (...) I don't know any reason for going to see
Charley Varrick. (...) Sentimentality and violence are a rotten mixture;
so are childishness and cynicism."
Pauline Kael in: Reeling. Film Writings 1972-1975, S. 205-7 |
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