Charley Varrick (1973) on Netflix
Charley Varrick, a crop-duster who once flew stunts, robs a small-town New Mexico bank with his wife, Nadine, and two accomplices. The money they carry off belongs to the mob.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.5/1016,119 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
In rural New Mexico, Charley Varrick earns a living spraying crops and is down on his luck. With his wife Nadine and two other men, Al and Harman, he holds up a small-town bank. The robbery brings in much more than the crew expected, and it costs the lives of Al and Nadine. Counting the money at a trailer park, Charley and Harman find over three-quarters of a million dollars. A television newscast reports that the bank lost under two thousand, and Charley reads the low figure as a sign that the branch was handling Mafia money. He swaps his dental x-rays with Harman's and arranges new passports through a photographer. In Reno, a gangland associate named Boyle hires a contract killer called Molly to get the cash back.
Cast
- Rudy Diazas Deputy Sanchez
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Charley Varrick (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The part of Charley Varrick was written for Clint Eastwood, who accepted and then backed out, reportedly because he thought the character had no redeeming features. The finished film winks at it: meeting the hit man, Jewell says she didn't figure him for Clint Eastwood.
- Don Siegel blamed his own star for the film's poor takings: Walter Matthau said publicly that he neither liked the picture nor understood it, and sent Siegel a note saying he had seen it three times, had an IQ of 120, and still did not quite understand what was going on.
- Varrick's crop-duster was a converted Boeing PT-17 Stearman Kaydet, registration N53039, flown for the film by Hollywood aerial pilot Frank Tallman and borrowed from a Californian spraying business. On 31 December 1976 the same aircraft caught an electric wire with its wing while dusting crops at Oakdale, California, and crashed, killing its pilot.
- Although the story is set in New Mexico, Don Siegel shot it in two tiny Nevada towns, Dayton and Genoa, which both claim to be the oldest town in the state. The bank robbery exteriors used the old Douglas County court house in Genoa.
- Varrick's company motto 'Last of the Independents', worn on the crew's jumpsuits and painted on his truck, gave Rory Gallagher the idea for his 1978 song of the same name, according to the guitarist's long-time bassist Gerry McAvoy.
