“Charley Varrick” The spirit of Last of the Independents is overflowing *Note! Contains spoilers.

Homage to “North by Northwest”

Every time I watch this movie again, I am impressed by its lean and tight storytelling. The opening scene shows a rural town in New Mexico at dawn. Idyllic scenes such as saddled horses and watering are inserted. And a yellow Lincoln Continental parked in front of the bank. When it is revealed that they are a group of robbers, the movie takes on a disturbing tone. The contrast with the peaceful shot at the beginning is stunning.

Then, just as Charlie raises his gun in the bank, the camera pans sideways at breakneck speed to show his two masked friends. If you think about it calmly, it's pretty unreasonable for these robbers to break into a bank so easily, but they never explain when or where they got in. Rather than displaying such boring manners, he would rather ignore realism and fascinate the audience with a mellow production.

Of course, I won't take the easy way of explaining the story with dialogue. The situation is not told by the characters, but by the images. Who Charlie and his friends are, why they started robbing banks, etc., etc., are completely ignored. Even when his beloved wife dies, he has no time to be sentimental. The story progresses like a delicate clock. It can be said that it is a very intelligent script.

“Charley Varrick”(c)Photofest / Getty Images

However, Charley Varrick.' Appears in '. The climax is a propeller plane and a car chase. What on earth is this? It now feels like a mixed martial arts battle. Rather than making my hands sweat, my eyes are glued to the interesting ``paintings''. Even in the most silly scenes, Don Siegel provides the perfect service. It's the best.

By the way, I wonder if this is an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's `` North by Northwest '' (59)? I'm delusional. This is the famous scene where a light aircraft that was spraying pesticides suddenly chases the protagonist around. In public, Charlie is a contractor who sprays pesticides by airplane. Moreover, just before the car chase, he had this conversation with a beautiful woman he had bedded with.

"There's still south-southwest left."

"Would you like to go to bed after you're done?"

"Yeah."

"South-southwest? Maybe this way?"

Pillow talk that although they enjoyed love affairs in all directions, only the south-southwest direction remained. Isn't this line completely conscious of "north-northwest"?

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