CHARLEY VARRICK (1973) (Indicator Blu-ray Review)

CHARLEY VARRICK (1973)
Limited Blu-ray Edition (Region B)

Label: Indicator 

Region Code: B

Rating: 18 

Duration: 111 Minutes 

Audio: English LPCM Mono 1.0 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Don Siegel

Cast: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Felicia Farr, Andrew Robinson, Sheree North, John Vernon

Charley Varrick v(1973) was directed by the great Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), it's an action-packed crime thriller that somehow has managed to elude me for forty years! The movie stars the always great Walter Matthau (Grumpy Old Men) as the titular middle-aged bank-robber, a former aerial stuntman turned crop-duster/small time bank robber. The film starts off with Charley and his getaway-car driver wife Nadine (Jacqueline Scott, Empire of the Ants) pulling into the rural bank of sleepytown USA Tres Cruces, New Mexico. Once inside Charley and two men already on the inside pull out the guns and rob the place, in the process the cops are tipped off and one of the two accomplices in the bank are shot dead, the survivor is Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson, Dirty Harry), and the trio get in the car and make a run for it. During the escape Nadine is fatally wounded, and the high-speed race out of town involves several metal twisting car-crashes. In the aftermath Nadine dies from her wounds, leaving Charley and Harman to blow her corpse up in the getaway car in an effort to hide the evidence, they make their way back to their trailer park domicile to count the loot and are very surprised when the haul totals up to over three-quarter of a million dollars, way too much money to have been stashed away in a Podunk bank. 

The somewhat dim and greedy Harman is delighted by the windfall of cash but wiser Varrick is rightfully suspicious of it, believing that they have involved themselves in some dirty mob money, which is later verified when radio reports indicate the crooks got away with less than two grand in cash. Enter the bank president, the mob-connected Maynard Boyle (80's bad-man John Vernon, Curtains), now that he's on the line for the  stolen mob money he calls in mob clean-up guy Molly (Joe Don Baker, Joysticks) to sleuth the identity of the bank robbers and to get that money back where it belongs. Baker is great, he's cool and calm, a practiced torturer and very wily in his own right, charming and prone to violent outbursts, but he's got to contend with the quiet, disarming smarts of Varrick, which we learn will be no easy task.   

Walter Matthau seemed at first an unlikely candidate for the smooth criminal operator for this 70's crime-thriller, but I warmed up to him right away. He first appears onscreen made-up to look older, it was a bit off-putting, but he turns out to be a hard-edged character, not a flashy sort of guy, very even tempered and he wears his emotions close to the vest - he's hard to read, after his wife's sudden and unexpected death he doesn't seem to mourn much at all, but he gets it across that he did love her, but then he beds a stranger without much thought soon after. Sure, Varrick's likable, but that's not to say he's a great guy, he does some truly cold and despicable things throughout the movie, such as setting up his fool partner, but he's clever and makes for the perfect sort of 70's anti-hero for this economical and thrilling caper.  The cat and mouse game he embarks on with hitman Molly is endlessly entertaining, methodically setting up his exit strategy, all the while the movie never full-on explaining what the end-game is, but there are nods and nudges hinting at the plan, I respect the movie for not just hitting you over the head with it.

Audio/Video: Charley Varrick arrives on Blu-ray from the UK's Indicator in a region-B locked Blu-ray presenting the film in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The image is very strong, the source looks clean as cab be without any print damage and only some very minor white speckling. Grain is present and looks natural, colors are nicely saturated and look accurate - this looks wonderful. The sole audio optional is a LPCM Mono 1o with optional English subtitles, the track is clean and crisp, well-balanced, the score from Lalo Schifrin is A generic TV crime drama sounding, but it suits the movie, and I guess it isn't too surprising, at the time he was scoring loads of TV stuff. 

Onto the extras we get a 75-minute making of doc from 2015b produced by Fiction Factory, this features interviews with director Don Siegel’s son, Kristoffer Tabori, Howard A. Rodman, the son of one of the screenwriters, actors Andy Robinson and Jacqueline Scott, stunt driver Craig R. Baxley, and composer Lalo Schifrin. It's a great doc, if you're a fan of the film this one is loaded with great stories about the cast and crew and making of it. Also included are two audio lectures that ca be played like an audio commentary during the movie, the first is with Director Siegel from 1973, the second is with Matthau from 1988. The disc is finished up with a super 8 digest version of the film - I love it when these are included as extras, an image gallery and the theatrical trailer plus a Trailers from Hell trailer commentary from Josh Olson. 

This release also includes a 40-page booklet with a new essay by author and critic Richard Combs, Don Siegel on Charley Varrick, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits - this booklet is limited to the first run of 3000 copies.

Special Features:
- Last of the Independents: Don Siegel and the Making of ‘Charley Varrick’ - 2015 feature-length documentary containing interviews with actors Andy Robinson and Jacqueline Scott, stunt driver Craig R. Baxley and Siegel’s son, Kristoffer Tabori (75 mins)
- The John Player Lecture with Don Siegel: 1973 archival audio recording of an interview conducted by Tony Sloman at London’s National Film Theatre (75 min)
- The Guardian Lecture with Walter Matthau: 1988 archival audio recording of an interview conducted by Tony Sloman at London's National Film Theatre (89 min) 
- Super 8 Version: original 'Universal Eight' cut-down home cinema presentation (18 min) 
- Original theatrical trailer (2 min) 
- Trailers from Hell: Josh Olson and Howard Rodman trailer commentary (6 min)
- Image gallery: on-set and promotional photography
- New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Limited edition exclusive 40-page booklet with a new essay by author and critic Richard Combs, Don Siegel on Charley Varrick, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
- Limited Edition of 3,000 copies

Charley Varrick (1973) is definitely a 'where have you been all my life?' sort of discovery for me, this is an instant top 20 film for me. Indicator give this classic crime thriller a wonderful presentation with some fantastic extras, if you haven't seen it you need to, get on it, this is a sorely under seen gem from the 70's, I have no problem placing it right up there with Chinatown (1974) and Night Moves (1975) - it's that good. 

WOLF (1994) (Indicator Blu-ray Review)

WOLF (1994) 

Label: Powerhouse Films/Indicator Series
Duration: 125 Minutes 
Rating: BBFC cert: 15 
Region Code: Region-Free 
Audio: English LPCM Stereo 2.0. English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Christopher Plummer

Director Mike Nichols’ (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directed this 90's take on the werewolf genre starring Jack Nicholson (Chinatown) as Will Randall, a buttoned-down book editor turned lycanthropic menace is a fun, star-studded  genre mash-up. We have the always magnetic Nicholson starting out as an aging editor, but when he encounter's an injured wolf on a snowy Vermont road in the middle of the night it ends with a bite on his hand under the full moon. Shortly afterward the area around the wound begins to strangely sprout hair, his decrepit vision improves and the old-timer has a renewed zest for life, in addition to a keen sense of smell and hearing. His amplified sense of smell catches one of his fact checkers at the publishing house off guard when he smells vodka on the man's breath and makes comment of it, bewildering the man. 

James Spader (Jack's Back) shows up as Will's sycophant protégé, Stewart Swinton, who secretly plots against his mentor with new boss billionaire Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer, Dreamscape) to usurp Will's position at the publishing house. Along the way Will discovers his wife Charlotte (Kate Nelligan, Dracula) is having a an affair with his younger protege, that little bastard steals not just his job but the guy's wife, that motherfucker. It's a fun little tale of corporate greed and the cutthroat ways of the publishing world, a story that on it's own would have been engaging even  before you add the element of lycanthropy to the mix. As the Nicholson's character begins to wolf-out he gets a new taste for life and makes a play to reclaim his throne at the publishing house, along the way striking up a friendship/relationship with Alden's smoking-hot daughter Michelle Pfeiffer (Into the Night), who at first sees him as just a sympathetic old man but as he begins to seemingly regress in age and become more spry something more develops between them, which irks her billionaire father to the delight of Nicholson's character.

As I have already said, the cutthroat world of NYC publishing and the story of greedy ladder-climbing alone would make this an interesting movie, with Nicholson's character being aided in part by his loyal secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins) and co-worker Roy (David Hyde Pierce of TV's Frasier) who assist him ably and enthusiastically when the worm-turns after his sudden demotion, just the dramatic movie is pretty great and the star-studded cast is a fun watch. plus it's rather funny in a sly sort of way, not a comedy, but legitimately funny, as showcased by a scene of Nicholson pissing on a competitors leg in at the urinal, marking his territory. 

Onto the good stuff, the way the werewolf-ening happens is more downplayed than your average werewolf film, and it's worth noting no one says the word werewolf throughout the whole movie, it's more about being possessed by the spirit of the animal. Thankfully we do get some werewolf transformations courtesy of a man who knows a thing or three about werewolves, make-up effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London), transformations which don't end in full-on hairy werewolves, but instead shaggy-faced men with sharp teeth and animal-eyes and claws. The effect is great, particularly on Nicholson who looks fearsome towards the end. Spader's character also gets in on the transformation but his is not quite up to snuff in my opinion, he has a bit of a pretty-boy face and the wolf-mane just doesn't frame him the same way as Nicholson, but what he lacks in fearsome visage he makes up for in straight-up meanness, stabbing Nicholson with a pitchfork and attempting to rape a frog-legged Pfeiffer. The wolf versus wolf battle at the end wasn't too bad at all, it holds up way better than what we saw with Universal's digital-monstrosity The Wolfman (2010)... now there's a sad story about Rick Baker working on a film that went wrong, through no fault of his own, but that's a different movie, so let's move on.

Watching Wolf this time around I enjoyed it more than I ever have before, when I caught it in the cinema during it's initial release I think the way younger me was looking for a more traditional werewolf flick, like what I grew up with in the 80's,  and this one doesn't quite go there. However, in a lot of ways this is the old familiar story of a man cursed by a bite, but it nicely mixes in a story about 90's greed culture that holds up as do the special effects.     

Audio/Video: Wolf (1994) arrives on Blu-ray from the UK's Indicator framed in 1.85:1 widescreen on a single-disc region-free Blu-ray. I have the Region A Blu-ray from 2009 and couldn't detect an appreciable difference between the transfers aside from noting that skin tones look more natural to me on the Indicator release. The image is sharp and detailed, black levels look great, colors are nicely saturated, and there's some good fine detail to the image, with the Rick Baker make-up effects coming through strong. Audio on the disc includes both English LPCM Stereo 2.0 and English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional English subtitles. The surround option offers up some nice us of the surrounds, it's crisp and well-balanced, perhaps a bit artificial in the mix, but the Ennio Morricone score sounds wonderful, but I preferred the stereo mix on this one. 

Onto the extras, the US release was bare bones so it's nice to get some extras on the Indicator release, beginning with a brand new 55-min making of doc with SFX legend Rick Baker, screenwriter Wesley Strick and producer Douglas Wick, a good watch, detailing the genesis of the project, writing the script, creating the special effects and working with Mike Nichols and Jack Nicholson. There's also about 25 minutes of archival interviews with the cast and crew that seem like they were done for an EPK at the time f the film's release. Additionally we get a few minutes of b-roll footage, these include shots of Pfeiffer in a vehicle doing a poor man's process shot and of Nichols directing scenes, the disc is finished up with the theatrical trailer and an image gallery. 

Sadly we don't have any new interviews with the main cast, I would have loved to hear from Nicholson, Pfeiffer and Spader. I've always heard of an alternate ending and deleted scenes for this one, but it's just not here, I'm assuming Indicator made the effort to find as much as they could but the elements just were not available and the stars were not available, or did not care, to take part in any new interviews, which is too bad, but at least we get some new extras. 

Packaging extras include a 20-page booklet with cast and crew info, notes about the transfer, an appreciation of the film by author Brad Stevens, a vintage promotional interview with Director Mike Nichols, and vintage interview excerpts from producer Douglas Wick, plus selected critical response from the time of the movie's original release in the cinema. 

Special Features: 
- The Beast Inside: Creating ‘Wolf: a new documentary on the making of the film with new interviews from SFX legend Rick Baker, screenwriter Wesley Strick and producer Douglas Wick (55 min) HD 
- Never-before-seen archival interviews with actors Michelle Pfeiffer (1 min), James Spader (2 min) and Kate Nelligan (2 min)
- Never-before-seen archival interviews with director Mike Nichols (8 min), producer Douglas Wick (3 min) and writer Jim Harrison (3 min)
- Never-before-seen archival interviews with SFX maestro Rick Baker (2 min) and production designer Bo Welch (3 min)
- B-roll footage (4 min)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD (Fullframe)
- Image gallery: on-set and promotional photography (24 images) HD 
- Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Brad Stevens, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and historic articles on the film 
- Limited Blu-ray Edition of 3,000 copies 

Wolf (1994) is a fun watch with a the star-studded cast, Nicholson's transformation from buttoned-down book editor to wolfed out predator makes for good entertainment, as does James Spader doing what he does best as the slimy younger guy looking to steal Nicholson's thunder, and truth be told he steals the show several times throughout. Add to that mixture some hairy werewolf action and you have a truly entertaining slice of lycanthropic-cinema, enhanced by the special effects work of Rick Baker, it'd be hard not too have a good time with it, just don't expect a bloodbath, this was directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate) after all - he's was a classy guy.