Carson Valley and ‘Charley Varrick’

Once again Hollywood came to Carson Valley in 1972. In previous years they had come to film “Chicken Every Sunday” with Dan Daily and Celeste Holm (1949), “Wild is the Wind” with Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani (1957), and “Forty Pounds of Trouble” with Tony Curtis and Suzanne Pleshette (1962).

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the movie, “Charley Varrick,” filmed across Carson Valley.

This time they turned the Valley into Tres Cruces, N.M. It was a mythical town where a bank robber and crop duster named Charley Varrick (played by Walter Matthau) robbed a small bank only to find out it was a place used by the mob to stash money. Their hitman (played by Joe Don Baker) proved to be a greater nemesis than law enforcement. July through September was spent filming the drama around the Valley in places which have since disappeared.

First came the bank robbery. The interior scenes of the bank were filmed inside of the old Farmers Bank building on Esmeralda Street in Minden. Today’s image is very different. The floor plan and teller’s cages disappeared when the structure was renovated in 2014. Since the action was inside and the preparations were made outside, it gave a few folks in town the opportunity to meet the hero of many silent movie westerns. The elderly Bob Steele was working a bit-part as the bank security guard.

Genoa’s courthouse and museum became the bank exterior. In 1972 there was a dirt drive that came off of Foothill Road and circled up to the front of the building and then back down to the road. This was the road traveled by the robbers’ car. Today the drive is gone and replaced at the property line by a retaining wall with a two and a half foot drop to the ground level of the new firehouse next door. There was a witness to the bank robbers’ escape that day. As one of the cutest young girls in Genoa, Holly Nutter, was picked as an “extra” to sit in a swing under the old tree in front of the building.

As the car sped away, it was involved in two staged collisions. The second one was the grand smash-up where the robbers collided with a responding sheriff’s unit going “code 3.” The sheriff’s car was then to go into a small wooden store built for the movie on the Mormon Station property at the corner of Genoa Lane and Main Street. This was an exciting day for those around Genoa. It took two takes to capture the scene. Then the store was soon removed.

Folks around the valley enjoyed the unusual disruption from their daily routines throughout the filming. The Holiday Lodge on Highway 395, Minden’s first motel, was filled with people coming and going during their labors on the film. The cowboys on Harvey Gross’ ranch were put to work moving his buffalo herd out of their pasture along Jacks Valley Road and replacing them with cattle for just one short group of scenes. Kingsbury Grade was blocked for filming the getaway car as it came up a dirt road, crashing through a barrier and out onto the highway. Foothill Road and Waterloo Lane were closed in both directions when the damaged robbery car, loaded with material for a dramatic effect, was blown up in Autumn Hills. The huge red and black fireball could be seen for miles around. Foothill Road had to be closed again when scenes were filmed at the former home of Genoa’s 19th Century Justice of the Peace and undertaker, C.W. Dake. There were more pleasant inconveniences as the crew filmed with the soft early morning light and then continued late into the evening at Bob Carver’s Genoa Bar.

Some of the locations are parking lots now. Faletti’s Valley Hardware store at the corner of Highway 395 and 4th St. in Minden was where Charley Varrick purchased his dynamite. This picturesque emporium of hardware, western tack, hunting and mining supplies was well remembered by locals for its large ornate cash register. The site is now pavement. When Varrick went to get some passport photos made, the scenes were filmed at the rear steps to the second floor of the Pyrenees restaurant, bar and hotel. Then the camera moved to one of the rooms on the second floor. Today the location is part of Sharkey’s south parking lot. 

Time has changed the use of another site. Scenes were filmed in the tight confines of the Douglas County Dispatcher’s space at the former office in the basement of the old Courthouse. Today it is the elections administrator’s office. With the advent of 911, the lady in the chair was no longer the night dispatcher, matron, file clerk, teletype operator and jail monitor.

Nothing physically remains at the half-century mark to show the movie company was here. Some things remained for a short time. County government was more frugal in those days. The two-remaining retired “police cruisers” brought along for the movie were purchased by the Sheriff’s Office. They were repainted and used until they could go no further.

Some memories remain. Besides the fun of watching actors and crew go through their set-ups and rehearsals, there were personal friendships made. Marion Ellison became friends with Dorothy Andre and they organized a Sunday evening fireside chat with the stunt crew at the LDS church in Minden. Dorothy, a long-time actress, stunt woman and double was doing the makeup on this movie. Folks in the Valley were invited in for a few hours of talk from the stunt crew about their fascinating profession and stories from previous movies they had worked. It was an evening long to be remembered.

With the wide-open hospitality of the community, only one event seems to have provided an unhappy memory. Director Don Siegal, fresh from his acclaim over his work on the movie “Dirty Harry,” was running behind schedule on this movie. School was beginning and he tried to enroll his boy in high school locally. Enrollment was refused since the young man’s shoulder length hair violated the dress code of the times. Soon the filming moved on to Dayton and Mr. Siegal seems to have left unhappy. Time seems to have changed the feelings. Siegal returned to Carson Valley in 1975 to direct John Waynes’ last movie “The Shootist.” The opening scenes from the movie were filmed in Jacks Valley and other scenes followed at Wally’s Hot Springs.

During the intermediate years between Charley Varrick and The Shootist, Carson Valley continued to be the popular host for many other film companies.