Charley Varrick and the Incorporation of America in the 1970s

Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick (1973) encodes a troubled perception of transformations in American economic life into a tightly organized heist narrative. The title character uses his crop-dusting business as cover for bank robberies. As a crop duster, Charley bills himself as “The Last of the Independents,” a moniker which suggests the imperiled nature of the mythos of freedom and self-determination that had long defined the American character. As a bank robber, Charley limits himself to small-time jobs in rural backwaters. But after their latest job, Charley and his accomplice discover that they have taken a huge stash of Mafia money. The film implies that the American economic system has become so fully integrated, and so thoroughly corrupt, that no place is outside the malign influence of the incorporation and centralization of both legal and criminal enterprise.