Charlie Venner

Charlie Venner is a fictional character from director Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs". He was played by Del Henney.

Charlie Venner is a local British worker who was once the lover of Amy Sumner (Susan George), now the wife of American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman). A tall, muscular man with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, Charlie is one of a couple of local men, including his friend Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison), hired by David to work on his house, specifically his garage, after he and Amy move to England in hopes of getting away from the violence of America. Charlie and his fellow workers are not impressed by David, whom they view as weak and unmanly, lacking the gumption to stand up for himself and his wife Amy, whom Charlie still carries a torch for. In light of David's spineless demeanor, the workers mock him behind his back and perform a variety of bizarre and cruel pranks, such as killing their cat. Even Amy seems all too aware of the fact that David is a coward outwardly, which is one of the reasons why their marriage is crumbling. Amy even goes so far as to flaunt herself in an attempt to provoke David into standing up to the workers, but he does nothing.

One day, the workers take David out on the grounds that he will join them in a hunt. They actually leave him in the middle of nowhere, while Charlie goes back to the house, where Amy is alone. With David out of the house, Charlie comes on to Amy, but she rebuffs his advances even though she is drawn to him for his powerful, rugged physique and virility. When Amy rebuffs him, Charlie responds violently, slapping Amy around, dragging her to the couch, tearing her blue robe apart, ripping open her blouse, tearing off her panties and rapes her. Amy tries to resist, but halfway through the rape her horror and disgust turns to arousal and desire as she begins to enjoy what is happening to her. As Amy begins to embrace him, Charlie actually apologizes, and she asks him to hold her. Just as the rape becomes an actual moment of lovemaking, Scutt appears, silently threatening Charlie with a rifle; at first Charlie refuses to give Amy over to Scutt, but after a moment of silence between them, Charlie removes himself from Amy and actually turns her over and holds her in place so that Scutt can rape her through anal sex; all Charlie can do is look away in shame as Amy screams from Scutt's violation.

In the climax of the film, Charlie takes part in the siege on David's house when David unknowingly takes in the local child molester Henry Niles, who is suspected of having kidnapped a local girl. Charlie tries to get Amy to let him and his group in, but David holds her back and, in what appears to be a psychological breakdown, viciously attacks and kills his attackers. Charlie and David are briefly united when Scutt tries to rape Amy a second time, but after Scutt is killed, Charlie finds himself fighting David, and is killed by David when David hits him over the head with a bear trap, much to Amy's horror.

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