Touch of Evil (1958)

August 29, 2022 7:29 AM

For my 500th FF movie post (I know, right?), I wanted to post a classic. And so, I'm offering up Orson Welles' 1958 classic, Touch of Evil. It has Charlton Heston as a Mexican (I know) and is currently only available in the 95 minute theatrical version which features edits and re-shoots Welles did not approve, but it's still a pretty great swan song for Welles' as a studio filmmaker. The single shot opening scene is jaw-dropping.

When a car bomb explodes on the American side of the U.S./Mexico border, Mexican drug enforcement agent Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) begins his investigation, along with American police captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles). When Vargas begins to suspect that Quinlan and his shady partner, Menzies (Joseph Calleia), are planting evidence to frame an innocent man, his investigations into their possible corruption quickly put himself and his new bride, Susie (Janet Leigh), in jeopardy.

Also starring Akim Tamiroff, and Marlene Dietrich.

Written and directed by Orson Welles, based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson.

95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently streaming in the US on Criterion and available for digital rental on multiple outlets.

posted by DirtyOldTown (14 comments total)

This is a great film, but, hoo boy, is it hard to swallow Heston as Mexican. Welles positively revels in his character's slime. And, of course, there's the famous long opening shot.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:09 AM on August 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

Welles said repeatedly in interviews that he despised Vargas as a corrupt representative of the state but always sought to find the aspects of a character's personality he could sympathize with.
posted by praemunire at 8:39 AM on August 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Interesting to note (via Wellesnet) that in the source novel "Badge of Evil”, the hero is Mitch Holt who has a Mexican wife, Consuela. In Welles' script for "Touch of Evil" the hero is Mexican, Miguel Vargas, with an American bride, Susie.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 8:45 AM on August 29, 2022

This is a great film, but, hoo boy, is it hard to swallow Heston as Mexican.

Or Marlene Dietrich as Mexican either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:22 AM on August 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

Or Marlene Dietrich as Mexican either.

But that scene with Dietrich and Wells is... amazing.

Weirdly, the first DVD I ever watched was Bones, the Snoop Dogg horror film, and it was also the first commentary track my roommate (a huge film buff) and I ever watched. It is not a good film, but the director talked about what he was trying to do, and one of those things was to shoot his corrupt detective the way Orson Wells was shot in Touch of Evil, very low at the beginning, so Wells was huge and commanding, and then, as things spiral out of control, the camera on Wells keeps moving up to emphasize his insignificance and weakness.

The next time we went to the Video Store, we rented Touch of Evil, which is a much much much much better film, but it was still fun to see a schlock director say "I am going to try and do some film stuff."
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:46 AM on August 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

“The single shot opening scene is jaw-dropping.”

It really is.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:46 AM on August 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

I haven’t watched this movie but I want to thank you, DirtyOldTown, for your ceaseless service. My “to watch" list is in large part made up of movies I’ve heard about or been reminded of through your FanFare posts.
posted by ejs at 12:30 PM on August 29, 2022 [10 favorites]

Cosigned! Thank you, DirtyOldTown!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 1:20 PM on August 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

The Walter Murch re-edit is without doubt a better movie. But despite all the improvements to the sound design in that opening shot made possible by losing most of the propulsive Henry Mancini score, there's a part of me that wishes they'd kept it.
posted by theory at 2:16 PM on August 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

This has one of my all-time favorite social commentary lines, when Heston's character says, "A policeman's job is only easy in a police state."

I think of that one too often these days, ad I appreciate the way the film makes it clear that Welles's character isn't simply corrupt, but delusionally certain that he is the hero and that his victims are always villains. There's a distinctly authoritarian pathology on display there that the usual presentation of a crooked cop as merely greedy never gets at.

I also love the way that the only person that actually kind of likes Welles is the deputy, another cop who's complicit in everything Welles does. Pretty much everyone reacts to him with a mixture of fear and contempt, but his role as "a corrupt representative of the state" -- to quote praemunire -- nonetheless forces them to go along and lets him prop up his warped self-perception.
posted by kewb at 2:31 PM on August 29, 2022 [6 favorites]

I also love the way that the only person that actually kind of likes Welles is the deputy, another cop who's complicit in everything Welles does.

Apparently in the original script it was established that Vargas saved his life at some point prior to the film's events.
posted by praemunire at 8:20 AM on August 30, 2022

As I recall, it was Quinlan who'd at one point saved Menzies's life:
"That's the second bullet I stopped for you..."
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:09 PM on August 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Whoops, you're right! (Or, rather, for whatever reason, I said "Vargas" when I meant "Quinlan.")
posted by praemunire at 6:17 PM on August 30, 2022

I worked in a movie theater that showed the Murch edit when it was new. God, it was glorious.
posted by RakDaddy at 6:38 PM on August 30, 2022