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Touch of Evil

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Touch of Evil (1958), is considered one of the last examples of film noir in the classic era (from the early 1940s until the late 1950s). It was directed by Orson Welles, who also appeared as corrupt policeman, Captain Hank Quinlan. The black-and-white film also features Charlton Heston as Mike Vargas, a Mexican narcotics agent on his honeymoon, Janet Leigh ("at her most perversely innocent" as one critic put it) as his bride, and Marlene Dietrich as Tana, a cigar-smoking Mexican gypsy brothel owner. The movie was written in two weeks by Welles based on Whit Masterson's novel Badge of Evil.

Contents

The plot

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The movie opens with a famous three minute continuous tracking shot, which shows a man placing a bomb in a car and then the journey of the car to the US/Mexican border crossing. The scene ends with Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) and Susie Vargas (Janet Leigh), newlyweds, kissing. The scene then cuts to the car, containing a man and a stripper friend, exploding, and the rising action of the movie begins. Mike Vargas, an important police official within the Mexican government, realizes the implications of a Mexican bomb exploding on US soil and begins to investigate. The police chief Pete Gould (Harry Shannon) and district attorney Adair (Ray Collins) arrive shortly on the scene, as well as police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and Quinlan's friend and partner, Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia). The scene sets up all the important characters, as well as introduces the idea that Quinlan doesn't like Vargas, primarily because Vargas is Mexican. The scene also reveals that Vargas has been on the hunt of a large dope ring led by the Grandi family, and that Vargas will testify at the trial of Vick Grandi later in the week.

In the meantime, Susie wanders the streets of the border town and eventually is escorted by a man she nicknames Pancho (Valentin de Vargas) to meet Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff). Uncle Joe shows Susie a gun, and tells her that her husband better "lay off my brother Vick", but then releases Susie to return to her hotel. Vargas, Quinlan, and company travel south of the border to investigate the strip club that the murdered man had visited. One of Uncle Joe's henchman throws acid at Vargas (and misses), and Quinlan visits with an old friend Tana (Marlene Dietrich). Tana uses a crystal ball to read the future and cooks chili for her patrons. At this point the audience is reintroduced to Quinlan's "intuition", which comes from Quinlan's bad leg and tells Quinlan that a member of Uncle Joe's gang threw acid at Vargas.

Vargas returns to the hotel where Susie and Vargas were to stay on their honeymoon, and before Vargas arrives a Grandi henchman harasses her by shining a light through her window from across the street as Susie dresses. Susie hides her fears of the stalking men and Grandi's threat from her husband, and asks that Vargas take her to an American motel while Vargas sorts through the bombing affair. Vargas begins to drive his wife to the motel, and Uncle Joe follows the couple and says, "He's got a reputation...he's got a young bride...he'll leave this town wishing he'd never been born".

On the way to the motel, Menzies stops Vargas, tells Vargas to go on ahead where Quinlan plans to interrogate a suspect, and that Menzies will drive his wife to the hotel. Menzies notices Uncle Joe following his car, and arrests Uncle Joe at the hotel and leaves Susie to get a room. Susie meets the very unusual night man of the Mirador motel (Dennis Weaver).

While Menzies travels back to meet up with Quinlan, Quinlan meets Marcia Linnaker (Joanna Moore), daughter of the dead man in the explosion, and her lover Manelo Sanchez (Victor Millan). The daughter's lawyer whisks her away, but Sanchez remains to receive a harsh interrogation by Quinlan that includes a punch to the stomach. Vargas, who has an extreme distaste for police brutality, travels across the street to call his wife to ensure her safety at the motel. When Vargas arrives back at the room, Vargas discovers Menzies has arrived with Uncle Joe in tow and that Quinlan has asked Menzies to continue his search of the apartment. Menzies discovers two sticks of dynamite in a box in the bathroom, and Menzies believes that he has discovered a breakthrough in the case. Vargas, who had previously looked through the box and saw nothing, accuses Quinlan of planting evidence. Vargas leaves with assistant D.A. Al Schwartz (Mort Mills) to look for evidence of Quinlan's corruption and perhaps another guilty party. Uncle Joe invites Quinlan to join with him to take down Vargas, a mutual enemy according to Uncle Joe. Vargas researches Quinlan's ranch and Quinlan's previous arrest records. Back at the Mirador Motel, it appears that Uncle Joe owns the Mirador and his hoods run the place. Uncle Joe's gangsters engage in a drug party, using at least marijuana and possibly other drugs. The gangsters then invade Susie's room, possibly rape her, and then drug her. Meanwhile, Quinlan agrees to Uncle Joe's proposal with a drink of alcohol, an especially meaningful method of agreeing because Quinlan had been a reformed alcoholic for many years. Vargas discovers that Quinlan had purchased dynamite recently, and that Quinlan had not used all of the dynamite. Vargas calls a meeting of the police chief and the district attorney in order to show these inconsistencies to the men. Menzies discovers Quinlan drunk, and informs Quinlan of the meeting. Quinlan arrives at the meeting and throws a fit at the accusations, and threatens to resign. The district attorney and chief of police dismiss Vargas, and subsequently Quinlan accuses Vargas of using drugs himself and of using his position within the Mexican government to cover his own drug use. Vargas confronts Menzies about the suspicious fact that so many murders have been solved by Quinlan and Menzies where the defense claims the primary evidence was fabricated. In all those cases, Menzies discovered the evidence. Menzies dismisses Vargas's claim.

Vargas heads to the Mirador Motel at the same time as Grandi's hoods bring Susie to a different hotel in the border town. Uncle Joe reveals the plan to the audience at this point, which involves setting up Susie to be a drug fiend in order to ruin Mike Vargas and hopefully cause Vargas to back down in Vick Grandi's drug trial. Susie had already been drugged and used reefers were scattered around the room. Quinlan decides to take matters into his own hands, strangling Grandi to death and hanging his body over Susie's bed. Quinlan eliminates any debt to Grandi, and sets up Susie as both a drug user and a murderer. Vargas returns to the motel only to discover that Susie is no longer there. Vargas also realizes that whoever absconded with Susie also stole Vargas's gun. Vargas confronts the night manager, and discovers that Grandi has done something with his wife. Vargas returns to town and beats up some Grandi hoods, only for Schwartz to arrive and tell Vargas his wife has been charged with drug use and murder.

Vargas travels to the jail to discover Susie barely conscious. Vargas seems to be in a hopeless situation, with no proof that his wife did not commit Grandi's murder. Menzies then reveals to Vargas Quinlan's cane, which Menzies had found at the crime scene. Menzies realizes that Quinlan has been in the wrong, and desires to confront Quinlan and set things right. Quinlan has gone to Tana's, and Menzies wears a crude wire and orders Quinlan outside of the noisy fortune teller's place into a series of oil wells. Vargas must follow the moving Quinlan and Menzies with a radio that must be within a certain distance to record Quinlan and Menzie's conversation. Quinlan admits to Menzies that he did frame people, but that everyone who was framed was "guilty, guilty". Quinlan and Menzies eventually travel over a bridge, and Vargas must sneak under the bridge to maintain the recording. Quinlan hears the echo, and according to Quinlan his game leg informs him of Menzies's wire. Quinlan orders Vargas to show himself, and when Vargas does Quinlan shoots Menzies with Vargas's gun. After a brief talk where Quinlan tries to figure out a way out of the situation for himself, Quinlan threatens to shoot Vargas. At the moment Quinlan almost pulls the trigger, Menzies shoots Quinlan instead. Quinlan says, "Pete...that's the second bullet I took for you" and then falls into the water and dies. The movie ends with Vargas reuniting with Susie and leaving town, and with Tana's line, "He was some kind of a man, what does it matter what you say about people?"

Cast and crew

Akim Tamiroff plays a border mobster with a wandering toupee, Dennis Weaver is a loony night clerk at an isolated motel, and Zsa Zsa Gabor appears briefly as the impresario of a strip club. Welles liked what Weaver did as Chester on TV's Gunsmoke and worked closely with him on his part, which was shot on a three-day hiatus from the TV show. Zsa Zsa Gabor was a friend of the producer.

Welles's old friend, Joseph Calleia, gives a performance as Quinlan's partner, along with other members of the Welles repertory company, Joseph Cotten, Keenan Wynn, Ray Collins (the police detective on Perry Mason), and Mercedes McCambridge as a biker chick. Many of the actors worked for lower wages just to make a film with Welles. Marlene Dietrich's role was a surprise to the producers and they raised her fee so they could advertise her involvement.

The score was by Henry Mancini.

According to Heston, Welles was originally intended to act in the film only, and Heston was highly sought for the lead. Heston pretended to think that Welles was going to direct and based his acceptance of the part on that.

Welles rewrote the script, but after he completed the movie, it was re-edited (and in part re-shot) by Universal International pictures and it was not until 1998 (and the fourth version) that it was released in something like the original form intended by Welles. Nonetheless, even as originally released it was a film of power and impact, though little commercial success. The producer was Albert Zugsmith, known as the "king of the B's".

The movie was literally a B-movie, released as the lower half of a double feature. The A-movie was The Female Animal, starring Hedy Lamarr, produced by Albert Zugsmith and directed by Harry Keller whom the studio had hired to direct the re-shot material in Touch of Evil. The two films even had the same cameraman: Russell Metty. Inevitably, Welles's film was given little publicity despite the fame of the director, the sensational subject matter, and the many stars in the cast.

Although the studios eventually gave in to letting Welles write and direct the film, they refused to give him any more than his original acting salary. Welles agreed as he figured it was his only chance to get back into Hollywood.

Welles appeared as grossly fat in the film and is shot from below to emphasize his corpulence, but in fact the fat is mostly padding. It was only later that Welles became genuinely obese.

1998 re-release

In 1998, the film was re-released in a re-edited form, which was based on the memo Orson Welles wrote expressing his dissatisfaction with the producer's cut of the film. Because Welles's complaints were concerned with subtle sound and editing choices, it was possible for the film to be re-edited to produce a version that he might have been happy with. Notable changes include the removal of the credits and music from the 3-minute opening shot, quicker intercutting between the main story and Janet Leigh's subplot, the removal of Harry Keller's scenes and the addition of around 15 minutes of footage from a preview version found in the mid-70s.

The 1998 version was produced by Rick Schmidlin and edited by Walter Murch. It had a limited but successful theatrical release (again by Universal International) and was subsequently made available on DVD. The DVD includes a reproduction of the 58-page memo (the memo is also included as an appendix to This Is Orson Welles).

Legacy

The film is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's top 250 list, was #64 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Thrills, and has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was Welles' last Hollywood film.

The film is also jokingly referred to (although not by name) in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood. In a scene near the end of the film, Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) is complaining to Orson Welles about how producers always want the wrong actors to play certain parts in their movies. Welles says, "Tell me about it. I'm just about to start work on a movie where they want Charlton Heston to play a Mexican!"

Quotations

From the film

About the film

External links


{| style="margin:0 auto" align=center id=toc width=600 !style="background:#CCCCCC" align="center"|Orson Welles |- |- |align="center" | Citizen Kane (1941) • The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) • The Stranger (1946) • The Lady from Shanghai (1947) • Macbeth (1948) • Othello (1952) • Mr. Arkadin (1955) • Touch of Evil (1958) • The Trial (1962) • Chimes at Midnight (1965) • The Immortal Story (1968) • F for Fake (1974) •

 

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