Touch of Evil (film)

• Release Date: 1958
• Director(s): Orson Welles
• Writer(s): Orson Welles
• Principal Actors and Roles: Charlton Heston (Ramon Miguel Vargas); Janet Leigh (Susan Vargas); Orson Welles (Hank Quinlan); Marlene Dietrich (Tanya); Akim Tamiroff (Uncle Joe Grandi)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson

Touch of Evil is an acclaimed 1958 film directed by Orson Welles. The film is recognized as an important addition to Welles’s oeuvre after his most famous film, Citizen Kane (1941). It is an important example of film noir, a term that French critics coined for the dark Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s and is particularly admired for Welles’s bravura direction, as well as his performance as Hank Quinlan, a seedy, corrupt police captain.

Plot

Miguel "Mike" Vargas and Susie are newlyweds traveling from Mexico to the United States. When they reach the American side of the border a car bomb explodes, killing a young couple. Law enforcement officials arrive at the scene, including Quinlan and his partner, Pete Menzies. Vargas is a Mexican drug official and because the bombing appears to be drug-related, he is present when Quinlan and Menzies question a suspect named Manolo Sanchez. During the questioning, Vargas realizes that Quinlan has planted evidence on Sanchez in order to implicate him in the murder. Vargas also suspects that Quinlan has a long history of planting evidence and he resolves to investigate Quinlan’s cases.

In Mexico Vargas has been trying to bring down a drug lord, and the drug lord’s brother, Uncle Joe Grandi, suggests to Quinlan they conspire to destroy Vargas’s reputation. Quinlan is a reformed alcoholic, and Vargas’s suspicions about Quinlan combined with the dangers that are inherent in carrying out Grandi’s scheme cause him to start drinking again.

Worried about Susie’s safety, Vargas moves her to a motel for her security. At the motel Susie is terrorized by an assortment of different criminals. Quinlan and Grandi hatch a scheme to terrorize her themselves but Quinlan betrays Grandi and strangles him instead. Quinlan’s intention is to frame Susie for the murder but he draws attention to himself by leaving his cane behind.

Vargas finds out from the assistant district attorney, Al Schwartz, that Susie has been arrested for the murder. Vargas also learns his gun is missing. When Menzies tells him about the cane, Vargas and Menzies become co-conspirators bent on bringing Quinlan to justice. For Vargas the quest is professional because of Quinlan’s corrupt practices and personal because of Susie. For his part, Menzies worships Quinlan and has been devastated to witness his decline into corruption and alcohol abuse.

Menzies meets Quinlan in an abandoned oilfield, secretly tape recording the conversation as Vargas watches from a distance. Quinlan acknowledges that he has fabricated evidence against suspects but claims he was justified because the suspects were guilty. Quinlan figures out that Menzies is trying to entrap him and shoots him with Vargas’s gun. Vargas appears and Quinlan is about to shoot him but Menzies shoots Quinlan instead. Menzies dies and then Schwartz appears and tells Vargas that Sanchez admitted to planting the bomb so Quinlan did not have to frame him. Quinlan stumbles into some brackish water and dies also. Schwartz asks Tanya, a brothel owner played by Marlene Dietrich, what she thinks about Quinlan. She says, "He was some kind of a man," but then adds, "What does it matter what you say about people?"

Significance

Although not touted by Universal International Pictures upon its initial release in 1958, Touch of Evil has long been appreciated by a wide range of discerning audience members as an important contribution to the film noir genre.

Film director Peter Bogdanovich was Welles’s confidant, and in an interview with his idol Bogdanovich commented that it is the direction that one tends to notice on a first viewing of the film more than the story. This is not a reflection of any inadequacy in Welles’s screenplay but rather a tribute to his enormous skills behind the camera. Working in collaboration with the cinematographer Russell Metty, Welles coordinates the action in the film and how it is photographed to an astonishing degree.

The film opens with a famous tracking shot that is over three minutes long. The shot lasts until Welles cuts to the car exploding.

Film critic Roger Ebert writes of how the film contains other "virtuoso camera movements" besides the opening, including "an unbroken interrogation in a cramped room, and one that begins in the street and follows the characters through a lobby and into an elevator." Ebert also quotes the critic Damian Cannon who captures the special visual quality of the film, speaking of its "spatial choreography" and how "every position and movement latches together into a cogent whole."

Welles adapted the screenplay from the pulp novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson and his storytelling manner is brisk, capturing the shifting moods and relationships among his characters with great economy. The narrative moves inexorably toward the conclusion when the bomber’s identity is confirmed and Quinlan dies at the hands of his closest friend.

Welles’s performance as Quinlan is also noteworthy. He imbues the corrupt police captain with a doomed, tragic quality reminiscent of the Shakespearean heroes that Welles played in his own film versions of Macbeth (1948) and Othello (1952).

Touch of Evil has had a tangled history with multiple versions that exist, not all of them to Welles’s liking. Universal International Pictures made significant changes to the version that was released in 1958 without input from Welles. The studio also did not promote the film with the kind of effort befitting a director of Welles’s stature.

The original version ran only 93 minutes but almost two decades later the studio found an archival print that was 16 minutes longer. The studio released this version in 1976. Contrary to the studio’s claim, this version is not true to Welles’s original vision. Before the 1958 version was released he had written a lengthy memo to an executive at Universal in which he detailed how he thought that the film should be edited. Working from Welles’s memo and in collaboration with Bob O’Neil and Bill Varney, two restoration film experts, the film editor Walter Murch prepared a third version in 1998. This version runs 111 minutes and is available on DVD.

Touch of Evil has had a wide influence on other filmmakers. The long opening shot is paid homage to in Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Robert Altman’s The Player (1992) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997).

Welles directed Citizen Kane when he was only twenty-five. He will always be associated with that groundbreaking film but Touch of Evil is an important addition to his canon, appreciated by audiences and critics for his dazzling artistry.

Bibliography

Comito, Terry, ed. Touch of Evil: Orson Welles, Director. Rutgers Films in Print, Vol. 3. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1985. Print.

Ebert, Roger. "Touch of Evil." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital, 13 September 1998. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-touch-of-evil-1958>.

Leaming, Barbara. Orson Welles: A Biography. New York: Limelight, 2004. Print.

Murch, Walter. "Restoring the Touch of Genius to a Classic." New York Times. New York Times, 8 Sept. 1998. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.reelclassics.com/Articles/Films/touchofevil-article.htm>.

Naremore, James. The Magic World of Orson Welles. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 2015. Print.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Discovering Orson Welles. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. Print.

Sanchez, Claudio. "On Location: Touch of Evil’s Border Showdown." NPR. NPR, 8 Aug. 2011. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139152265/on-location-touch-of-evils-border-showdown>.

Welles, Orson, Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum. This Is Orson Welles. Boston: De Capo, 1998. Print.