Touch of Evil

TOUCH OF EVIL

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USA, 1958

Director: Orson Welles

Production: Universal-International; black and white, 35mm; running time: 95 minutes, also variously noted at 105 and 115 minutes. Released 21 May 1958. Filmed spring 1957 in Venice, California.

Producer: Albert Zugsmith; screenplay: Orson Welles, from the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson; additional director: Harry Keller; photography: Russell Metty; editors: Virgil M. Vogel and Aaron Stell; sound: Leslie I. Carey and Frank Wilkinson; art directors: Alexander Golitzen and Robert Clatworthy; music: Henry Mancini; music director: Joseph Gershenson; costume designer: Bill Thomas.

Cast: Charlton Heston (Ramon Miguel "Mike" Vargas ); Janet Leigh (Susan Vargas ); Orson Welles (Hank Quinlan ); Joseph Calleia (Pete Menzies ); Akim Tamiroff (Uncle Joe Grandi ); Joanna Moore (Marcia Linnekar ); Marlene Dietrich (Tanya ); Ray Collins (Adair ); Dennis Weaver (Motel manager ); Victor Millan (Manolo Sanchez ); Lalo Rios (Rio ); Valentin de Vargas (Pancho ); Mort Mills (Schwartz ); Mercedes McCambridge (Hoodlum ); Wayne Taylor, Ken Miller, Raymond Rodriguez (Gang members ); Michael Sargent (Pretty Boy ); Zsa Zsa Gabor (Owner of nightclub ); Keenan Wynn (Man ); Joseph Cotten (Detective ); Phil Harvey (Blaine ); Joi Lansing (Blonde ); Harry Shannon (Gould ); Rusty Wescoatt (Casey ); Arlene McQuade (Ginnie ); Domenick Delgarde (Lackey ); Joe Basulto (Hoodlum ); Jennie Dias (Jackie ); Yolanda Bojorquez (Bobbie ); Eleanor Corado (Lia ).

Publications

Script:

Welles, Orson, Touch of Evil, edited by Terry Comito, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1985.

Books:

Bogdanovich, Peter, The Cinema of Orson Welles, New York, 1961.

Bessy, Maurice, Orson Welles, Paris, 1963.

Cowie, Peter, The Cinema of Orson Welles, London, 1965.

Bessy, Maurice, Orson Welles, New York, 1971.

Higham, Charles, The Films of Orson Welles, Berkeley, 1971.

Sarris, Andrew, editor, Interviews with Film Directors, New York, 1971.

McBride, Joseph, Orson Welles, London, 1972.

Cowie, Peter, A Ribbon of Dreams, New York, 1973.

Kaminskly, Stuart, American Film Genres, Dayton, Ohio, 1974.

McCarthy, Tod, and Charles Flynn, editors, Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System, New York, 1975.

McBride, Joseph, Orson Welles: Actor and Director, New York, 1977.

Bazin, Andre, Orson Welles: A Critical View, New York, 1978.

Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, editors, Film Noir, Woodstock, New York, 1979.

Heath, Stephen, Questions of Cinema, Bloomington, Indiana, 1981.

Valentinetti, Claudio M., Orson Welles, Florence, 1981.

Bergala, Alain, and Jean Narboni, editors, Orson Welles, Paris, 1982.

Andrew, Dudley, Film in the Aura of Art, Princeton, New Jersey, 1984.

Leigh, Janet, There Really Was a Hollywood, South Yarmouth, 1984, 1985.

Higham, Charles, Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius, New York, 1985.

Leaming, Barbara, Orson Welles: A Biography, New York, 1985.

Parra, Daniele, and Jacques Zimmer, Orson Welles, Paris, 1985.

Weis, Elisabeth, and John Belton, editors, Film Sound: Theory and Practice, New York, 1985.

Crowther, Bruce, Charlton Heston: The Epic Presence, London, 1986.

Taylor, John Russell, Orson Welles: A Celebration, London, 1986.

Cotten, Joseph, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere, New York, 1987.

Wood, Bret, Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, 1990.

Howard, James, The Complete Films of Orson Welles, Secaucus, 1991.

Beja, Morris, Perspective on Orson Welles, New York, 1995.

Heston, Charlton, In The Arena: An Autobiography, New York, 1995.

Callow, Simon, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu, New York, 1997.

Heston, Charlton, and Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years in American Film, New York, 1998.

Welles, Orson, This Is Orson Welles, New York, 1998.

Munby, Jonathan, Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil, Chicago, 1999.

Taylor, John Russell, Orson Welles, New York, 2000.

Articles:

Interview with Welles in Lettres Françaises (Paris), 20 May 1958.

Interview with Welles in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), June 1958.

Truffaut, François, in Arts (Paris), 4 June 1958.

Knight, Arthur, in Saturday Review (New York), 7 June 1958.

Sadoul, Georges, in Lettres Françaises (Paris), 12 June 1958.

Domarchi, Jean, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), July 1958.

"L'Oeuvre d'Orson Welles," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), September 1958.

Stanbrook, Alan, "The Heroes of Welles," in Film (London), no. 28, 1961.

Allais, Jean-Claude, in Premier Plan (Lyons), March 1961.

Johnson, William, "Orson Welles: Of Time and Loss," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Fall 1967.

Comito, Terry, in Film Comment (New York), Summer 1971.

Prokosch, Mike, "Orson Welles: An Introduction," in Film Comment (New York), Summer 1971.

Delson, James, "Heston on Welles," in Take One (Montreal), July-August 1971.

Schrader, Paul, "Notes on Film Noir," in Film Comment (New York), Spring 1972.

Ecran (Paris), July 1972.

Krueger, E. M., "Touch of Evil : Style Expressing Content," in Cinema Journal (Iowa City), Fall 1972.

Hale, N., "Welles and the Logic of Death," in Film Heritage (Dayton, Ohio), Fall 1974.

Lacombe, A., in Ecran (Paris), January 1975.

Heath, Stephen, "Film and System: Terms of an Analysis," in Screen (London), Spring 1975.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1975.

Wood, Robin, "Welles, Shakespeare, and Webster," in Personal Views: Explorations in Film (London), 1976.

Norharrd, P., in Kosmorama (Copenhagen), Summer 1977.

Henley, John, in Cinema Texas Program Notes (Austin), 19 April 1978.

Bywater, W., "Subject Position," in Film Criticism (Edinboro, Pennsylvania), no. 1, 1979.

Cremonini, G., in Cineforum (Bergamo), May 1982.

Stubbs, John, "The Evolution of Orson Welles's Touch of Evil from Novel to Film," in Cinema Journal (Champaign, Illinois), Winter 1985.

Stubbs, John, and Terry Comito, "Dialogue," in Cinema Journal (Champaign, Illinois), Spring 1985.

"Touch of Evil Issue" of Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), January-February 1986.

Nielsen, N. A., "Et allerhelvedes perspektiv," in Kosmorama (Copenhagen), Fall 1989.

Bywater, W., "The Visual Pleasure of Patriarchal Cinema: Welles' Touch of Evil," in Film Criticism (Meadville, Pennsylvania), no. 3, 1990.

Heston, C., "Touch of Genius," in National Review, vol. 44, 3 February 1992.

Rosenbaum, J., "Orson Welles' Memo to Universal: Touch of Evil," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), no. 1, 1992.

Vaughan, Don, "Confessions of a Teenage Heartthrob," in Filmfax (Evanston), no. 37, February-March 1993.

Wolthuis, J.J.C., in Score (Lelystad), vol. 89, December 1993.

Schmidt, N., "Montage et scenario," in Cinemaction (Conde-sur-Noireau), vol. 72, no. 3, 1994.

Hall, John W., "Touch of Psycho? : Hitchcock's Debt to Welles," in Bright Lights (Cincinnati), no. 14, 1995.

Wollen, Peter, "Foreign Relations: Welles and Touch of Evil," in Sight & Sound (London), vol. 6, no. 10, October 1996.

Kau, E., "Great Beginnings—and Endings: Made by Orson Welles," in P.O.V., vol. 2, December 1996.

McCarthy, Todd, "Restored Evil Approximates Welles' Editing-Room Touch," in Variety (New York), vol. 352, no. 4, 7 September 1998.

Weinraub, Bernard, "Touch of Memory," in The New York Times, 18 September 1998.

Thomas, François, "Henry Mancini et La Soif du mal," in Positif (Paris), no. 452, October 1998.

Bowman, James, "Self-Ignorance: Nowadays, Self-Deception Passes for Self-Knowledge," in The American Spectator, vol. 31, no. 11, November 1998.

* * *

Touch of Evil shows how Orson Welles refashions the Baroque style, inaugurated in Citizen Kane, in terms of the post-war film anticipating the experiment of New Wave cinema. If Welles's oeuvre can be mapped according to Henri Focillon's concept of the "life of forms in art," it can be said that Citizen Kane marks a classic, if not "experimental" phase in a cycle that Touch of Evil completes in its self-reflective and expressly decadent mode. Inspired by Whit Masterson's pulpy Badge of Evil, the film tells of an erstwhile narcotic agent's attempt to foil a crime committed on the Mexican border just as he prepares to celebrate his honeymoon with his shining new wife (Janet Leigh). Multiple frame-ups abound. The agent, Vargas (Charlton Heston), finds himself amidst a band of tawdry outlaws under the control of the local chief of police—the obese Hank Quinlan (Welles). The plot leads through the sleaze of Tijuana (set in Venice, California) over dusty vistas of dirt roads, into a decrepit motel filled with sexed-up punks reeking of booze and dope, and through a labyrinth of oil derricks by a river flowing with trash.

The film revives film noir at a time when the genre is spent. It brings into view questions of framing, editing, and desire at the basis of spectatorship in general. Because it alludes to former moments in Welles's oeuvre, it is both a filmic autobiography, like The Lady from Shanghai, and a collage of transfilmic obsessions. The plot hinges on a rebus. After strangling his wig-wearing henchman (Akim Tamiroff), Quinlan forgets his cane —or former name in Citizen Kane —such that the play on the word and object returns, like the repressed, to convict him of his many former crimes. Shakespeare seems to inspire the scenario. The film essays decadence in ways that make Welles something of the Jack Falstaff of the second part of Henry the Fourth. Dennis Weaver plays the role of a fool clearly drawn from the comic character in Macbeth.

Welles's grotesque body occupies the center of the film. A wide-angle lens records from numerous angles its immensity in baroque caricature. The camera usually pans quickly or crabs to draw the spectator's eyes to spherical aberrations distorting the edges of the shots. A highly mannered perspective results, with curvilinear views extending the rotundity of Welles's body all over the frame. Elsewhere the wide angle lens accelerates the narrative by accentuating movement, compressing characters in the foreground and background alike, and turning with velocity such that no stable visual order results. The opening crane shot of over two minutes' duration registers the credits, engages the narrative, and breaks with the crack of an explosion behind the newlyweds' first kiss. The camera exploits the optical range of the shorter focal length of the lens by simulating high speed driving in matte shots projected behind a car to create the effect of Welles and Heston whizzing down the streets of Tijuana. They speak calmly on as the car goes at a breakneck clip through a landscape of poverty.

Welles amplifies the soundtrack. Voice and clatter are reported percussively and cacaphonously. "Reported" events resound in a remarkable final sequence: Vargas follows Quinlan through a maze of iron girders and under a bridge that echoes the speech on the sound track. Because Vargas has planted a microphone in Quinlan's pocket, the viewer hears the heave and slur of the antagonist's breathing and mutterings against a recording that plays back the immediate past of the film, inscribing the memory of episodes in the film on a register coextensive with the present. In the finale, blood drips from Quinlan's last victim, the body sprawled on the bridge above the murderer who is at the edge of the river below. Droplets fall onto Quinlan's chubby hand, thus bringing the play of sounds and visuals back into a context resembling Elizabethan tragedy. Quinlan is marked by the bloodstains, soon cornered and shot, his great body falling into a pool of flotsam. "Too bad. He was a great detective but a lousy cop," eulogizes Menzies (Joseph Calleia); to which Tanya (Marlene Dietrich) responds in a thick German accent, topping the entire film, "He was some kind of a man."

Despite having no narrative role in the story, Dietrich's presence is manifold. One of Quinlan's former lovers, now a wizened fortune teller overlaid with heavy makeup, she smokes cigarettes in poses reminiscent of the aging beauty Fritz Lang created for Rancho Notorious six years before. By facing the camera frontally, she pulls into the present a filmic legacy that reaches back both to Lang and to von Sternberg of the 1930s. Her remark that Quinlan's time is "all played out" is doubly ironic in view of the portable television set, seen in the background of her cluttered quarters, presaging the end of the studio tradition. Their banter is laced with allusion to Quinlan's passion for candy bars: his obesity becomes a sign, on another allegorical level, of the director's career being one of excess, genius, and waste. Her Tarot reading seals the anti-hero's fate and forces him to return to the narrative.

Touch of Evil stages sexual violence in a sequence set at the "Mirador" motel. Having consigned his wife in a room while he chases his suspects, Vargas retrieves her after making repeated telephone calls. Supine, heaving, in the bondage of her corset, Suzy (Leigh, whose name is again a reminder of the Suzy of Citizen Kane ) is framed in a pose epitomizing Hollywood's model of desire, but only before the camera tears it to shreds, in a style that combines the rhetoric of torture that Rossellini had inaugurated in Open City with oblique allusion to Reefer Madness. Time and again the effects suggest that violence is a matter of optics, and that it owes its force to conventions that Hollywood had produced in its representation of women in the tradition of film noir.

In Touch of Evil the studio style is distorted to comic excess. Here are located the virtual politics of Welles's work, in the mix of lenticular experiment and the essay of a Shakespearean type of narrative. In the last decade the film has been subject of a dazzling reading by Stephen Heath in Questions of Cinema. The renascence of Welles's feature owes much to the complexities Heath unravels through an alert and detailed reading inspired by a blend of psychoanalysis and politics. The film is of a force and heritage going far beyond its period.

—Tom Conley