Touch of Evil (1958)

Orson would be pleased!
"A TOUCH OF EVIL," I have to say, is one of my favorite films. This edition is as Orson Welles had wanted to release it in theaters. The opening scene is shot by a follow crane camera, that doesn't make any cuts. It just continues through the opening scene. In the theatrical release, the movie titles were on the screen, covering up this great scene. Yes, it is black & white. I wouldn't want to see it in color. Orson directed and starred in it. Charlton Heston (now with alzheimer's disease), and Janet Leigh (recently deceased), star. Marlene Dietrich makes a small appearance as well. Parts were filmed in Venice, California, but it passes for Mexico. It still holds up today and as I say, it's at the top of my list of favorites. It is also shown in widescreen.

Parts Greater Than the Whole
In terms of performance, this film is much less ambitious than Welles' other work, particularly the choice of Heston to play Vargas; yet, the camerawork and frame compositions are as staggering as one would expect. Unfortunately, this leads to a case of the parts being greater than the whole, as there's a reason most people have only heard about this film's opening sequence. (8/10)

Welles' True Masterwork
In most film noirs, the lead character is a basically good young man, who's fallen upon hard times. All around our tragic hero lies treachery, often disguised as salvation. Yet, because of a fatal flaw, our hero is blind to the treachery of those around him -- whether a blonde femme fatale or a backstabbing "friend" -- and to the hero's own capacity for evil. This archetype is best personified by Fred MacMurray as the insurance man gone bad in "Double Indemnity" (1944) and Robert Mitchum's private-eye trapped in a web of deception in "Out of the Past" (1947). As a rule, the tragic hero (called anti-hero by some) dies in a violent gunfight, in the end. But, what if our tragic hero *lived on*? Thus, we arrive at Orson Welles' larger-than-life police captain Hank Quinlan. Quinlan was most likely an honest, idealistic, cop earlier in life. But, forty years before his wife was brutally strangled and the perp got away. Dedicating himself to never letting another killer go free, Quinlan lets corruption seep into his daily routine: He frames suspects, coerces confessions, plants evidence. When we, the viewers, are introduced to Hank Quinlan (forty years later), we see him literally bloated with corruption -- his greasy, stubble-ridden, face seems to perspire corruption. Yet, like his younger counterparts, Welles is still blind to his own achilles heel. Enter seedy villian, drug kingpin "Uncle Joe" Grande (Akim Tamiroff), who has no illusions about his own dirty soul, and Mexican counterdrug agent Mike Vargas (played by Charlton Heston in brownface -- though after five minutes his forceful acting overcomes that hurdle -- a clear case of "willing suspension of disbelief"), an idealistic, uncorruptible policeman. Grande and Vargas are the testing stones by which Quinlan's true soul is revealed: Ostensibly on the same side as Vargas, Quinlan nonetheless frames Vargas by making a devil's deal with Grande. In a parallel to Quinlan's own ancient history, the pawn in the deal is Vargas' wife, played by Janet Leigh. Quinlan's life has come full-circle: His quest to punish evil has become evil itself; his crusade to avenge his wife's death has transformed itself into a sick fetish to frame a totally innocent woman for murder, and to ruin the career of her husband, a truly honest cop, who personifies what Quinlan has been masquerading as for the past forty years. The final scene is so appropos: Quinlan shoots his partner, Menzies (Joseph Calleia) in cold blood with Vargas' pistol, then washes the blood from his hands (an allusion to Pontius Pilate) in a river so choked with pollution, that even Quinlan's dipsomaniacal self can't fail to notice the futility of this intended cover-up. It's like a baptism at the hand of Satan: In the end, Quinlan crashes and splashes into the river and has the sin of his soul sealed in a floating scum of filth. Like Othello, Quinlan has become what he loathes. All of Welles' films ("Othello" included) have peered into the human soul. Most critics find "Touch of Evil" falling somewhat short of "Kane." I disagree entirely: "Touch of Evil" is Welles' most convincing journey into the darker reaches of human nature and his most convincing contemplation of evil. It is complex, because not even Heston's incorruptible Vargas is untouched by the all-pervasive evil; Vargas is drawn into his own crusade to avenge his own wife's torture and legal abuse at the hands of Quinlan and Grande. "Touch of Evil" is, to me, Welles' own, personal, "Heart of Darkness."
A note on the "letterbox" ("widescreen") DVD transfer: Yes, those claiming it's just the 1.33:1 screening with black bars cropping off top/bottom, they are right. I compared the new DVD against my 1987 release laser-disc, and you can tell right away that this is a phoney, because the top and bottom of the Universal globe have have lopped off in the so-called "widescreen" edition, but are intact, with room to spare in the laser-disc version. Also, tops of actors' heads/hats are sometimes cropped-out, and high-altitude scenery is evident in laser, whereas missing in the DVD. Please, Universal, give us full-screen DVD!!!