If your a filmmaker or a cinema buff, then you best know who Orson Welles is. If you don’t know who he is then you best stop reading this review and go do some heavy research on the man, and then go to your local movie rental place and rent CITIZEN KANE. In the case that you have been living under a rock or in a box , while expressing yourself as a filmmaker or Cinema buff to people, and have no clue or have never heard of the film CITIZEN KANE it is considered by the film community and film critics alike as the best film ever made. TOUCH OF EVIL is another one of Welles masterpieces that never really got the respect it deserved until after the actor/director passed away.
Welles was originally hired to just act in TOUCH OF EVIL, not direct. However, actor Charlton Heston had only signed on to the project because he though Welles was going to direct. It turned out to be a misunderstanding, but to keep Heston happy the studio decided to let Welles direct and act in the film. Welles didn’t care much for the producers and studio heads who were over seeing the production of the film and he mainly shot the movie at night, to avoid them from being on top of him. But, right after the film wrapped production Welles was fired as as the films director during post, and the film was cut to the specifications of the studio heads. Welles did however get to the see the cut, and really disliked what he saw. This prompted Welles to write a fifty eight page letter to the studio about his disappointment with the way the film turned out. It was thought that this letter to the studio was lost, but it turned out that Charlton Heston had the letter, and in 1998 the footage of the film was re-cut to Welles specifications. The great thing about this DVD is that all three cuts of the film are on it. We get the original studio cut of the film from 1958, a preview cut which contains scenes that were added in the 1976 cut, and of course the 1998 cut of the film which incorporates what Welles originally intended the film to be like.
TOUCH OF EVIL is film that can be related to the immigration problem that our country faces today, in theory it can be preserved as a film made way before it’s time. The film takes place in a small town on the border of Mexico and The United States. In the beginning a car is blown up that is carrying a rich American man. Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) Mexico’s chief narcotics officer is on his Honeymoon with his new bride Susan (Janet Leigh) and witnesses the bombing. Vargas soon finds out that a drug lord set up the bombing to scare him from testifying against him in court, hoping that it would scare his wife. However it only makes matters worse as Vargas only gets himself deeper into the case not matter what risk fate may have waiting for him. He soon finds out that a local police Captain named Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles), has been planting evidence to convict a Mexican national of the bombing. When he confronts him about it, Quinlan begins to spread rumors about Vargas and joins forces with drug load Grande’s family to try to bring down Vargas and his reputation. The film gets thrilling and edgy towards it’s climax as it’s a show down of brawn and wits on the Mexican border.
Although at first Welles hated the title TOUCH OF EVIL, it still remains the title to this day. The film has an all star cast that includes Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes) Janet Leigh (Psycho) and Orson Welles himself all in the lead roles and co stars Joseph Calleia and Akim Tamiroff as well as special appearances by Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor in all her twenty seconds of glory. So in return with a great cast it’s pretty safe to say the acting in nothing but top notch. They sure don’t make actors like they used too; and actors of the past always gave it their all. Welles shot twenty minutes of extra footage in the film to make it more light hearted, thus the reason why he didn’t like the title of TOUCH OF EVIL much, but it’s said that eventually the title grew on him over time and that he liked the film being more of a dark picture and that the title suited the film well.
I watch the restored version on the DVD, the way Orson Welles wanted it to be; the DVD also comes with his fifty eight page memo to the studio on how he would of edited the film so you can read it and judge for yourself if the producers who put together the Welles cut in 1998 really followed his vision. I for one think they did a good job at trying their best to bring the master filmmakers vision to life years after his death. Visually the film is shot in the noir style with brilliant shots, excellent lighting and the great use of camera angles. There are some continuity errors in the film that are hard to indentify unless your really paying attention, but as I stated above the story and brilliant photography and use of shot over ride any flaw this film has.
The Disc is brilliantly restored with almost flawless picture quality that brings the black and white shots to life. There are also a lot of special features on the disc such as a documentary titled Bringing Evil to Life: that includes interviews with the cast and crew members who worked on the production and with film historians. There is also a featurette about how the film was restored and the history behind all the different cuts of the film. There are also four different commentaries on the disc about the different versions of the film that include commentary with actors Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Restoration Producer Rick Schmidlin, writer/filmmaker F.X. Feeney and with Orson Welles historians Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore. You also get that copy of the fifty eight page letter Welles sent to the studio as well in a neat little Universal Archives envelope.
Orson Welles is considered one of if not the best filmmaker of all time, he is the talk of all film classes in colleges and film school all over the world and he is one that all up and coming filmmakers are told to study and learn from. TOUCH OF EVIL is yet another example of the master at work. Although Welles fought tooth and nail to get his version of the film released with this Disc we get all three versions of the film to decide for ourselves which one is the true master piece. Unlike CITIZEN KANE, TOUCH OF EVIL was never even nominated for an Academy Award. KANE only won one for best screenplay and was nominated for eight Oscars, but dispute being called the best film ever made, it didn’t even win best picture. Many think that if Welles’s original cut of TOUCH OF EVIL were granted by the studio it might of had a different outcome. The film was also a box office bomb in the United States, but as with many masterpieces, they truly get the respect they deserve when the filmmakers are long and gone and never get to themselves and their films become legendary. TOUCH OF EVIL is a film that any up and coming filmmaker or film student would get their hands on, as it is a film that not only shows the making of a good film, but is something to learn from.
– Horror Bob
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