Touch of Evil is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, who also stars. The screenplay was loosely based on Whit Masterson's novel Badge of Evil (1956). The cast included Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff and Marlene Dietrich.
Universal-International commissioned the film adaptation of the novel in April 1956. Albert Zugsmith was selected as producer, who then hired television writer Paul Monash to write the script. Heston was brought on board to star in January 1957 and suggested that Welles direct the project. Welles was hired to direct and star, as well as re-write the script. Filming started the next month and wrapped in April. During the film's post-production, creative differences between Welles and Universal executives arose and Welles was forced off the film. Subsequently, Universal-International revised the film's editing style to be more conventional and ordered re-shoots to be made in November 1957. In response to the new version, Welles wrote a 58-page memo in which he elaborately outlined his creative vision for the film and asked that his version be restored.
Initially dismissed by film critics, Touch of Evil found popularity among European audiences and won top awards at the 1958 Brussels World Film Festival. During the 1970s, its reputation was rehabilitated and it is now widely regarded as one of Welles's best motion pictures, one of the last and best of the classic-era noir films, and one of the greatest films of all time. In 1998, Walter Murch re-edited Touch of Evil according to Welles's original vision, as outlined in his memo.
In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Along the U.S.–Mexico border, a time bomb placed inside a vehicle explodes, killing two people. Mexican special prosecutor Miguel Vargas, who is honeymooning in town with his new American wife Susie, takes an interest in the investigation, which is being conducted by veteran police captain Hank Quinlan and his devoted, admiring, fanatically loyal assistant, Pete Menzies. Quinlan is a recovering alcoholic and an anti-Mexican bigot. He injured his leg long ago, and now walks with a prosthetic "game" leg and a cane. He implicates Sanchez, a young Mexican man secretly married to the victim's daughter. During the interrogation at Sanchez's apartment, Menzies finds two sticks of dynamite in a shoe-box in the bathroom. Vargas, who had accidentally knocked over the shoe-box a few minutes earlier and found it empty, accuses Quinlan of planting the dynamite, and begins to suspect that many of his previous convictions were similarly tainted. Quinlan angrily dismisses Vargas's allegation. Vargas learns that Quinlan had recently purchased dynamite and presents proof of this to Adair, the District Attorney, who resists investigating further.
"Uncle" Joe Grandi, the acting leader of a crime family Vargas has been investigating, makes common cause with Quinlan against Vargas, and plies Quinlan with bourbon whiskey, causing him to break his sobriety. Grandi orders his family to capture and inject Susie with heroin, and while she is unconscious, he and Quinlan lock her in a hotel room. Quinlan then murders Grandi and leaves the body there with Susie; however, drunk and exhausted, he carelessly also leaves his cane in the room with them. When Susie wakes up and sees the body, she screams for help, and gets arrested on suspicion of the murder, which infuriates Vargas. Searching the room, Menzies finds Quinlan's cane, and realizes that Quinlan is the real killer.
Vargas, reviewing Quinlan's past successes, confirms his suspicion that Quinlan has planted evidence in many of the cases. He confronts Menzies, who sadly agrees to work with him to expose Quinlan, by wearing a wire and getting a confession.
Quinlan hears an echo from Vargas' recording device, and realizes that Menzies is betraying him. He shoots and mortally wounds Menzies. He then aims his gun at Vargas, but the dying Menzies shoots Quinlan before he can fire. Susie is exonerated and reunited with Vargas. As Quinlan dies, it is revealed that Sanchez has confessed to the original bombing.
Cast
Production Development In March 1956, the mystery novel Badge of Evil was released to generally favorable reviews and its sales were brisk, with two printings in hardcover. Edward Muhl, the head of production of Universal-International, believed the novel had cinematic possibilities and arranged to purchase the film rights through the literary agency Curtis Brown. By April 1956, the Los Angeles Times reported that the film rights had been acquired and that Albert Zugsmith (known as the "King of the Bs") had been tapped as producer. Zugsmith then assigned television writer Paul Monash to write the script adaptation within four weeks. Zugsmith then read Monash's script, but did not care for it and temporarily halted any further development on the project. By December 1956, Zugsmith had received a memo from Universal executive Mel Tucker inquiring about the development of Badge of Evil and suggested the possibility of casting Charlton Heston as the lead.
By January 1957, having just finished promoting The Ten Commandments (1956), Heston had received the script and considered it good enough. The actor contacted Universal to ask who they had considered to direct. They told him that they did not know, but Orson Welles was lined up as Hank Quinlan. Heston then replied, "Why not him direct, too. He's pretty good" to which the studio responded "We'll get back to you." Universal studio head executives Ernest Nims and Jim Pratt—both of whom had worked with Welles on The Stranger (1946)—lobbied for Welles to direct again. Based on Pratt's suggestion, Universal-International offered Welles $125,000 for the job to act, direct, and based on his choosing, to rewrite the script. On January 11, it was officially announced that Welles had signed with Muhl to star in and direct Badge of Evil.
Welles had previously starred in Man in the Shadow (1957), which Zugsmith produced. According to Zugsmith, on the last day of shooting, Welles, who was impressed with Zugsmith's writing abilities, expressed that he was interested in directing a picture for him. Zugsmith offered Welles a pile of scripts, of which he requested the worst one. Welles was then handed Monash's script for Badge of Evil to which he asked, "Can I have two weeks to write it?" Zugsmith replied, "You can have it."
Writing
For his screenplay draft, Welles made numerous changes along with smaller changes to better tighten the script. His two main contributions dealt with his thematic element of American racism and his decision to shift narrative points of view. He shifted the location setting from San Diego to the Mexico–United States border near Tijuana. Welles renamed the protagonist from Mitch Holt to Miguel Vargas, stating he made the character a Mexican "for political reasons. I wanted to show how Tijuana and the border towns are corrupted by all sorts of mish-mash, publicity more or less about American relations". Welles's shooting script was finished by February 5, 1957. Heston stated that Welles re-wrote the script in ten days.
Casting Welles selected Janet Leigh for the role of Susan Vargas. Before her agent had notified her of the casting, Welles contacted Leigh via telegram stating how delighted he was to work with her on Badge of Evil. She contacted her agent, and accepted the part. Dennis Weaver was asked to audition as the night manager after Welles had watched him as Chester Goode on Gunsmoke. He was instructed to improvise. Meanwhile, Zugsmith had met Joanna Cook Moore at a party, and was determined that she was right for the role as Marcia Linnekar.Schallert, Edwin (February 9, 1955). "Newcomers Win Capital Film Breaks; Robinson to Enact Mad Bomber" . Los Angeles Times. Part III, p. 3 – via Newspapers.com. Welles rounded out the supporting cast with Akim Tamiroff, whom he previously cast in Mr. Arkadin (1955), while Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Marlene Dietrich, and Keenan Wynn agreed to appear in the film for union pay scale and without screen credit. Zugsmith also insisted that his friend Zsa Zsa Gabor be given a cameo in the film. Ultimately, all actors were paid over union scale and given screen credit, except Cotten.
Having known Mercedes McCambridge since her time at Mercury Theatre, Welles called her and requested she arrive at the set. Leigh and the actors dressed as "greasy-looking hoodlums" stood around waiting for Welles to start filming. Welles had McCambridge's hair cut and applied black shoe polish over her newly trim hair and eyebrows. According to her memoir: "They brought a black leather jacket from somewhere, and I was 'ready.' Orson said he wanted a heavy, coarse Mexican accent. I said, 'You've got it!'"
Joseph Calleia was cast as Quinlan's longtime partner Pete Menzies, giving Welles an opportunity to work with an actor he had long admired. "What an actor—Joseph Calleia", said Welles:
I fell in love with him as a ten-year-old boy. I saw him in a play in New York ... a very well-staged melodrama which was an enormous hit for about a year—it was made as a movie later with somebody else. He had the leading role, and I never forgot him. And through the years I'd seen him in movies—little things. And I could never forget that performance of his. He's always played very stereotyped parts in pictures but is one of the best actors I've ever known. I have such respect for him. You play next to him and you just feel the thing that you do with a big actor—this dynamo going on.Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum, This Is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 .
"Even among these performers, one man's sincerity stands out," wrote George E. Turner, film historian and editor of The American Cinematographer. "Joseph Calleia, a veteran actor from Malta, makes Menzies the most realistic and touching character in the film. ... His agony is the true touchstone of the film."
Filming The film was shot in Venice, California from February 18, 1957, to April 2, 1957. The location had been suggested to Welles by Aldous Huxley, who informed him the town had decayed significantly. Welles, cinematographer Russell Metty, and the art directors drove there, and upon viewing the city's Bridge of Sighs, Welles decided to revise the ending to incorporate it. Sometime during the early months of filming, Zugsmith retitled the film to Touch of Evil, which Welles later criticized calling it "silly."
As when he worked with cinematographer Gregg Toland, Welles and Metty devised a distinctive visual style for Touch of Evilincorporating deep focus, off-kilter and low-angle shots (to emphasize the girth of Quinlan), and other stylistic touches that furthered the visual style of film noir. Most notable among the stylistic flourishes in the film is an opening crane shot that runs almost three-and-a-half minutes, which has frequently been commented on by film scholars.
Heston's autobiography states that the scene with Vargas and Schwartz in the convertible marks the first time that a scene with dialogue was shot in a moving car, rather than a stationary one in front of a projection screen. However, there is an earlier example of such a scene in Gun Crazy (1950).
Post-production