Touch of Evil (1958) *****

Touch of Evil is the Orson Welles masterpiece that fell into his lap and was then subsequently taken away by the studio and recut and reshot to their specifications. It would be forty years before Welles true vision was recreated based on a 53 page memo he sent to Universal in 1958 airing his concerns over the changes.

The film is opens with a car bomb exploding just as it leaves Mexico for the United States. A well respected Mexican drug enforcement agent names Vargas (Charlton Heston) is on his honeymoon with his new American bride Susie (Janet Leigh) and assists in the investigation that is headed by the legendary detective Hank Quinlan. As Vargas investigates the explosion and Quinlan's subsequent bending of the law his wife is being harassed and kidnapped by members of the Mexican crime family he plans on testifying against later in that week in Mexico City.

What Welles created with Touch of Evil was the last noir picture. Most of the action occurs in the dark with shadows being most of the scenery and the flashing lights of Mexican burlesque halls filling the slummy rooms throughout the film. Although it's hard to accept Charlton Heston as a Mexican he still does a fine job as Vargas, playing a game of cat and mouse with Welles as Quinlan. Quinlan is the anti-Charles Foster Kane. Fat, old, ugly he's like a lumbering pig whose only goal is to finish cases no matter what the cost. He doesn't do it for money: he does it for himself.

It's been said that Orson Welles peaked with Citizen Kane. That may be true, but Touch of Evil gives us the glimmer of that bright young man who went to Hollywood to make his kind of movies. Was he ahead of his time? Certainly.