Touch of Evil (1958)

Orson Welles’ return to Hollywood after ten years working in Europe is a sleazy border tale in which he takes centre stage as gargantuan detective Hank Quinlan.

Charlton Heston (starring here as Mexican border cop Mike Vargas) was apparently instrumental in persuading B-movie producer Albert Zugsmith to hire Orson Welles – who hadn’t directed in Hollywood for a decade – to make Touch of Evil.

Beginning with one of the most celebrated tracking shots in cinema history, a bravura three-minute take in which a bomb is planted in a car that then explodes after crossing the US border, Welles created a baroque, highly stylised masterpiece from inauspiciously pulpy source material.

With its story of murder, marijuana and police corruption, Touch of Evil is considered among the last of the 1940s/50s cycle of crime thrillers known as film noir. Welles’ vivid turn as corpulent bent cop Quinlan provided one of the genre’s most memorable villains.

Iniquity south of the border also colours Welles’ prior film noir, The Lady from Shanghai (1947), starring his then-wife Rita Hayworth.

1958 USA
Directed by
Orson Welles
Produced by
Albert Zugsmith
Written by
Orson Welles, Paul Monash
Featuring
Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles
Running time
108 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Touch of Evil

Critics

Julien Allen
UK
Matthew Asprey Gear
UK
Ramsey Campbell
UK
Lauren Carroll Harris
Australia
Hervé Dumont
Switzerland
Neil Fox
UK
Annika Haupts
Germany
Sascha Keilholz
Germany
Dimitris Kerkinos
Greece
B (Brent) Kite
USA
Gabe Klinger
Brazil/USA
Roger Luckhurst
UK
Demetrios Matheou
UK
Adam Murray
UK
Hidenori Okada
Japan
Jan Olsson
Sweden
Jonathan Romney
UK
Martin Rubin
USA
Christine Rüffert
Germany
Aboubakar Sanogo
Burkina Faso / Canada
Will Sloan
Canada
Gerwin Tamsma
Netherlands
Anne Thompson
USA
Alexandru Tirdea
Romania
Peter Tonguette
USA
Ivan Velisavljević
Serbia
Christian VIVIANI
France
Michael Wood
USA

Directors

Mark Cousins
UK
Abel Ferrara
USA
Amos Gitai
Israel/France
Owen Kline
USA
Lluís Miñarro
Spain
Frank Oz
USA
Lindsey Vickers
UK

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