Touch of Evil (Restored to Orson Welles' Vision)

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A big "Citizen Kane" fan in my youth, I saw Touch of Evil in 1981 and thought it was simply awful. Then recently I heard of this reissue, and thought I'd buy it and watch it again. I discovered that in our youth we often know what's right, but often doubt ourselves. The movie is still awful. It may be more true to Welle's vision, but it's still awful. His talent had gone, quite obviously, by this time.

Many of us want so desperately to find Welles' later work important that we'll do almost anything to trick ourselves into thinking it is. Most often men do this... women know it may quack like a duck but it ain't no duck. This movie is hard to watch, not credible, the writing is unnatural and stilted, the premise preposterous.

Yes, the opening crane shot is elaborate and done in one take. But a bit unnecessary. Lots of work to show a car bombing. And overly long and trying - like the entire picture.

This movie is really Welles doing an impersonation of himself. The pacing is deadening, it's hard to follow. It was written apparently for Welles to impress us with his filmmaking, not to tell us a story. There is no regard for the audience here. Like all his later films, this is like an overwritten book that is hard to read, rather than lucid storytelling. The film has no balance - each scene is trying to be a mini-epic, rather than an element to tell the story.

A movie, after all, exists to communicate a story. Some scenes do need to be visually loud and impressive, but they need to be contrasted with quieter scenes. Some scenes are just there for information - like the car bomb. In Touch of Evil, there is no thought to that at all. Every scene is a visual, bombastic overreach. It's as though Welles is trying to tell us, "This is art. Get it? Get it? This is art." Meanwhile the film leaves us angry, like we've been cheated. And we have been. Any Perry Mason TV episode is heads and shoulders above this, because the craft of storytelling is done well.

That's the form - now the content. Hank Quinlan isn't a very compelling character. We don't care much for him at the start, and could care less at the end when he falls backward into the water. Heston as the hero doesn't really behave in a believable fashion, he looks like someone playing a character in a film. Why is Quinlan blubbering over all the time, and for what reason? Who is the Marlene Dietrich character, and why is Quinlan sitting there at her house? (who cares? - what the hell is going on with the story?) All of you, if you're objective, will agree that there is nothing to care about in this film. And it's poorly crafted. The end quote: "He was some kind of man, etc..." Ridiculous. No one cares.

Welles was a hot fire who had burned into a smoking dead heap by the time he made this, and the movie is much like him at this time: overly indulgent, self centered, ineffective. For "Kane", those self centered qualities had meshed well with the story; Kane was fresh, bold storytelling. That's why it's so enjoyable, it does a very good job of telling the story. Touch of Evil is moribund, tired, wheezing for breath. Much like Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream", Touch of Evil gives us a sad reminder of what once shone as a great talent.

See "The Grand Illusion" or "Rules of the Game" by Renoir if you'd like to see truly great films. Even "Swamp Water" is a wonderful film. Not this.

The Italians say the best way to get praise is to die. Well, this film was almost immediately recognized as a classic once Orson Welles died. But it isn't. It was a mess when he was alive and it's still a mess. We all want Welles work after Kane to be good, and important because we want his accomplishments to fit this image we have of him: the grand, all-knowing, gregarious, misunderstood genius filmmaker. But almost all of his later work isn't good, almost all of it is terrible. Welles best work was him talking about his career. The actual films, after Kane, are really just pretty lousy.

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Touch of Evil (Restored to Orson Welles' Vision)

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A bomb goes off in a car across the Mexican border and a man is chosen to take the rap. Meanwhile another man of the law who's on his way to his honeymoon with his bride, suspects a police frame-up. Forced by his conscience, he takes on the corrupt and the criminal and puts himself and his newlywed wife in grave danger. Welles' Touch Of Evil is a cruel-realized poem of corruption, greed and murder. It's a dark, vicious, chaotic world and from the first scene to the last, Welles holds it together, pulls it apart and unleashes it with an electrical charge! The great musical score supports the stunning action and photography!

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