'Evil' just the way Welles wanted you to see it

COURTESY OCTOBER FILMS Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil' is film noir at its very best.

Movie enthusiasts will rejoice at the re-release of Orson Welles' underappreciated 1958 classic, Touch of Evil. The new version, which follows the guidelines of a 58-page memo sent by Welles to Universal Studios in an effort to salvage his film, clocks in at a slightly beefier 111 minutes, but the changes only improve on the original version.

This improvement is evident from the start of the picture, which opens with a shot that is deservedly one of the most famous in Hollywood history. The camera shows a bomb being placed in the trunk of a car. It then follows both the the car--containing a wealthy American and his female companion--and newlyweds Mike and Susan Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh), who are walking across the Mexican-American border. The tracking shot continues for an unbelievable three minutes without a cut, virtuosically moving between the two couples before the car moves offscreen and the bomb explodes--at which point Heston and Leigh run to the car, and the camera cuts away. This scene has been improved by the removal of both the opening credits and the Henry Mancini score, leaving just the action and the sound.

Touch of Evil is both an example and a critique of the classic film noir genre. Welles' characters are almost parodies of the stock characters from standard film noir fare, but Welles even tweaks our expectations for parody. Contrary to popular stereotypes of the age, Welles' corrupt cop is American, while his crusader in search of justice is Mexican. The supporting cast members turn in fascinating performances, from Marlene Dietrich's Tanya to Dennis Weaver's disturbing motel manager--who undoubtedly inspired Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho two years later.

The plot of the film thickens as Vargas decides to intervene in the case after learning that American policeman Hank Quinlan--masterfully played by Welles himself--has no interest in justice and is trying to bring the investigation of the bombing to a close as quickly as possible. In retaliation, Quinlan and a local gangster out for revenge against Vargas team up with the intent to discredit Vargas and his wife. When Quinlan kidnaps Vargas' wife, has his henchmen drug and possibly rape her (the film is very ambiguous), and frames her on drug and homicide charges, Vargas must engage him in a battle of wits in order to bring his corruption to light before it is too late.

Simply recounting the intricate details of Touch of Evil's spellbinding plot does not do the film justice. Its beauty lies in the artful skill that went into making its production look so effortless. Every shot and every line of dialogue is meticulously crafted, and the film as a whole--particularly in its new form--is as perfectly shaped as Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane. True, its narrative may not be as epic as Kane's, but its images are every bit as powerful.

All of Welles' films contain elements of autobiography, and his picture of Quinlan is yet another semi-self-portrait of a man irredeemably corrupted by the world. He even includes a few subtle references to his other great work, such as the final speech, given by Dietrich's Tanya about Quinlan. "He was some kind of man. What does it matter what you say about people?" is eerily reminiscent of many of the statements made about the title character in Kane.

Touch of Evil is one in a long line of re-released and to-be-re-released films which have been showered with adulation as the truest representations of the directors' original intentions--à la Lawrence of Arabia and Blade Runner--whether or not they really deserve the praise they receive. In the end, Touch of Evil is a must-see simply because it is and always has been, such a truly great film.

Touch of Evil was born at the end of Hollywood's film noir era, and stands as possibly the fullest flowering of the genre. To borrow an image from another of Welles' films, Lady from Shanghai, this movie is a fun house in which each character's face is hideously reflected and revealed as being touched with evil.

At times, this evil is almost laughable (can you really mainline marijuana, as one character suggests?), but the final image it leaves you with is that of Welles' Quinlan, swaggering as if he owned the world, but defeated in the end by his own contrivances. Quinlan is a man who, though he may fail, leaves his image indelibly impressed on our minds.

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