Reviews & Ratings for
Touch of Evil More at IMDbPro »

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153 out of 227 people found the following review useful:

So many eyes, so little vision

Author: Raoul Duke from Andorra
6 December 1998

Seldom have I seen so many comments with so little understanding. The movie is not about Heston's "Mexican-ness" or lack of it. The movie is not about the 5 or 8 or 10 minute opening shot. The movie is not even, god help us, about Welles' descent from the heights into "slumming it" in a "Grade B" flick.

The movie is about two things : film-making, and character. Every shot worth remembering (and there are few that aren't) is an exercise in the possibilities of film, particularly black and white film. Woody Allen makes movies in black and white that are all conversation. Welles made movies in black and white because that's where the colors of the characters, the location and ultimately the meaning of the movie are possible. Black and white film is about the infinite possibilities of shadow. Touch of Evil is about the infinite possibilities of human nature.

Heston, for those of you who just can't see past a "bad" accent is about rigidity and short-sightedness. What kind of idiot would leave his wife in all those threatening situations? The kind of idiot who can't imagine that anyone would harm HIS wife, simply because she IS his wife! Akim Tamiroff's Grandi is about flexibility to the point of breakage. Always playing ALL ends against the middle he is the essence of "harmless" corruption, that ultimately harms everyone.

And Welles' Hank Quinlan ... I just don't have the time or space to explain that Quinlan is about the true cost of police work when the humanity has gone out of it. Ultimately Quinlan would kill his best and only friend, the only one, as Dietrich has it, who really loves him. At one time, perhaps, Quinlan WAS the image that Pete Menzies saw. But the man behind that image was eaten up long ago with alcohol and frustrated grief. It's all about winning and losing now, and things he would never do. Until he does them.

There are so many other moments and characters that I'm afraid you'll just have to watch the film with your eyes and your mind open instead of shut to "get it". Pay attention to what's on the screen instead of the smart, cynical, hip comments you can make about an actual work of heart.

Well, what the hell. Joan Didion said it best. Film criticism is petit point on kleenex.

Raoul Duke

100 out of 142 people found the following review useful:

Spellbinding thriller

Author: Dr.Teeth from Edmonton, AB
8 November 1999

There are only two ways to write a review that would truly do this film justice. Either one would have to write an exceedingly long review, or a short, concise one. I choose to do the latter.

When I first saw "Touch of Evil," I was glued to the chair. When I found out it was not Welles' definitive vision, I wondered how on earth it could have been made better. And when I saw the re-released version, I wondered why the studio altered it. The stunning black-and-white images, the intricate plot, and the powerful, engaging performances took a hold of my imagination. At times, I imagined myself on the street with the characters, because the atmosphere was so thick I felt surrounded in it.

The actors all did an outstanding job, especially Leigh and Heston (who, although not thoroughly convincing as a Mexican, soared above his usual powerful, furious presence). This is Welles' picture, however, and whenever the camera catches his obese figure, you are fully aware of the man as a director and an actor. His powerful vision drives the film, from the single-cut opening sequence to the cat-and-mouse finale.

I suggest watching the 1998 restored version over the original theatrical release, but regardless of which version, "Touch of Evil" will have you stuck in your seat, questioning your views of morality until long after the last credit has rolled up the screen.

69 out of 91 people found the following review useful:

Another touch of brilliance from Welles

Author: stephen-357 from United States
26 January 2005

Considered by many to be the last "classic" noir film ever made, and perhaps the last masterwork from child prodigy Orson Welles, who looks about sixty in this film, despite his 42 years. In TOUCH OF EVIL the "noirish" dark streets and shadows are darker than ever, practically swallowing up the soft tones like a murky swamp. The action takes place in a nondescript U.S./Mexico border town where the worst that both sides has to offer is most in evidence. The famous opening scene (a 3 1/2-minute continuous shot) where we witness a time bomb being placed in the trunk of a Cadillac is masterful. The camera pulls in and out of the city scene as it follows the motion of the vehicle winding its way through streets littered with pedestrians, thus effectively creating a level of anxiety that could not be duplicated with multiple edits. After the inevitable explosion, the drama dives into a seedy world of corrupt police justice and malevolent decrepitude, which is filmed with such a stylish flair, it is almost weirdly humorous and playful! Mike Vargas, the good guy, is played by Charlton Heston and seems more than a wee bit miscast as a Mexican narcotics officer with his face darkened by makeup. When U.S. Police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) first meets him he remarks, "He doesn't look Mexican." Quinlan is the ultimate repugnant cop gone bad and Welles has the camera looking up into his nostrils most of the time making his character look even more monstrous. But Quinlan is also pitifully sad. A man who once had the instincts of a cat and the intelligence of a fox has been reduced to an insignificant mass of tissue, who's "instinct" is having a knack for finding evidence that he himself has planted. And while he may be revered by the local officials in law enforcement, he's acutely aware that he is a fraud and petrified that Vargas, has seen him naked.

55 out of 72 people found the following review useful:

A beautiful, haunting and complex film noir

Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City
11 July 2005

Rather than films like Citizen Kane (1941) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947), neither of which am I a big fan of, Touch of Evil evidences director/writer/star Orson Welles' capacity for cinematic genius. The story is engaging, suspenseful, tight and well paced; the cinematography is consistently beautiful, inventive and symbolic; the setting and overall tone of the film, including the performances, are captivating, yet slightly surreal and otherworldly; and there are many interesting subtexts. This all combines to create a complex artwork that will reward however far a viewer wishes to dig into the film.

Based on a novel by Whit Masterson, Badge of Evil, Touch of Evil is a battle between two policemen--Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and Ramon Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston). Parallel to this is a kind of border battle between the United States, represented by Quinlan, and Mexico, represented by Vargas; the film is set in two border towns, frequently crossing over.

As Touch of Evil opens, we see a bomb being placed in the trunk of a car in Mexico. A construction company owner, Mr. Linnekar, gets in with his girlfriend. Vargas and his new wife, Susan (Janet Leigh), manage to walk along next to the car--they're all crossing the border into the United States. Shortly after crossing, the bomb goes off. This brings the gruff Quinlan into the picture. His investigation of the bombing brings him into Mexico for suspects. Meanwhile, Vargas and his wife are being threatened by Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff), a Mexican mob boss, and his underlings. Both Quinlan and Vargas are well respected in their countries, and both are used to getting what they want. But the bombing investigation ends up putting them at loggerheads, and Quinlan gradually turns out to have more than a "touch of evil".

As with many of his films, Orson Welles ended up having to battle the studio to realize his artistic vision. Usually, as here, the battle was unsuccessful for him. Despite his 58-page memo detailing various problems with Universal's non-director supervised reshoots (by Harry Keller) and re-edits, because they felt that Welles' final cut "could use some improvement", the film was released in a form that was not satisfactory to Welles. The fiasco has resulted in various versions of Touch of Evil appearing throughout the years. The 58-page memo was thought to have been lost, but a copy was discovered relatively recently in Charlton Heston's possession. The film was recut in 1998 based on Welles' memo. So make sure that you watch the 111-minute version first released by Universal on DVD in 2000.

The opening scene of Touch of Evil is famous, and rightfully so. Beginning with the timer being set on the bomb, then the bomb being placed in Linnekar's trunk before he gets into the car, we follow both the car and the relative ebb and flow of Vargases as they roughly walk alongside the car, all in one very long tracking shot that covers a lot of ground and features a lot of unusual angles. Welles stages the scene so that there are all kinds of complex background and foreground elements interacting with the car and our protagonist pedestrians. The suspense built up in this scene is incredible--you just know that bomb is going to go off, but you don't know just when, or who it is going to hurt. Compositionally, the scene is simply beautiful. The film is worth watching for this opening alone, but the whole of Touch of Evil features similar, meticulously planned artistry, filled with suspense.

Welles as an actor tends to have a very peculiar way of speaking that is full of affectations. Sometimes this can be a detriment to the film, as it was in The Lady from Shanghai. Here, though, the oddity works, and this despite the fact that, like Woody Allen, he seems to direct his whole cast to deliver their dialogue as if they were him. As a result, Touch of Evil has very peculiar, contrapuntal scenes where people frequently talk on top of one another, with odd phrasing. It works because of the particular kinds of personality conflicts that Welles set up in the script. These are people who frequently _would_ talk on top of each other and occasionally not pay attention to each other.

But that's not the only odd thing about the film. Welles managed to find locations that, shot in this highly stylized and cinematographically complex film-noir manner, seem almost otherworldly. Except for a couple expansive desert shots, Touch of Evil feels eerily claustrophobic, even though most locations aren't exactly enclosed. The various modes and settings are all perfect for their dramatic material, which is mostly dark and moody. One change that Universal made was the excision of a lot of comic relief material featuring the Grandi family. Universal was right to cut it, and wisely, Welles agreed.

The music in the film is also extremely effective but unusual. Most of it is incidental. Latin and rock 'n' roll emanates from radios, for example, and the climax intermittently has a repeating, contextually haunting theme from a pianola.

But of course the story is just as important. Although Welles stated hyperbolically at various points that he was trying to "infuriate" the audience with a somewhat inscrutable plot, and it's true that the plot isn't exactly given in a straightforward manner, once you figure out the gist, it's relatively simple but extremely captivating. At the same time, it is full of symbolism and subtexts, including commentary on justice systems and perhaps some irony about the popular conceptions of the U.S. versus Mexico (made more complex by the fact that Quinlan spends just as much time south of the border and Vargas seems to spend a lot of time north). But as for being annoyed, you're more likely to become infuriated with Quinlan, who becomes more and more deliciously despicable as the film unfolds.

55 out of 77 people found the following review useful:

Pure black and white magic.

Author: terraplane from London
23 March 2000

Here is a film that wouldn't be made today because nobody makes 'B' movies anymore; and this is the greatest 'B' movie in the history of cinema. Here is the perfect example of why Orson Welles should be considered a genius. He has made this film look so effortlessly easy that it could almost be considered film making by numbers. From the famous opening sequence to the closing titles, this is the film students' reference book.

Welles portrayal of the bloated cop Hank Quinlan is only bettered by his Harry Lime in 'The Third Man'. He gets right inside the seedy, corrupt Quinlan; but still leaves room for just the lightest touch sympathy because we know that, after all, he's a fallible human like all of us. We almost feel sad at his fate especially when Marlene Dietrich gives her sad soliliquay about him.

This is another film that can only exist in black and white, and begs the question, why can't directors work effectively in this medium today? Some have tried but none have have really suceeded. David Lynch's Eraserhead is probably the best modern example of a black and white only film. Woody Allen's Manhattan tries hard but ends up looking too much like a documentary. I don't think that directors today use this medium enough, too many rely on colour and the efffects that can only work in colour to get them out of trouble.

So put A Touch Of Evil on your 'must see' list and enjoy a work of film making artistry.

70 out of 107 people found the following review useful:

A masterpiece of Gothic expressionism!

Author: Righty-Sock (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
1 October 2000

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" is a complex, ironic examination of the relationship between the law and justice... The film must stand beside the very best in detectives genre...

Its enormous confused tracking shots, its low angles, its tormented lighting, its obscure intelligent photography, its great use of the wide-angle lens, its hard complexity and complete fictional night-city word, all represent a brilliant essay of pure cinema establishing Welles as an alarming genius, one of the greatest filmmakers with movies years ahead of their time...

"Touch of Evil" is an outstanding achievement of a great cinematic mind, displaying a powerful range of Gothic expressionism... Welles' first appearance as a corrupt used-up Texas police captain (Hank Quinlan) is no less surprising...

A police car comes to a stop to the scene of a murder and unexpectedly there is Welles, sitting in the back seat: gross, unshaven, sweaty, and with a cigar clenched between his teeth... He seems a repellent person, with "intuition," manifesting that sensation of evil, as no crime movie has managed to do since, a suggestion of corruption that is the key to the fascinating and doubtful character he plays... Welles character will cheat, lie and murder in order to prevent the truth from emerging... One hates his toughness, yet one still understands him and feels pity for him than for his victims...

Joseph Calleia, his slightly more presentable assistant, is like Dana Andrews in Otto Preminger's "Where the Sidewalks Ends," a villain with unchanged methods: he waits, watches, leaves the police work to others, remains loyal to his profession and to his boss—but could not exist without him, or in another environment...

From that moment, we are caught between admiration of his brilliant directorial effects and fascination with his characterization of Quilan, a chief able to make a quick arrest by the simple expedient of framing the most likely suspects... He appears to have been using the techniques for years, but before this he has usually fitted the frame round the guilty party... It is a performance which frequently gives great energy to the screen...

Stanley Kubrick once said that the first shot of a movie should be the most captivating... Definitely, Welles' legendary opening shot satisfies one of the key requirements of the movie mystery... Of course, Russ Metty deserves a lot of credit...

The long traveling shot starts with a close-up of a time-bomb being placed in the trunk of a car by a shadowy figure, then, the richest man in town (Rudy Lanniker) and his mistress appearing from the background, getting into the car and driving away across the border from Mexico to the United States and through the border town... By this time the roving camera—that seems never to come to a standstill, has offered to us long view of the surroundings (crumbling arches, peeling walls, poor hotels and night clubs and a lot of trash) which will enclose the plot...

While the convertible stops at a crossroad, the camera descends swiftly to introduce a Mexican gentleman, an idealistic justice department lawyer Ramon Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his bride, the blonde American Susan (Janet Leigh) walking toward the frontier...

The superlative camera tracks the couple for some time, catching again the car as both Vargas and the automobile meet at the U.S. Customs post... We see and hear a conversation between Vargas, his wife and the border guard as the vehicle moves out of the frame... We proceed with the couple about to cross the border until the bomb goes off and the car explodes... The killing is the start of the conflict between policemen from both sides of the border...

"Touch of Evil" is great and memorable for the distinguished description of its scenes, its images, its acting and its sound track... Its importance lies entirely in how the event is told 'not' in the message or material...

In addition to its wonderful opening, the film contains other outstanding sequences:

- The deplorable ambiance of a closed nightclub where Marlene Dietrich wisely advises Welles to "lay off the candy bars." "Honey, you're a mess", she says when she finally recognizes Quinlan, and (at the end of the picture) when he asks "Come on, read my future for me," she replies: "You haven't got any. Your future is all used up. Why you don't go home."

- The single shot (in the murder suspect's apartment) where Welles handles his cast with great skill... There is much overlapping conversation as everyone talks at once, and half a dozen characters are brilliantly delineated...

- When the camera meets a group of three characters crossing the street across a hotel lobby and into a restricted elevator, and rides with them slowly up to the second floor until Vargas, who has left them in the lobby, reappears at the very moment the elevator door reopens...

- The horrifying siege of Leigh at the isolated Mirador Motel by a gang of young punks...

Perhaps the finest things about "Touch of Evil" is the cold, strange and unsympathetic atmosphere of its night city (narcotics, gang-rape, racism, prostitution) an almost universal corruption...

It's unlikely that there will ever be a more unpleasant or offensive or disgusting detective than Welles or a more fascinating one...

Watch for Mercedes McCambridge in it... but look quickly, or it will be too late.

85 out of 139 people found the following review useful:

The Best of the best

Author: anicham21 from Niskayuna, New York
13 September 2000

Touch of Evil has, perhaps, the BEST cinematography and lighting in ANY film ever made. Not just in the film noir genre, but in all categories. Orson Welles tended to use wide shots for all of his films, and Touch of Evil's use of wide shots took filmmaking to another level, especially with the amazing opening shot. The camera techniques and lighting are too spectacular to fathom, it is the grandmaster of all movies. Brilliant is an understatement. See this film, if not for the excellent acting and sheer brilliance in terms of the camera (this film had a GREAT D.P.!!), but for entertainment value. But if you are a film student or just want to see great camera work, Touch of Evil will astonish you.

52 out of 74 people found the following review useful:

The B-films would never be the same.

Author: walrus-5 from Porto Alegre, Brazil
29 January 1999

Orson Welles made this film over 15 years after "Citizen Kane", but even though it doesn't reach the level of "Kane", he never lost his genius touch. With a basic story and regular budget he made the most famous B-film ever. His majesty in the camera control and the editing jump out of the screen. His director geniality is seen through the outstanding performances by great actors like himself, Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietricht, and actors not that great, like Charlton Heston. Several lines of this motion picture are amongst the greatest of all times, specially the Dietrich ones. The credits scene, that runs uncut for about 3 minutes, is one of the greatest moments in the film history, along with the pianola tune at Tanya's place. Some might say that "Touch of Evil" is banal and boring, but these are the people that don't like real motion pictures, and we all know that, so we don't care about them.

33 out of 45 people found the following review useful:

The movie that makes substance out of style

Author: stalker vogler from Xanadu
14 October 2007

The genius of Orson Welles (and I am only convinced of his genius and that of Eisenstein and Griffith, though I have seen thousands of movies) was so amazing that one could easily see in the reviews on the IMDb that mostly everybody got the right idea about Touch of Evil. It is almost impossible not to SEE what Welles intended to be seen in this picture, the differences of opinion come afterwards and have nothing do do with the movie itself but with the way we interpret it. We have to keep in mind that Heston himself, who was the damn actor playing the leading role had no idea what he was actually doing in here, just as Anthony Perkins will be clueless to the meaning of his role in The Trial four years later. It is obvious for everybody that the movie has style, but few understand the meaning of that style. It is not only the noirish cinematography (partially invented by Welles-Tolland in Citizen Kane) and the overall movement of the camera and the brilliant lighting and everything that means cinema that gives this picture style, but the fact that it is aware of its being the last of the mohicans, the last of the noir genre. This awareness gives a new depth to the movie that other B-flicks never had. The customary recipe with a noir movie was a gullible guy, falls for pretty, dangerous woman with a dangerous husband or boyfriend, a crime is committed and the gullible guy gets the fall. This is a story about the appearance of things not being their essence, and every noir movie shared something from this. Touch of Evil is all about this: yes, for all you frustrated Heston-haters, he was suppose to be a parody of a Mexican, just as Welles was supposed to be both a parody of his Harry Lime character and a parody of himself. And Marlene is a German actress speaking English, playing a Mexican gypsy saying "Adios" at the end. Akim Tamiroff is a Georgian playing a Mexican etc. etc. There are also the apparently transsexual...fellows at the motel. Everything is fakery in this picture and I think that this should be looked upon in the same analytic vein as we look at movies such as Alphaville or A bout de soufle. Nobody thinks Godard intended a sci-fi or a noir with those movies, then why should we think that Welles intended a noir with this one? Is it simply because the story seems to unravel in the usual noir way? I agree that the story is not so convincing if you look at it only at the surface. Any story from any noir movie more or less is filled with holes and loose ends. The main intent of those movies was never to create a perfect, novel-like story, but a cinematic account of what a story could be. Touch of Evil is one of the most cinematic movie you will ever see. Every shot is composed with a perfect understanding of what the medium can do, and in this category I think it is only matched by Welles' own Othello in the use of architecture in order to achieve a sense of space within the frame. Look at the way the shadows are projected on the walls and at the relative proportions of the characters. It is clear to the fullest that the movie develops in space and time, a conscience alone for which this movie deserves praise .

17 out of 24 people found the following review useful:

A Masterpiece of Malevolence and Loss of Humanity

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 December 2009

After crossing the border of Mexico to the United States of America, the bomb planted in the car of the wealthy businessman Rudy Linneker blows up in Los Robles. The Mexican Chief of Narcotics Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) is spending honeymoon with his American wife Susan Vargas (Janet Leigh) in the border town and will testify in the case of the drug dealer Grandi that is arrested in Mexico City. The idolized ex-alcoholic American Police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) is in charge of the investigation since the murder happened in the American side of the border, but Mike Vargas participates as observer since the Mexican citizen Sanchez (Victor Millan) is the prime suspect. Meanwhile, Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamitoff) unsuccessfully presses Susie, trying to convince her husband to drop the case. When Hank plants two dynamites in the house of Sanchez in a shoe box that Vargas had seen empty ten minutes before, he confronts Hanks. Joe Grandi witnesses their argument and associates to Hank to discredit Vargas, dishonoring Susie.

"Touch of Evil" is a masterpiece of malevolence and loss of humanity and one of my favorite movies ever. The long sequence in the beginning is in my opinion the best in cinema history, with a perfect timing. The black and white cinematography is amazing, with the perfect use of shadows and lighting. The story is fantastic and Orson Welles is awesome in the role of a despicable policeman that believes in his hunches, eternally grieves the loss of his wife and wishes to bring justice no matter the means and without any ethic. Janet Leigh performs a strong female character unusual in the 50's. Charlton Heston has also an unforgettable performance in the role of an ethical police office that is the opposite of Hank and prioritizes his work to his family, leaving his wife alone to seek the truth about his opponent. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "A Marca da Maldade" ("The Mark of the Malevolence")

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