Written and directed by Orson Welles
Based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson
Starring: Charlton Heston, Vivian Leigh, and Orson Welles
Running Time: 95 minutes (Theatrical Cut)/ 111 minutes (Reconstructed Cut)/ 108 Minutes (Preview Cut)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

The post-production issues that plagued Touch of Evil are almost as legendary as the film itself. Granted, most of those issues were due to director Orson Welles butting heads with the studio brass at Universal, who hated his cut of the film so much they brought in another director to shoot sequences to make the film easier to comprehend for the average audience. Welles hated this cut and penned a 58-page memo detailing how he wanted the film edited, but it fell on deaf ears until a restored version of the film was recut to Welles’ specs in 1998. This isn’t exactly a director’s cut since Welles was long dead by then, but it’s without a doubt much closer to his original vision than the original 95-minute theatrical cut. 

That said, the theatrical cut of Touch of Evil is the one you know and love. The one that inspired Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard to take to the Parisian streets and shoot their own debut films after they saw it at the Brussels World Fair. And though it might be sacrilege to admit, it was also my favorite of the three cuts featured in Kino Lorber’s new Touch of Evil set (which includes 4K restorations of the theatrical cut, the reconstructed cut, and a preview cut that Universal screened to test audiences who roundly hated the film). The preview cut is more of a curiosity than required viewing and the real fun here is to pit the theatrical cut against the restored version. The result is largely a film nerd’s game of “Spot the Difference,” and a featurette on the disc with the reconstructed cut covers the bullet points of what was changed. 

Most notably the reconstructed cut removes the titles and the blaring Henry Mancini score from the film’s famous opening sequence. The film opens with an uncut four-minute shot that starts with a bomb being placed in the trunk of a car and ends with that car exploding in a ball of fire. The theatrical version of this sequence is weirdly jaunty and distracting whereas the reconstructed version is pure tension as newlyweds Mike and Susie Vargas (Charlton Heston and Vivian Leigh) stroll through the streets of a Mexican border town. It’s an impressive bit of filmmaking by any metric, but mostly it just makes me happy this reconstructed version got the royal treatment.

Regardless of which version you watch, there’s no getting around just how weird this movie is. It has all the hallmarks of a classic film noir, but by virtue of being shot in 1958 it has a more sinister edge than its 1940s counterparts. It’s somewhere in between Double Indemnity and Chinatown and it really feels like you get the best of both worlds. On one hand, Welles’ direction and cinematography is the platonic ideal of what a noir should look like. The compositions are staggeringly great, and they’re no better than when Welles is filming his own character Hank Quinlan with his droopy jowls and perpetually sweat-covered grimace. On the other hand, there’s a real sense of menace to Touch of Evil that the classics could never get away with. One of the core elements of the film is Vivian Leigh’s Susie Vargas being tormented by a gang of young, violent street toughs at a remote hotel that feels more like Psycho than a detective flick. 

Touch of Evil gets a bad rap for having an “incomprehensible plot,” but watching these versions it feels like that notion was popularized by the sort of dullards who need someone to hold their hand and explain what a story is about every step of the way. It’s knotty, sure, but the basic premise about a crooked detective and a special prosecutor trying to make sure justice is served and the personal ramifications of that sort of idealism in a broken system isn’t as labyrinthine as some critics make it out to be. More confusing is why Welles cast Charlton Heston as a Mexican. It’s one of the most baffling casting choices in Hollywood’s history, right up there with Mickey Rooney playing an Asian landlord and John Wayne playing Genghis Khan. It’s hard to get more problematic this side of Al Jolson, so your mileage may vary on how much you can tolerate this one. 

Problematic casting and post-production woes aside, Touch of Evil is the Welles film that comes closest to touching the pure cinematic glory of Citizen Kane. It’s sort of like when a band releases an all-time classic as their debut and effectively put themselves behind the 8-ball for how the sophomore effort will be received because there is no world in the multiverse where it can top such an unrivaled masterpiece. Still, there’s just so much command of the craft on display here it would likely be any other director’s undisputed masterpiece (assuming their name isn’t Orson Welles). Maybe I’m biased since I’ve been a Welles fanboy since I accidentally chose him as the subject for a biographical presentation in 8th grade (I bafflingly confused him with the writer of one of my favorite books, The War of the Worlds, HG Wells) and started in earnest down a path of pure cinema obsessive. Really, that’s who this set is for. The lot of us who can’t be helped. Who see a Blu-Ray set with 3 versions of the same movie and say, “That sounds like an outstanding way to spend a weekend, how many audio commentaries are there?” (In this case five, if you were wondering).