Touch of Evil

Touch of Evil (1958), was one of the last and one of the greatest examples of film noir ever made. It was directed by Orson Welles, who also appeared as a strangely corrupt policeman, Captain Hank Quinlan. The black-and-white film also features Charlton Heston as Mike Vargas, a Mexican narcotics agent on his honeymoon, Janet Leigh ("at her most perversely innocent" as one critic put it) as his bride, and Marlene Dietrich as Tanya, a cigar-smoking Mexican gypsy brothel owner with huge beautiful eyes.

Quotations

From the film

• "Honey, you're a mess." (Tanya to Quinlan)
• "A policeman's job is only easy in a police state." (Vargas)
• "Come on, read my future for me."
  "You haven't got any."
  "What do you mean?"
  "Your future is all used up." (Quinlan and Tanya)
• "He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people? Adios!" (Tanya, as Quinlan's corpse floats face up in a muddy river at the end of the movie)

About the film

• "Touch of Evil, of course, was made by one of the great directors. If it is not Citizen Kane, it has been listed not far behind Kane in the list of Welles' films. It was a remarkable experience for me, a great learning experience, one of the most valuable I've had in my whole film career. I probably learned more about acting from Welles than any other film director I've worked for."—Charlton Heston