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.

The plot

Capt. Quinlan is not on the take, but is bitter about the unsolved murder of his wife early in his career and has come to believe he can spot the guilty with his intuition, an aching in his bad leg, and he was willing to frame the guilty to make sure they get their just deserts. Quinlan's cane, an allusion to Citizen Kane, plays a major part in the film. In fact, Welles was injured during filming and actually needed the cane.

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Touch of Evil is rich and ripe with menace and atmosphere as Leigh is abducted by hoodlums and Heston attempts to find her, with the moody border ambiance provided by Venice, California with a two sleazy hotels, a desolate motel, and three or four broken down bars, and strip joints, as well as Dietrich's kitsch-filled parlor. The border setting provides Welles with an opportunity to comment on the relations between the United States and Mexico and the treatment of Mexicans by American law enforcement.

Related Topics:
Venice, California - Kitsch - United States - Mexico

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The final scene is a stately chase, with Vargas wrestling with a cranky recorder while Quinlan's partner wears a wire and gets him to confess his crimes, with the radio recorder becoming virtually a fourth character.

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