Touch of Evil, 1958.
Directed by Orson Welles.
Starring Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
SYNOPSIS:
Orson Welles’ classic Touch of Evil, which suffered from a troubled production history before being restored to his original vision more than a decade after he died, arrives on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Kino Lorber. All three versions of the movie are presented here in restored 4K – the theatrical, preview, and restored cuts – along with five commentary tracks (two of which are new) and a pair of recycled featurettes. This is a must-have for Welles fans and cinephiles in general.
Touch of Evil may not resonate in film history the way director Orson Wells’ Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons have, but it’s still an excellent film in its own right, a noir that studies racism and corruption in a seedy town along the border between Mexico and the United States. Unfortunately, Universal meddled with the film, chopping it down and reshooting scenes against Welles’ protests, and it came and went in 1958 without much fanfare.
Decades later, however, a new regime at the studio decided to make up for the offense against Welles, and a reconstructed version of the film was assembled in 1998, based on notes from the director’s infamous 58-page memo to Universal after he saw what they had done. Kino Lorber has presented that version of the film here, along with a preview version that incorporated some of Welles’ demands as well as the butchered theatrical version.
All three version of the film have been restored in stunning 4K, making this three-disc set the definitive version of it on home video. While the reconstructed version has a few flaws, since different prints had to be cobbled together to assemble it, there’s no way it will ever look any better, barring the miraculous discovery of better film elements. This is a movie that pulses with heat and sweat, much like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and all of that is on display here. You can almost smell the sweat coming off Welles’ obese, corrupt police chief.
Sure, there are things you can ding the movie for, most notably the casting of Charlton Heston as Mexican special prosecutor Miguel Vargas – he looks the part, but he sounds like the same old Heston. However, I’m not sure that the actor would have been more believable in the role had he used an accent. Let’s chalk that one up to the way the Hollywood studio system operated back then, a constraint that Welles often railed against. I’m sure his career would have had a very different arc had he broken into the industry during the 1970s.
Kino Lorber ported over most of the previously released bonus features for this edition, but they also commissioned a pair of new audio commentaries, one for the reconstructed version and one for the theatrical cut. The first one features film historian Tim Lucas discussing the theatrical version, giving us a comprehensive overview of the film’s production from beginning to end, including the novel on which it was based.
The other new commentary track is also of the “film class in a box” variety and has film historian Imogen Sara Smith discussing the reconstructed version in all its glory. She covers a lot of territory too, including a deep dive into Universal’s mishandling of the movie and the sequence of events that led to its reconstruction.
There are an additional three commentary tracks found here, all of which have been ported over from past Universal releases. They are:
- Author and filmmaker F.X. Feeney on the theatrical cut: In particular, he has a lot to say about the famously elaborate tracking shot that opens the film, a shot that took all day to rehearse and much of the night to finally get right.
- Welles historians Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore on the preview cut: Recorded in 2008, this commentary discusses the film in the context of Welles’ life and career.
- Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and reconstruction producer Rick Schmidlin on the reconstructed cut: Recorded in 1999, this track features Schmidlin discussing his work on the reconstruction while Heston and Leigh look back fondly on their experiences making the movie with Welles.
Finally, we have a pair of featurettes:
- Evil Lost and Found (18 minutes): Heston, Leigh, and Schmidlin are joined by several other interviewees, including editor Walter Murch, directors George Lucas and Curtis Hanson, and Welles collaborator Peter Bogdanovich, to discuss the movie’s troubled production history. Particular attention is paid to the reconstruction, which Murch had worked on just a year before these interviews were shot in 1998.
- Bringing Evil to Life (21 minutes): Many of the participants in Evil Lost and Found return here, along with others including director Robert Wise, restorer Bob O’Neil, and actor Dennis Weaver, who has a memorable role in the movie as a motel’s overnight employee. This featurette delves into the making of the movie.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
Originally published April 10, 2022. Updated December 10, 2022.
