Now, imagine if you will watching the opening minutes of Touch of Evil unfold without any of the pre-conceptions or expectations hung on the movie by film school profs and writers; consider coming into the opening scene blind and you'll get some sense of my first contact with the Orson Welles masterpiece. Here's a movie that I knew virtually nothing about before the opening tracking shot, reputed to be one of the landmark opening shots in film history, thrilled me and sent me scrambling for the rewind button on my remote. I'm referring of course to the unbroken tracking shot which begins on a pair of hands starting the timer on a bomb, planting the bomb in the trunk of a car and then following the car as it drives through the streets of the Mexican border town, criss-crossing paths with our heroes before ultimately crossing the border and exploding. Breathtaking doesn't really describe the path this camera takes as it rises and falls over buildings and around corners to follow the action. Rather, Hitchcock's famous bomb theory comes to mind with the passing of each minute on the clock. [If you don't know, Hitchcock's bomb theory was that it was more thrilling to show an audience a bomb and then let them fret about when it would go off, rather than simply having a bomb go off.]
During this opening, my mind also wandered to Children of Men, in large part because of the revolutionary sequences Alfonso Cuarón choreographed in that film, choosing like Welles to circle and chase the action with one unbroken shot; in Cuarón's case, my understanding is that the sequences took some CG assistance and pioneered some new camera effects, but the impact is no different. I'm certain that 1950's audiences must have been as surprised as modern audiences to see just how far the camera would go to pursue the story. Nothing new under the sun, I suppose. Cuarón's technique isn't new, just the tools and sophistication available to him.Touch of Evil is full of just such surprises, unpredictable at every turn but always wrapped in Welles' virtuoso storytelling. Not everything in the movie is as showy as the opening sequence; consider the chase that closes the film as Charlton Heston's Vargas pursues Welles' corrupt sheriff with a tape recorder, shadowing him through an industrial set and under a footbridge. As Welles hears his own voice repeating behind him, he assumes it to be an echo. The staging is simple, but creates a layer of anxiety to the pursuit that would have been missing from a more traditional foot chase.
Orson Welles is equally spectacular in front of the camera. Playing the nefarious Police Captain Quinlan, Welles is a monster on-screen, physically as much as morally. Photographed from low angles, he dominates the frame whenever he appears, lumbering and slurring his speech like a man who has just finished a big meal. Knowing Orson Welles on-screen mostly from Citizen Kane and The Third Man, he is almost unrecognizable under the extra weight. The voice, however, remains unmistakable. And the performance is superior at every turn, finding an unusual balance between crookedness and most surprisingly of all, sympathy. It's one of those rare movie performances where you can't take your eyes off the screen.
Still, despite all of that, I guess this is really supposed to be Charlton Heston's movie and he does a fine job as the Mexican (hello?) detective who finds himself at odds with Captain Quinlan. Funny enough that Heston never seems Mexican in the film despite his name (Ramon Vargas) and moustache, however the performance still works. In fact, under Welles' enormous shadow, Heston seems practically subdued, not as flashy and theatrical as other performances. Janet Leigh is great as Vargas' wife, a victim of Quinlan's manipulative plans.If any aspect of Touch of Evil has aged poorly, it is the wife-in-jeopardy elements of the film: Quinlan's masterstroke is to "frame" Vargas' wife by having some gang-members dope her with truth-serum and surround her with "marijuana roaches" to give the wrongful impression that she is a junkie. In 1958, I suppose marijuana had enough reputation to play this role, but in modern times, it seems a little silly. Heroin maybe could work, but marijuana joints seems like a stretch. Still, on-screen drug use in 1958 must've been pretty edgy.
The rest of the film's plot is remarkably canny given the modern climate. The challenge of solving a car bombing at a border crossing is probably more relevant in 2007 than it was 50 years ago, regardless of the outcome of the crime (it's certainly not terrorism in this story). And of course, the spine of the film has less to do with the crime on which the story is hung, than the damaging cat-and-mouse game between Vargas and Quinlan, the righteous and the corrupt sides of the law.
I have no problem calling this film a masterpiece and will look forward to watching it again.
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