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Touch Of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: Orson Welles
Actors: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, Mercedes Mccambridge
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.98
Buy New: $16.97
You Save: $10.01 (37%)
New (46) Used (5) from $16.97
Rating:  164 reviews
Sales Rank: 2279
Format: Black & White, Dolby, Dvd-video, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.9
MPN: MCAD61103474D
UPC: 025195027809
EAN: 0025195027809
ASIN: B001CC7PQ2
Theatrical Release Date: 1958
Release Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 10/07/2008
Amazon.com essential video
Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles's film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all--it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles's original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles's directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles's control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 159 more reviews...
 Worth the Upgrade January 6, 2009
W. Tucker (Taylor Mill, KY)
Containing all video versions and the script of Welles's revisions, this update of the noir classic is certainly worth the money (or trade-in for your old version). I'm biased, of course, as this is one of my favorite film noir classics, one of the last official examples of the style. Welles, Heston, Leigh, Dietrich,in great roles, alone makes it worth the price. Akim Tamiroff as the Mexican crime boss and, in smaller roles, Dennis Weaver, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Mercedes McCambridge (!) add even more interest.The photography and music are top-notch,and even the minor supporting actors all contribute excellent performances. If you have any interest in noir, you should have this version.
film noir meets shakespeare January 3, 2009
Pascal G. Bouvier (bethesda, md usa)
film noir may have gotten out of style or petered out of existence due to its over-exposition, then welles came and made touch of evil, and re-invented the genre by adding a touch of shakespeare with a truly decadent, distorted, depraved energy. i would even dare say a grotesque baroque energy. and when i read or utter the word grotesque i immediately think of another movie, get shorty, where the main character goes to the movie to see touch of evil. how fitting!
we all know of the famous first scene, continuous, a technical prowess at the time - replicated by altman himself at the beginning of his movie the player. welles' first scene introduces movement, kinetic energy, noise, chaos. he reinforces this sense of movement throughout the movie, experimenting with various angles, perspectives, closed or opened shots and picture compositions. the camera is very dynamic throughout. at the same time he sets himself as a deformed anchor. his body is front and center, immovable, difficult to avoid, a lumbering piece of flesh which contrasts with the sense of movement that abounds everywhere else. this dichotomy is repeated in different tones and hues: 1) contrasting a shakespearian narrative with the film noir genre, 2) loyalty and friendship with betrayal, 3) law enforcement with corruption, 4) characters with a narrative meaning and characters with no narrative meaning, e.g. marlene dietrich's character, 5) the crisp style black and white brings with the deformity of the sound track and welles body.
welles played oversized characters - kane, othello, macbeth. his gift to us is i think a rendition of these characters into one, quinlan, who follows the same destiny, from grandeur to a miserable end. only this time welles brings in a touch of his own life, an autobiographical touch which makes evil very real.
this movie is a gem. watch it over and over again.
Borderline noir December 23, 2008
D. Hartley (Seattle, WA USA)
Yes, this is the sleaze-noir Orson Welles classic with THAT famous tracking shot, Charlton Heston as a Mexican police detective, and Janet Leigh in various stages of undress. Welles casts himself as Hank Quinlan, a morally bankrupt police captain who lords over a corrupt border town. Quinlan is the most hideous grotesquerie Welles ever created as an actor, and certainly stands as one the most unique and complex heavies in all of film noir. The film features one of the last great roles for Marlene Dietrich, who gets all the best lines ("You should lay off those candy bars."). The scene where Leigh gets terrorized in an abandoned motel by a group of thugs led by an ultra-creepy, leather-jacketed Mercedes McCambridge could have been directed by David Lynch; there are numerous such stylistic flourishes throughout that are simply light-years ahead of anything else going on in filmmaking at the time (1958). Fans of the film have had to make do with an improperly matted and cropped DVD transfer-until now. Not only have those screen ratio issues been corrected, but we are also given 3 different cuts of the film in this new edition: the restored and re-edited 1998 version (re-cut to the specifications that Welles had requested in a 58-page memo to the studio that ultimately fell on deaf ears), the original theatrical version, and the preview version (which has a commentary track with Heston and Leigh). Extras galore. (This review is for the 2008 50th Anniversary Edition, BTW).
 Another Sorry Mess. Highly regrettable. Bad storytelling. November 28, 2008
A. Guidice
2 out of 18 found this review helpful
A big "Citizen Kane" fan in my youth, I saw Touch of Evil in 1981 and thought it was simply awful. Then recently I heard of this reissue, and thought I'd buy it and watch it again. I discovered that in our youth we often know what's right, but often doubt ourselves. The movie is still awful. It may be more true to Welle's vision, but it's still awful. His talent had gone, quite obviously, by this time.
Many of us want so desperately to find Welles' later work important that we'll do almost anything to trick ourselves into thinking it is. Most often men do this... women know it may quack like a duck but it ain't no duck. This movie is hard to watch, not credible, the writing is unnatural and stilted, the premise preposterous.
Yes, the opening crane shot is elaborate and done in one take. But a bit unnecessary. Lots of work to show a car bombing. And overly long and trying - like the entire picture.
This movie is really Welles doing an impersonation of himself. The pacing is deadening, it's hard to follow. It was written apparently for Welles to impress us with his filmmaking, not to tell us a story. There is no regard for the audience here. Like all his later films, this is like an overwritten book that is hard to read, rather than lucid storytelling. The film has no balance - each scene is trying to be a mini-epic, rather than an element to tell the story.
A movie, after all, exists to communicate a story. Some scenes do need to be visually loud and impressive, but they need to be contrasted with quieter scenes. Some scenes are just there for information - like the car bomb. In Touch of Evil, there is no thought to that at all. Every scene is a visual, bombastic overreach. It's as though Welles is trying to tell us, "This is art. Get it? Get it? This is art." Meanwhile the film leaves us angry, like we've been cheated. And we have been. Any Perry Mason TV episode is heads and shoulders above this, because the craft of storytelling is done well.
That's the form - now the content. Hank Quinlan isn't a very compelling character. We don't care much for him at the start, and could care less at the end when he falls backward into the water. Heston as the hero doesn't really behave in a believable fashion, he looks like someone playing a character in a film. Why is Quinlan blubbering over all the time, and for what reason? Who is the Marlene Dietrich character, and why is Quinlan sitting there at her house? (who cares? - what the hell is going on with the story?) All of you, if you're objective, will agree that there is nothing to care about in this film. And it's poorly crafted. The end quote: "He was some kind of man, etc..." Ridiculous. No one cares.
Welles was a hot fire who had burned into a smoking dead heap by the time he made this, and the movie is much like him at this time: overly indulgent, self centered, ineffective. For "Kane", those self centered qualities had meshed well with the story; Kane was fresh, bold storytelling. That's why it's so enjoyable, it does a very good job of telling the story. Touch of Evil is moribund, tired, wheezing for breath. Much like Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream", Touch of Evil gives us a sad reminder of what once shone as a great talent.
See "The Grand Illusion" or "Rules of the Game" by Renoir if you'd like to see truly great films. Even "Swamp Water" is a wonderful film. Not this.
The Italians say the best way to get praise is to die. Well, this film was almost immediately recognized as a classic once Orson Welles died. But it isn't. It was a mess when he was alive and it's still a mess. We all want Welles work after Kane to be good, and important because we want his accomplishments to fit this image we have of him: the grand, all-knowing, gregarious, misunderstood genius filmmaker. But almost all of his later work isn't good, almost all of it is terrible. Welles best work was him talking about his career. The actual films, after Kane, are really just pretty lousy.
unleashes an electrical charge! November 9, 2008
peter andronas (canada)
A bomb goes off in a car across the Mexican border and a man is chosen to take the rap. Meanwhile another man of the law who's on his way to his honeymoon with his bride, suspects a police frame-up. Forced by his conscience, he takes on the corrupt and the criminal and puts himself and his newlywed wife in grave danger. Welles' Touch Of Evil is a cruel-realized poem of corruption, greed and murder. It's a dark, vicious, chaotic world and from the first scene to the last, Welles holds it together, pulls it apart and unleashes it with an electrical charge! The great musical score supports the stunning action and photography!
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