Review for "Touch of Evil"

The movie starts in a seedy Mexican border town and the story is about a Mexican drug investigator, Vargas, who is at the crime of a scene with his wife and accuses a police captain, Quinlan, of planting evidence and there is a rivalry between these two men. Quinlan is prejudiced against Mexicans and so he vows to destroy Vargas. While this is happening, Vargas’ wife played by Janet Leigh is terrorized by a gang and Quinlan tries to use her to destroy Vargas.

During the end during the part where we find out it was Quinlan who plants the dynamite I can go back to the beginning of the movie and say “ohhh.” Obviously his intuition is right because he strives to make sure it is right, and if planting dynamite is what he has to do then by all means it has to be done. That is why the movie is named what it is, Touch of Evil, because every good thing probably has a touch of evil in it. Quinlan is a police officer who strives for the good of the people but he has a touch of evil in him. That thin line is so easy to cross sometimes I feel.

At first the plot was losing me and my eyes were growing heavy due to so much school work but after a while I started to get the drift of the film and the intensity of the movie pulled me in the more I watched it. The first talk about the Grandi business was confusing because they never show this guy and it seemed like two different stories but later it meshed to one for me. Orson Welles looked so huge and I was wondering at such vast obesity till I was told that he was padded and that is probably why he was filmed looking up at him to show his largeness. Another thing I liked is how Edward G Robinson was incorporated in this movie when Vargas’ wife yells at Grandi’s brother

Note that the hotel scene was just like Psycho. Same actress, sexual themes, and skittish hotel owners.

From the quality I feel like this was a lower budget movie but it still managed to be a successful movie. Apparently, after Welles left to film another movie, they re-cut the movie and added different parts which were not part of Welles’ original plans and a furious Welles sent in a 58 page memo giving detailed faults with the movie and how to change it he was ignored.

The movie so far has one of the longest cuts I’ve seen so far with my new knowledge of editing, the beginning scene. It was a bit over three minutes. The movie used these kinds of techniques for the whole movie which probably is why it was noted for being a great movie, editing-wise. It did still have the characteristics of film noir. There was use of low camera angles and sharp shadows. There were detective work and big themes especially that of murder. Of course the use of low lighting was incorporated also.

It’s funny because there was a scene at the end of the movie where director Orson Welles asked Marlene Dietrich to predict his future and she said he had no future and that his future was all used up. The funny thing is that after this movie, Welles didn’t direct anymore movies in Hollywood and he didn’t even know it but he was predicting his own future as he directed that scene. In fact, Quinlan and Welles aren’t much different because they both are celebrated but ultimately fall down to their demise due to their own work. Irony strikes once again.

Overall it was a good movie though.