Fiction
TOUCH OF EVIL
Orson Welles
USA 1958
111 min
V'08
Orson Welles' glorious - if temporary - return to the Hollywood fray after years of studio neglect is one of his richest and most rewarding pictures. Adapted by Welles himself and based on a minor novel by Whit Masterson (which Welles famously never read), it is a supremely confident and stylish work. From the legendary opening tracking shot - still technically mesmerising - Russell Metty's black and white photography creates a strange chiaroscuro, a noir landscape (though a straggler of the genre, the film stands as one of its finest entries), in which quintessential Wellesian themes of evil, corruption, and moral ambiguity loom large. (David Wood)
Credits
- Charlton Heston - Mike Vargas
- Janet Leigh - Susan Vargas
- Orson Welles - Hank Quinlan
- Joseph Calleia - Pete Menzies
- Akim Tamiroff - «Uncle Joe» Grande
- Joanna Moore - Marica Linnekar
- Ray Collins - Adair
- Dennis Weaver - Nachtportier
- Valentin De Vargas - Pancho
- Mort Mills - Schwartz
- Victor Millan - Manuel Sanchez
- Orson Welles nach dem Roman «Badge of Evil» von Whit Masterson
- Russell Metty
- Leslie I. Carey
- Frank Wilkinson
- Aaron Stell
- Edward Curtiss
- Virgil W. Vogel
- Henry Mancini
- Russel A. Gausman
- John P. Austin
- Bill Thomas
Universal International Pictures
Paramount 5555 Melrose Avenue Hollywood, CA 90038, USA
Universal Filmverleih Neubaugasse 1 1070 Wien T 1 523 46 31 17
35 mm
bw
