Video Review

Necessary 'Evil'

Orson Welles' masterpiece Touch of Evil, restored as the auteur intended, glows on video.

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Credits

Rated: Unrated; Genres: Crime, Drama; With: Marlene Dietrich, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Orson Welles

By Ty Burr

Ty Burr

Ty Burr is a writer at large for EW and is no relation to Raymond or Aaron

When Orson Welles' 1958 film noir Touch of Evil was reedited a few years back according to the director's specifications (outlined in a rediscovered 58-page memo), cineasts and film historians rejoiced: A flawed masterwork could finally be seen the way its creator intended. That said, the average video renter probably won't notice what's changed -- and not just because legal snafus have prevented Universal Home Video from releasing the hour-long making-of documentary that was supposed to accompany the DVD and boxed editions of the videotape (though you do get to read Welles' memo on the disc version).

The average renter may not even notice the newly cleaned-up print, in which Russell Metty's astounding camera work plumbs the depths of moral murk in a corrupt Mexican border town, or the way the celebrated three-minute opening shot is now uncluttered by opening titles. But even the casual viewer may be able to discern that Evil is, like so many other films by the most supremely talented egotist in the history of the medium, about Orson Welles himself. As the jowly, murderous, shockingly bloated police chief Hank Quinlan, Welles still manages to be more sympathetic than the priggish nominal hero played by Charlton Heston, and the scene where fortune-teller Marlene Dietrich reads his cards could stand as the director's Hollywood epitaph. ''Come on, read my future for me,'' he asks. ''You haven't got any,'' she snaps. Just so: Welles never made another studio film. A

WHAT WE SAID THEN: ''...unspools with all the complex, unnerving menace and nihilistic subtext its writer-director had in mind all along.'' A (#450, Sept. 18, 1998) -- Lisa Schwarzbaum

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Touch of Evil 1958 UNIVERSAL 111 MINUTES RATED PG-13 ALSO ON DVD

Posted Nov 03, 2000

More

DVD Review Touch of Evil (Oct 07, 2008) | Chris Willman
Movie Review Touch of Evil (1958) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
Video Review Touch of Evil | Ty Burr
Movie News Hollywood re-releases some classics (1958) | Steve Daly, Jeff Gordinier
Movie News Please Release Me (1998) | Josh Wolk
Video News WHEN AUTEURS ARE ACTORS | Tom Soter

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