About the Event
Touch of Evil
Directed by Orson Welles
(US, 1958, 108 min.)
Saturday, September 10 | 7:00 PM
Murfee Worsham Screening
Orson Welles returned to Hollywood filmmaking and made Touch of Evil for Universal. It would be his last Hollywood film and has been a touchstone and a battleground for world cinephiles. A murder in a border town, and the pervasive corruption of that world, dictate the film’s extraordinary camerawork (lead by Russell Metty). Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh are the central couple but the film belongs to Welles as Hank Quinlan, local cop with his own idea of justice, and the parade of grotesques who move the film, including Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joseph Cotton. With a brilliant performance by Joseph Calleia as Quinlan’s deputy and stooge. “Thanks to Orson Welles, nobody, and we mean nobody, will nap during “Touch of Evil Any other competent director might have culled a pretty good, well-acted melodrama from such material, with the suspense dwindling as justice begins to triumph (as happens here). Mr. Welles’ is an obvious but brilliant bag of tricks. Using a superlative camera (manned by Russell Metty) like a black-snake whip, he lashes the action right into the spectator’s eye… . Where Mr. Welles soundly succeeds is in generating enough sinister electricity for three such yarns and in generally staging it like a wild, murky nightmare.” –Howard Thompson, New York Times, May 22 1958
“A movie of transcendent movie-ness and still-astonishing virtuosity” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 1998
Discounted parking at Founder’s Court. $5 flat rate, credit card required.
