Touch Of Evil

Year: 1958

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Welles

Review

though flawed, touch of evil is an inspired and visually interesting film. the story took a while to really inflate to the point where things were interesting and charlton heston as a mexican just simply doesn’t work. i think the strength of the film has to be it’s visual style – it’s one of the darkest looking films i can remember. it occurred to me that if orson welles hadn’t done his ‘war of the worlds’ radio address, or been one of the finest directors of all-time, he’d be known as one of the best actors of his time. he’s a pretty amazing talent. i liked a lot of the lighting in the film because, not only is very moody and atmospheric, but it also has an oddly singular look. i’ve seen plenty of noir before, but somehow this film is lighted in a way that makes it look different from most of the other films with shadowy landscapes. i don’t know what welles did, but in some scenes it looks like he used a single, powerful light source so that the scene was well lit, but filled with shadows. in other films it looks as though they just dim the lights, the result being less contrast between the lit and non-lit areas. i like the effect because it will reveal one side of a character’s face completely, but the other side will be in total darkness. despite the style i was unable to really get into this film. i’ve tried a few times now and it’s never interested me all that much. i will say that i found it most interesting this time, but still not consistently enjoyable. at the same time it’s hard to give this film a bad grade because it’s so good technically. oh well.