Touch of Evil (1958 Dir. Orson Welles)

Touch of Evil

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles , 1958 ) attempted to lift the stylish low-budget crime drama form with quality directing , writing , acting cinematography , soundtrack , and locations , while maintaining the authentic film-noir motif . One of the key elements of film-noir was steamy sexuality , and Touch of Evil exploited this genre feature enthusiastically with lurid and seductive characterizations and scenes of tawdry sexual tension

Touch of Evil takes place in a b town between the USA and Mexico representing the thin line separating two different cultures and realities . The lead character

finds himself in a dilemma when a murder takes just as he and his bride cross the b . He struggles to deal with local officials without ruining his honeymoon , but events conspire against him . The local Sheriff is dishonest , his wife is kidnapped by his enemies , and his murder investigation takes him into an underworld of human misery , corruption , and sleaze

In 1958 , interracial relationships were socially unacceptable , perhaps even forbidden in certain sections of America . Hollywood generally avoided the subject until the controversial Guess Who 's Coming to Dinner (1967 , Stanley Kramer , almost a decade later . So when Touch of Evil 's opening scene presents a Hispanic man and a Caucasian women , a newly wed couple , it purposely introduces an element designed to produce audience anxiety . When Orson Welles ' character , Sheriff Quinlan , realizes that the characters portrayed by Charleton Heston as Miguel Vargas , a virile Mexican , and Janet Leigh as Suszie , a sexy American , are a honeymooning husband and wife , he snidely comments , She don 't look Mexican Earlier , the Mexican b guards addressed the same issue with similar disdain . These scenes establish interraciality as a socially unaccepted custom in the film 's universe and focuses the audience 's attention and expectation of danger on the issue . The plot soon fulfills the expectation

Vargas , an honest and incorruptible police official , tries to help the local police solve a murder that he and Suzie witnessed as they crossed the b into Mexico in the open scene . In one scene of high sexual tension - and fantasy - Suzie , in seductive lingerie , in the privacy of her hotel room , has phone sex with her husband who has called her from a pay phone . A blind man , adding a titillating voyeurism to the scene overhears the conversation

Matters are complicated when Suzie is kidnapped by criminals with a grudge against Vargas , and Vargas ' dedication to his prosecurial duty and concern for his wife leave him with a dilemma of two separate crises both demanding him to take action . The stakes rise when Vargas becomes convinced that the local sheriff (Welles ' Quinlan ) is corrupt and is framing an innocent man

Vargas tries several times to rescue Suzie , which fail and serve to incite the kidnappers to threaten Suzie with sexual degradation , and ultimately places her in even greater danger of being murdered . The result of these events on top of the smoldering relationship between the main characters is a story that produces a story environment...