Friday, May 14, 2021 at 6:11:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Returns! This week’s entry Saturday Morning-Sunday Night at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958 Extended Version). It features Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff and Marlene Dietrich.
Film Noir Guide: “The honeymoon of a Mexican detective (Heston) and his American bride (Leigh) gets cut short when a bomb planted in a car on the Mexican side of the border explodes on the American side, killing a wealthy American and his stripper girlfriend.
“A legendary gringo detective (Welles) takes charge of the investigation, quickly fingering a Mexican national for the crime.
“Heston hangs around long enough to learn that Welles’ investigation tactics are somewhat shady if not downright illegal.
“The corrupt American cop must resort to extreme measures to keep his Mexican counterpart quiet.
“Meanwhile, Tamiroff, the American brother of a Mexican crime lord, attempts to blackmail Heston into dropping the charges against his brother by photographing Leigh in a compromising situation.
“Dietrich plays a Mexican gypsy, Welles’ former girlfriend.
“Look for cameos by Joseph Cotten as a police doctor, Zsa Zsa Gabor as the owner of a strip club, and Mercedes McCambridge as a butch biker.”
“While Heston may seem miscast as a Mexican cop, he actually turns in a fine performance, avoiding the use of a phony accent. Calleia is excellent as Welles’ loyal partner, who is so blinded by his devotion to the man who once took a bullet for him that he’s oblivious to Welles’ crimes. But it’s Welles, at his biggest and grubbiest, who deserves top honors, playing an egocentric, obese, racist, alcoholic cop, who long ago learned to rationalize his phony arrests.”
“Forty years after the film was made, changes that were requested by Welles in his now famous 58-page memo to Universal studios, written after the studio shot additional scenes and re-edited the film. Unfortunately, studio execs ignored Welles’ impassioned pleas. The 1998 director’s cut, with its subtle changes, improves the already near perfect film. Some film historians point to Touch of Evil as the last film of the classic noir period.”
David in TN: Some years ago, Eddie Muller intro’d Touch of Evil and wailed that Ricardo Montalban should have played the lead, instead of Charlton Heston. Without Heston, the studio wouldn’t have financed it.
In the novel the film is supposedly based on, the Heston character is an American with the San Diego DAs office. His wife is a Mexican from a wealthy family south of the border. Welles reverses this with an honest Mexican law enforcement officer married to an American woman contending with a corrupt American cop.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 am ET is Phil Karlson's The Brothers Rico (1957) with Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Larry Gates, Paul Picerni, and James Darren.
Film Noir Guide: "Conte, a former accountant for the mob, is now a legitimate businessman. He and his wife (Foster), unable to have children, are desperately trying to adopt. The adoption process comes to a screeching halt when Conte's kid brothers (Picerni and Darren), who recently performed a hit for their boss (Gates), ask for Conte's help because they're afraid that Gates now wants THEM dead. Not a lot of action here, but Conte is excellent as usual. Teen idol Darren went on to star in the TV sci-fi series The Time Tunnel."
Last week in his intro for Touch of Evil, Eddie Muller said again "In my heart I preferred Ricardo Montalban," but said, "Touch of Evil was made because of one man, Charlton Heston."
TCM has a bonus Saturday evening at 4:30 pm ET with John Boorman's Point Blank (1967), Lee Marcin and Angie Dickinson star in the "dreamy" revenge drama. The best segment is when Angie, wearing a miniskirt, goes into the mob hotel distracting the guards while Marvin sneaks in to kill his treacherous former partner.
You wonder if Angie Dickinson played this scene out in real life, going into a hotel (or a certain large house) to meet a powerful man.
TCM is showing Orson Welles' Touch of Evil: Extended Version (1958) tomorrow (Wednesday Night) at 8 p.m. ET. Charlton Heston is this month's TCM Star of the Month.
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