Touch of Evil (1958) Review

I think so many people know of the famous opening tracking shot, but no one really hears about the rest of the film. The movie is still a good movie, but nothing surpasses that opening scene. Welles worked hard to get that scene and I appreciate it because starts the movie's story and introduces our two main characters with the other main characters following soon after. Welles is behind the camera as well as in front of it where he gives the best performance of the movie as Police Captain Hank Quinlan. He is quite possibly one of the dirtiest cops in history, especially considering how highly regarded he is with the people. Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh are good as Mike and Susan Vargas. I particularly enjoyed the Grandi boys. They were the most horrific part of this movie. I think the "evil" is the title refers to Welles' Quinlan, but I think the Grandi's were more terrible when they are onscreen. Touch of Evil falls in the second act and is resurrected in the third, not to mention the strong first act and in those acts is where the 4 star rating comes from. I think the evil holds up well considering when this film was made, but the dragging middle is...well..just that - dragging. Welles seems to always churn out good movies and this is no exception. I think Citizen Kane has it's flaws, so this is no better or worse. I say give it a shot if you like a director with style and vision (I noticed that he seemed to shoot the camera from the down pointing up to his character a lot) and Orson Welles always had that in spades.