STACK #143 Sept 2016

visit stack.net.au

EXTRAS

Touch of Evil (1958) Directed by Orson Welles Part 2 of 2

I n 1957, Charlton Heston was sent a script entitled Badge of Evil (the original title) with an offer from Universal-International to play the lead role of a forthright assistant district attorney, who brings a corrupt southern California police detective to justice. The screenplay was akin to a 1940s- style cop thriller that begins with a sudden outburst of violence whose consequences the rest of the movie attempts to untangle. Heston liked the script, but before accepting wanted to know who the director was. The studio didn’t know but told the actor

constant artistic autonomy from the studio system. Hence, the primary reason Welles had not directed a Hollywood movie for ten years. Universal, desperately needing the accomplished and popular Heston for their film, reluctantly offered the director’s chair to Welles with the caveat that he would only be paid for his acting role. But the studio executive then added a sweetener. If Welles completed the film on time and within budget, it could possibly lead to a multi-picture contract with the studio. Welles agreed on the condition that he be allowed to

Marlene Dietrich as bordello owner Tana

that Orson Welles was lined up to play the rogue cop. Heston replied that if Welles was also directing the movie, he would willingly star in it. Following his outstanding directorial debut, Citizen Kane (1941) – still considered today to be the greatest American movie of all time – Orson Welles had become a cult figure within the Hollywood acting fraternity. However, the major film studios did not share that view due to his reputation for irresponsibility, self-indulgence and

rewrite the screenplay. The determined Welles scrapped the original script and completely rewrote it in seventeen days. His adaptation transformed a cheap standard thriller into a visually and structurally complex cinematic study in depravity, that has since been described as film noir’s perfect epitaph. To add racial and sexual tension to the story, Welles swapped the action from San Diego to the US-Mexico border and the ethnicity of the lead male and female roles. Heston’s character Miguel

His adaptation transformed a cheap standard thriller into a visually and structurally complex cinematic study in depravity

28

SEPTEMBER 2016

jbhifi.com.au