Touch of Evil (1958)

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Director: Orson Welles

Writers: Orson Welles, based on the novel "Badge of Evil" by Whit Masterson

Stars: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Joanna Moore, Ray Collins, Dennis Weaver



A Mexican drug enforcement official (Charlton Heston) and his wife (Janet Leigh) become the targets of a corrupt police captain (Orson Welles) when they discover that he has been planting evidence in an explosive case.

 


I think this legendary film is better than director Orson Welles's even more celebrated "Citizen Kane." 



The camera work and the orchestration of certain key scenes are superb, even if logic sometimes takes a back seat to showmanship.

 


The flipping of stereotypes is interesting, presenting a driven, virtuous Mexican cop and a corrupt American one.

 


The miscast Heston is stiffly stalwart in his role, but Welles provides the emotional core of the story playing a dissipated man who is spiraling out of control as his house of cards comes tumbling down, inflicting all kinds of collateral damage on the people around him.


Spoiler alert!!! Final scene!!
























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