Touch of Evil
Overview
Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...

 thriller  film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil
Badge of Evil
Badge of Evil is a novel written by Whit Masterson and published in 1956...

 by Whit Masterson
Whit Masterson
Whit Masterson is a pen name for a partnership of two authors, Robert Allison “Bob” Wade and H. Bill Miller . The two also wrote under several other pseudonyms, including Wade Miller and Will Daemer....

. Along with Welles, the cast includes Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

, Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....

, Joseph Calleia
Joseph Calleia
Joseph Calleia was a Maltese born American singer, composer, screenwriter and actor, both on Broadway and in film...

, Akim Tamiroff
Akim Tamiroff
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...

, and Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

.

Touch of Evil is one of the last examples of film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 in the genre's classic era (from the early 1940s until the late 1950s).
The film opens with a three-minute, twenty-second tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...

 widely considered by critics as one of the greatest long takes in cinematic history.
Quotations

This isn't the real Mexico. You know that. All border towns bring out the worst in a country. I can just imagine your mother's face if she could see our honeymoon hotel.

There are all kinds of policemen, sir. I don't have to tell you that. A few take bribes... Most are honest, yes, but even some of the honest men abuse their power in other ways.

Listen, I'm no cop now. I'm a husband! What did you do with her? Where's my wife?

How can I leave here until my wife's name is clean? Clean!

There's an old lady on Main Street last night picked up a shoe. The shoe had a foot in it. We're going to make you pay for that mess.

Listen, I got a position in this town, a reputation...somebody's gonna be ruined.

[about his wife's killer] I followed around after him...ate my heart out trying to catch him but I never did. That was the last killer that ever got out of my hands.

30 years of pounding beats and riding cars, 30 years of dirt and crummy pay. For 30 years, I gave my life to this department. And you allow this foreigner to accuse me. Answer, answer, why do I have to answer him? No sir! I won't take back that badge until the people of this county want me back.

[about Vargas] He's a drug addict. He's got that young wife of his hooked too, but good. If I hadn't seen that hypodermic myself...That's how come he happens to imagine all those crazy things. It's typical. What that wife of his was doing on that dive on skid row. Both a couple of junkies. Course he's using the job as a cover-up.

[to Menzies] Look out. Vargas'll turn you into one of these here starry-eyed idealists. They're the ones making all the real trouble in the world. Be careful, they're worse than crooks. You can always do something with a crook.

 
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