Touch of Evil (1958)

Note Générale:

8,4/10   

Réalisateur:

Orson Welles

Scénaristes:

Orson Welles (screenplay)
Whit Masterson (novel)

Date de sortie:

8 juin 1958 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Thriller

Accroche:

The Overwhelming Drama of a Strange Vengeance

Intrigue:

Stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in Mexican border town.

Plot Keywords:

Mexican | Border | Evidence | Investigation | Law

Récompenses:

3 wins

Avis des utilisateurs:

Hellish, haunting, human...

Ensemble

Charlton Heston	...	Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas
Janet Leigh	...	Susan 'Susie' Vargas
Orson Welles	...	Police Captain Hank Quinlan
Joseph Calleia	...	Police Sergeant Pete Menzies
Akim Tamiroff	...	'Uncle' Joe Grandi
Joanna Moore	...	Marcia Linnekar
Ray Collins	...	District Attorney Adair
Dennis Weaver	...	Mirador Motel Night Manager
Valentin de Vargas	...	Pancho - Grandi Hood
Mort Mills	...	Al Schwartz - District Attorney's Assistant
Victor Millan	...	Manelo Sanchez
Lalo Rios	...	Risto - Grandi's Nephew
Michael Sargent	...	Pretty Boy
Phil Harvey	...	Blaine
Joi Lansing	...	Zita

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some violence and drug content. (1988 restoration)

Durée:

95 min | Germany:111 min (1998 alternate version) | USA:108 min (1975 alternate vesion) | USA:112 min (director's cut) | Spain:106 min (DVD edition)

Pays:

USA

Langue:

Anglais | Espagnol

Couleur:

Noir et Blanc

Rapport de forme:

1,37 : 1

Son:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Classification:

Germany:16 (restored version) (re-rating: 2005) | Netherlands:6 | South Korea:15 (2003) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12 (restored version) | Finland:K-16 (original rating) | Germany:18 (restored version) | Norway:15 (re-rating) (1999) | Norway:16 (1985) | Spain:13 (DVD rating) | Sweden:11 (restored version) | Sweden:15 (original rating) | UK:12 | USA:Approved (PCA #18506) (original rating) | USA:PG-13 (No. 36039) (re-rating) (1998 restoration) | USA:Unrated (restored version) | West Germany:16 (nf)

Lieux de tournage:

Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA

Société:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Anecdotes:

Janet Leigh's agent initially rejected her participation in this film due to the low salary offered without even consulting the actress. Orson Welles, anticipating this, sent a personal letter to the actress, telling her how much he looked forward to their working together. Leigh, furious, confronted her agent telling him that getting directed by Orson Welles was more important than any paycheck.

Goofs:

Equipe ou équipement visible: Crew and equipment reflected in the side of Vargas's car as he prepares to take his wife to the american motel.

Guillemet:

[first lines]
Border Cop: Uh, you folks American citizens?

Connexions:

Référencé sur "House M.D.: Joy to the World (#5.11)" (2008)

Bande son:

Tana's Theme

Hellish, haunting, human...

There are several candidates for Welles greatest masterpiece - on odd days, this is mine; on even days I might choose The Magnificent Ambersons, Chimes at Midnight, Othello...

Welles took on this shlock noir potboiler adapted from Badge of Evil as a challenge, to prove that he could make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. His genius (so often frittered away in later years) is evident in every frame from the famous, dizzying virtuosity of the opening shot - the long tracking over crowds and streets to the no-man's-land of the Mexican border which seems to encompass all human life before exploding into the plot itself.

Welles own adaptation ditches Whit Masterson's simplistic good cop/bad cop dichotomy in favour of a swampland of moral relativism. His cop, Hank Quinlan (surely the template for M Emmet Walsh's character in Blood Simple) is gargantuan in his monstrosity, but Charlton Heston's Mike Vargas, for all his simpering goodness, is shallow, cold and deeply unlikeable and Janet Leigh is a cipher. Only Marlene Dietrich's whore-with-a-heart provides a tiny ember of compassion ("He was some kind of man, What does it matter what you say about people?").

Using the moral grey area of a border town, Welles' delves into the seamiest parts of life where everyone's future is "all used up". The pitch and tenor of the movie is really that of Shakespearean tragedy - Quinlan's tragedy - and the bleak humanity of the film is mesmerising. Even so - and even in the newly restored version which is as close to Welles intentions as we will ever get - one can't help feeling that Welles is trying to cram greatness into a plot that is too slight, too laboured.

For all its flaws (and it is a movie about human frailty) this is two hours of exquisite filmmaking, a masterpiece in a world that has cheapened the word