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DVD Tuesday: Charlton Heston in the Great Touch of Evil
DVD Tuesday: When Charlton Heston met Orson Welles; in praise of Touch of Evil; one wild and sleazy ride through the darkness at the edge of border towns.
When you think "Charlton Heston" you think Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes,, The Omega Man (the nuttier of two precursors to Will Smith's I Am Legend), The Ten Commandments and Soylent Green (spoiler alert: "Soylent Green is people!).
But one of my favorite Heston movies is one of his less well-known: the thriller Touch of Evil, directed by and costarring Orson Welles, along with Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Cotten and Zsa Zsa Gabor — now that's a cast!
And it opens with one of the most justly famous tracking shots in movie history: a sinuous, three-minute and 20-second glide through the crowded streets of seedy Los Robles, following behind a white convertible en route to the U.S. border with an ominous tick… tick… tick… always audible through the clamor of ambient noise and Henry Mancini's ominously jazzy score.
Touch of Evil was designed to be a sleazy B-movie, but Welles turned it into a sleazy masterpiece. Heston plays celebrity narcotics investigator Miguel "Mike" Vargas, newly married to über-gringa Susan (Leigh). They plan to honeymoon in Los Robles, the self-proclaimed "Paris of the Border," but just as they cross the U.S./Mexico checkpoint — the first time they've been together in his homeland — and share a kiss, that white convertible explodes.
The passengers were a wealthy American developer with extensive business connections in Los Robles and a floozie (the gloriously tawdry Joi Lansing); Vargas is drawn into the investigation headed by thoroughly corrupt, bigoted, obese Texas lawman Captain Hank Quinlan (Welles). Meanwhile, the brother of a drug kingpin Vargas arrested (and who will certainly go to jail if Vargas testifies at his trial) tries to intimidate Vargas by terrorizing Susan.
The story is pure pulp, but Welles' gloriously stylized compositions, editing and camera movements are sheer poetry, a symphony in contrasts: Claustrophobic interiors and agoraphobic exteriors, Welles' corpulent excess and the clean, hard lines of Heston's face and limbs, sunwashed tourist attractions and the perversities that lurk in the shadows.
And who but Welles would have cast Heston as Mexican (he claimed he felt it would add interest to a dull, straight-arrow role) and Aryan icon Dietrich as the gypsy Tanya? (Though in Suspects David Thompson makes a thorough argument that Tanya is Amy Jolly, the saloon singer Dietrich played in Morocco, only 25 years and countless miles of following her French Legionnaire lover through the African desert later.) And Welles handed Tanya the film's most gloriously world-weary line: "What does it matter what you say about people?"
What indeed.
It doesn't matter whether you see the standard Touch of Evil or the restored 1998 director's cut: Either way, it's a treat.
Things to Consider:
What are your favorite Charlton Heston movies and why?
What does it take to elevate pulp material to something more enduring?
Casting against type can produce fascinating results or flat-out disasters: Examples?
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast TV Guide Talk.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the Movie Talk vodcast.
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
2008:
Bonnie and Clyde
Atonement
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Rififi
Michael Clayton
Network
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Shoot 'Em Up
Freeway
A Mighty Wind
2007:
It's a Wonderful Life
Waitress
Laura
Cop
All About Eve
Severance
Sweet Smell of Success
Daughters of Darkness
The Crazies
Blade Runner
Zodiac
Manhunter
A Simple Plan
Taxi Driver
Renaissance
Blowup
Hot Fuzz
300
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! — Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
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Apr 7, 2008 11:55 PM
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Such a brilliant actor and he seemed like an all around good guy. It's hard to pick a favorite Heston movie, but I'd probably have to stick with Planet of the Apes.
On a side note, it makes me sad to know that this may be the last time we see the "Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast TV Guide Talk" tag at the end of a post! 
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Apr 8, 2008 12:06 AM
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Does anyone know the difference between the regular cut and the director's cut? I know that is was based on some memos from Welles, but what is so different in the revised version?
SAVE THE PODCAST!
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Apr 8, 2008 12:00 PM
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Touch of Evil is my favourite Heston movie as well, although I do really like Soylent Green. It's not a good movie by any means, but it's got a sort-of campy feel to it which I love. One of my best lines in all of movie-history is Hestons: "Get yer stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape! No one could have done that better than ol' Charlton.
Regardless of his funny business with the NRA, I still think of him as one of the greatest actors out there.
On another note, I'd like to chime in on the love for the podcast. I've been listening for a long, long time, and you've been my favourite from the start. Your movie-blog has become required reading for me ("Yay, it's Tuesday, Maitland's got another DVD-pick! Lets queue up Netflix!"), and I'm going to miss hearing you guys' banter every Friday. I guess I'll still have Ask FlickChick to comfort me in these dark times 
(I'm only being slightly facetious)
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Apr 8, 2008 5:27 PM
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achy faky:
Take a look at my review of the "director's cut" of Touch of Evil: I tried to address the most significant changes from the version with which most of us were familiar until 1998, which was itself a reworking of the badly butchered version released in 1958.
I put director's cut in quotes because Welles was dead when it was assembled; the blueprint was an extensive menu he wrote in 1957, shortly after he saw what was to become the US theatrical version.
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Apr 8, 2008 10:18 PM
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I actually wrote a paper on Touch of Evil for one of my film courses at my alma mater. Truly ground breaking in technique and revolutionary in its depictions. Shame that it wasn't allowed to go out in the form Orson envisioned. One of these days, I'll have to get the "director's version" and compare.
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Apr 9, 2008 1:12 AM
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I wouldn't quite clasify Heston as "an all around good guy" but I wouldn't argue against the point very strongly. He wasn't a bad man but some of his statments in his later years reflected attitudes I don't consider to be good. And they inflamed people who were definitely less "good" than Heston, inspiring them to take some very unpleasant actions and positions.Still, when I think of his work I don't hold his politics against him anymore than I hold Jane Fonda's or John Wayne's politics against their work.
I loved him in Greatest Show On Earth,Touch Of Evil and Ben Hur. My favorite films of his would have to be El Cid, Khartoum and (I'm going on memory here) The War Lord. I remember his quiet statement against racism in The Omega Man as the first major star to have an interracial kiss (with Rosalind Cash) onscreen. I got a kick out of the menacing humor he displayed in the Musketeers movies.
As for casting against type - if his portrayal of Moses could be considered an example, I'd say it works out pretty well sometimes.
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Apr 9, 2008 3:09 AM
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Thanks, Maitland. Pretty interesting comparisons there, and now gotta see it to view that opening shot in its full glory.
Love your stuff as always. Not sure where things stand Podcast-wise but will follow you anywhere...!
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Apr 9, 2008 4:15 AM
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Having seen both versions of Touch of Evil, I definitely think the "no credits/music on background only" beginning of the director's cut works better. And I also loved Chuck on The Ten Commandments, Pony Express, The Greatest Show on Earth, Soylent Green (loved his saying "I Love You" to Edward G. Robinson), his comeo in Any Given Sunday several scenes after they showed some scenes from Ben Hur (I have to go see that some day), Omega Man (that kissing scene with Ms. Cash also blew me away), and his two hosting stints on "SNL". While I've seen Michael Moore's Bowling in Columbine, the screen went blank when they went to his conversation with Chuck so I have yet to see that part. Maybe I'll rent that some day too. Anyway, goodby Moses!
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Apr 9, 2008 4:45 AM
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I thought his cameo as the gas station attendant in Wayne's World 2 was great.
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Apr 9, 2008 10:55 AM
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Darclyte --
I wrote a paper on Touch of Evil in film school too.
I believe I focused on the use of arches and arch-like imagery (shadows and so on) to isolate certain characters from their larger surroundings, thereby foreshadowing their deaths.
Hey, it was film school.
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Apr 10, 2008 12:06 AM
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No disrespect to the many fine line readings that Charlton Heston has given throughout his career, one of my all-time favorite lines is from Touch of Evil -- if you get the chance, check out the film if only to hear Heston say, "Donde esta mi esposa?" in his very, very convincing Mexican accent (uh, not). RIP, CH.
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Apr 10, 2008 9:55 AM
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