In the spring of 1956, Whit Masterson’s crime novel, Badge of Evil, became a modest hit upon its release. The book garnered favorable reviews as well as robust sales. When Universal’s head of production, Edward Muhl, got his hands on a copy, he felt that it could be made into a decent “B” movie. Subsequently, he obtained the rights to the novel.
Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, and Janet Leigh on the set of “Touch of Evil” (1958) in Venice Beach, California
Albert Zugsmith (known as the “King of the Bs”) was brought on by Muhl as the film’s producer. Television writer Paul Monash was then brought on board to write the script adaptation with a four-week deadline. When Zugsmith read Monash’s script he temporarily halted any further development on the project as he felt the draft was terrible. Over six months passed when in December 1956, Zugsmith received a memo from Universal executive Mel Tucker regarding the development of Badge of Evil. He suggested casting Charlton Heston as the lead, Mitch Holt.
Heston, who had just finished promoting his last picture, The Ten Commandments (1956) was sent a copy of the script, which he read. Thinking the script was good enough, Heston inquired as to who was signed onto the film in front of and behind the camera. The actor was told that Welles was in talks to play the police captain, Hank Quinlan. However, no director had yet been hired.
Heston suggested Welles direct the movie as well as co-star. Discussion within Universal swirled about bringing Welles on board to direct the retitled Touchof Evil. Eventually, they finally reached studio executives Ernest Nims and Jim Pratt who had worked with Welles on The Stranger (1946). The pair immediately got into Welles’s corner and lobbied for him to direct the film. On January 11, 1957, it was officially announced that Welles had signed to direct and star in Touch of Evil. He was paid $125,000 and given full authority to rewrite the script if he wished.
Orson Welles and Janet Leigh on the set of “Touch of Evil” (1958) in Venice Beach, California
Welles completed a massive overhaul of the script in just ten days. It was completed on February 5, 1957. Welles’s changes included the location of the story from San Diego to the Mexico–United States border. Further, he also changed the character Heston was cast to play from American Mitch Holt to Mexican Miguel Vargas. According to Welles, the latter change was done:
“…for political reasons. I wanted to show how Tijuana and the border towns are corrupted by all sorts of mish-mash, publicity more or less about American relations…”
Casting
Although the script for Touch of Evil was “finished” in early February, that didn’t stop Welles from making changes throughout filming. This included adding new scenes and characters to the script. The most profound example of this was the character of Tanya. Welles wrote this character specifically for his old friend Marlene Dietrich and was done well into filming. Welles called Dietrich the night before he wanted to start shooting her scenes and offered her the part. She agreed to play the part at minimum union wage. Welles kept this casting a secret from Universal who didn’t find out about it until they started looking at the footage. The executives decided they wanted to promote her casting. She was given a sizeable pay increase.
Another impromptu piece of casting was Academy Award winner Mercedes McCambridge, who had previously starred in All the King’s Men (1949). She and Welles had been friends since their Mercury Theatre radio days in New York City. He convinced her to film a scene for fun and had her wear a leather jacket. Welles personally cut her hair with a pair of shears and gave her character the menacing line, “I wanna watch.”
Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich on the set of “Touch of Evil” (1958) in Venice Beach, California
The role of Susan Vargas was Janet Leigh’s for the taking. She was Welles’ first choice if she was interested. He contacted her agent who brushed him off due to the low salary for the role. Unhindered, Welles sent a letter to Leigh personally telling her how much he looked forward to their working together on the movie. Bewildered as this was her first time hearing about the part, Leigh contacted her agent and had him accept the part.
Additionally, Gunsmoke actor Dennis Weaver was hired to play the hotel manager. Welles liked him on the show and encouraged him to improvise and play the part completely different than what he did in the Western series.
“We went into his (hotel manager’s) whole background–about his mother and how he was a mamma’s boy. He had this terrible guilt about sex and yet he had a large sex drive. There were no words to indicate such a thing in the script at all, but it gave him an interesting behavior pattern when we put it all together. The main thing was his attraction to women and his fear of them at the same time. That was the thing that was basic to his character.”
– Dennis Weaver
Filming
Welles’s original intent was to shoot Touch of Evil on location in Tijuana, Mexico. However, the studio brass would not allow it. Novelist Aldous Huxley, a friend of Welles, suggested that the movie be shot in Venice Beach as a stand-in for the border town in the movie. Subsequently, Welles and cinematographer Russell Metty drove there. Upon viewing the city’s Bridge of Sighs, Welles decided to rewrite the ending to incorporate it into the movie. The entire movie was shot on location, except for the shoe store clerk’s apartment. That was shot on a set at Universal.
“It started with rehearsals. We rehearsed two weeks prior to shooting, which was unusual. We rewrote most of the dialogue, all of us, which was also unusual, and Mr. Welles always wanted our input. It was a collective effort, and there was such a surge of participation, of creativity, of energy. You could feel the pulse growing as we rehearsed. You felt you were inventing something as you went along. Mr. Welles wanted to seize every moment. He didn’t want one bland moment. He made you feel you were involved in a wonderful event that was happening before your eyes.”
– Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh and Charlton Heston in a publicity picture for “Touch of Evil” (1958)
Filming on Touch of Evil began on February 18, 1957, and lasted until April 2, 1957. The studio was cautious at first and sent executives to watch the first scene be shot. This was the interrogation of Sanchez. They were concerned that he would blow out the budget of $825,000 and take much longer than the thirty-eight-day shooting schedule. After this initial day, the studio basically left Welles alone. According to Joseph Cotten, who appeared as the coroner in the movie, the movie wrapped in 39 days of shooting at a total cost of $900,000.
The scene that took the longest to film was the three-and-a-half-minute long tracking shot that opens Touch of Evil. It took all night to get the shot just right and you can tell the last take was used because the breaking dawn can be seen in the background of the used scene. The primary reason it took so long to shoot was that Dan White, the actor playing the customs officer kept blowing his lines. When they shot the final take Welles said to White:
“All right, let’s try it one more time. If you forget your line this time, just move your lips and we’ll dub it in later, but please, God do NOT say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Welles!'”
Despite popular belief, Welles was in heavy makeup and prosthetics weighing over sixty pounds. This was to give him his heavy, haggard appearance. The director turned to Citizen Kane (1941) makeup artist Maurice Seiderman to perform this daily transformation.
Orson Welles, Mort Mills, and Charton Heston discuss the script on the set of “Touch of Evil” (1958)
In Touch of Evil, the scene where Vargas talks with Schwartz in the convertible marks the first time in cinematic history that a scene with dialogue was shot in a moving car, rather than a stationary one in front of a projection screen.
Additionally, Janet Leigh had a broken arm during the entire thirty-nine days of filming. Her cast was hidden with strategically placed camera shots for most of the film’s production. However, for some scenes, it was removed completely, and then a new cast was applied after her scenes were done filming for the day.
Editing and 1958 Release
The editing process on Touch of Evil was a tumultuous one. The end result was an unsatisfying product for all those involved. Welles initially worked with editor Edward Curtiss. However, the pair didn’t get along and Curtiss was replaced with Virgil Vogel.
In June 1957, when Welles was in New York for an appearance on The Steve Allen Show, a screening was scheduled of the rough cut of Touch of Evil. Vogel informed Welles, who irately complained to the brass at Universal. Welles’s tirade did not go over well. It resulted in the screening being canceled. Additionally, Vogel was replaced with Universal staff editor Aaron Stell.
“A strange and unhappy thing, he (Welles) could just charm the birds out of the bloody trees and… actors and crewmen just thought he was great, but he almost deliberately seemed to go to lengths to ignore or even insult studio executives.”
– Charlton Heston
At this point, Orson Welles essentially walked away from the film and headed abroad to raise funds for his next project, the ambitious Don Quixote, which wouldn’t be released until 1992. When this occurred Stell was basically on his own. Stell’s cut was shown internally at Universal in July 1957. It was not well received and the editor was replaced by Universal executive Ernest Nims.
“(Welles had really messed up those first five reels…He was making those quick cuts—in the middle of a scene you cut to another scene, and then come back and finish the scene, and then cut to the last half of the other scene.”
– Ernest Nims
Over the next few months, there were a number of changes made to Touch of Evil. This included reshoots as well as a complete editing overhaul of the film. Neither Heston nor Leigh wanted to participate in the reshoots. However, they were contractually obligated.
On December 5, 1957, after seeing the latest version of the movie days earlier, Welles presented a 58-page memorandum to Edward Muhl. In it were specific instructions on how the film should be edited in order to make the best version possible. Muhl agreed under the condition that Welles attend a dubbing session to rerecord some of his lines. Welles refused and the version Welles had seen prior to the memo being written was released theatrically. In February 1958 on a double bill with The Female Animal, starring Hedy Lamarr, Touch of Evil was released.
“I’m afraid it’s simply not a good picture. It has the brilliance that made each day’s rushes look so exciting, of course. Indeed, there’s hardly a dull shot in the film. But it doesn’t hold together as a story.”
– Charlton Heston
1998 Version
In 1998, over a decade after Welles’s death, Touch of Evilwas re-edited. This was done by Walter Murch, in collaboration with Bob O’Neil, Universal’s director of film restoration, film preservationist Rick Schmidlin, and sound mixer Bill Varney. They followed Welles’s 1957 memorandum to the letter and used all available material to create what is now deemed the definitive version. It would go on to win awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics.
