Touch of Evil (1958) (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray)

Touch of Evil (1958) (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray)

Please note this is a region B Blu-ray and will require a region B or region free Blu-ray player in order to play. 

Touch of Evil begins with one of the most brilliant sequences in the history of cinema; and ends with one of the most brilliant final scenes ever committed to celluloid. In between unfurls a picture whose moral, sexual, racial, and aesthetic attitudes remain so radical as to cross borders established not only in 1958, but in the present age also. Yet, Touch of Evil has taken many forms. The film as released in 1958 was certainly compromised from Orson Welles' vision, but a brilliant and lengthy memo written by Welles to studio heads in 1957 – taking issue with a studio rough-cut – had some influence on a subsequent preview version shown to test audiences (and rediscovered in the mid-1970s) as well as the 1958 theatrical version. Forty years later, in 1998, Universal produced a reconstructed version of the film that takes into meticulous account the totality of Welles' memo, and ostensibly represents the version of the film that most closely adheres to his original wishes.

Charlton Heston portrays Mike Vargas, the Mexican chief of narcotics who sets out to uncover the facts surrounding a car bomb that has killed a wealthy American businessman on the US side of the border. As Vargas investigates, his newly-wed wife Susie (Janet Leigh, two years before Hitchcock's Psycho) is kidnapped by a gang out to exact vengeance for the prosecution of the brother of their leader (Akim Tamiroff). Meanwhile, Vargas' enquiries become progressively more obfuscated by the American cop Hank Quinlan (played by Welles himself, in one of the most imposing and unforgettable screen performances of his career), a besotted incarnation of corruption who alternately conspires with Susie's captors and seeks solace in the brothel of the Gypsy madame (Marlene Dietrich) who comforted him in bygone times.

Welles' final studio-system picture has at last become secure in its status as one of the greatest films ever made. It remains a testament to the genius of Welles — a film of Shakespearean richness, inexhaustible.

Actors Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Akim Tamiroff, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joseph Calleia, Joanna Moore, Ray Collins, Dennis Weaver, Valentin de Vargas, Mort Mills, Victor Millan, Lalo Rios, Michael Sargent & Phil Harvey
Director Orson Welles
Certificate 12 years and over
Year 1958
Screen Fullscreen 1.37:1 / Widescreen 1.85:1
Languages English
Subtitles English for the hearing impaired
Closed Captions Yes
Duration 1 hour and 51 minutes (approx)