Touched Again

Those damn meddling studio executives who desecrated this film...oops, who are putting out the restored version on DVD. One of the nicer ironies about this new two-disc set of Orson Welles' 1958 Touch of Evil, whose reputation gradually grew over the four decades following its release, is that the good guys--film historians and scholars--gradually find themselves working with the supposed bad guys who own the movie. (And who are now profiting from it again.) Thus we get all three versions of the film: the initial "preview version," which prompted Welles to write a 58-page memo (included in the set) for improvements and protecting his intent; the release version, for which Universal shot additional scenes with Charlton Heston (the honest Mexican cop) and Janet Leigh (his chaste, kidnapped American bride); and the subsequent 1998 restoration, based on Welles' forgotten memo. (He died in 1985.)

If you've got three nights to spare, watch all three. For those with even more time, listen to the commentary tracks, which include Heston, Leigh, and various preservationists. (Welles' voice, sadly, goes unheard; biographer and friend Peter Bogdanovich is his primary stand-in.) The commentaries, like the extras, have been variously sourced from interviews old and new. Welles buffs will know most of it from the many books already written on his career. But it's fun to hear Heston and Leigh confess they had no idea who, among Welles' many Mercury Theater cohorts and European allies, might show up on the set to work (also apparently without Universal's knowledge). If you can believe these stories, some of the suits didn't recognize Marlene Dietrich in her gypsy get-up until the dailes were screened. Is it true? Does it matter?

The movie, which began as a pulp fiction novel about corruption in a border town, was originally to feature Welles as a mere heavy-for-hire. The guy hadn't worked in the U.S. for a decade; and this, his low-budget return to Hollywood, would be his last American movie. It was Heston's idea (says Heston) to hire Welles as director. And, again, why quibble with mythology? Welles rewrote the script on the fly, restaged scenes in the public restrooms of Venice, California (a decrepit Moorish-style resort town then undergoing an oil boom), and collapsed days of shooting into single, long-take sequences like the famous opening shot, set to cantina music and a ticking time bomb.

In the making-of featurettes, Bogdanovich, George Lucas, Robert Wise, Walter Murch (who supervised the restoration), and Curtis Hanson show up to praise Touch of Evil. It'll be interesting to see how many--if any--of today's pulp crime flicks will earn similar esteem in another half century. But maybe there are some director's cuts and 58-page memos still waiting to be unearthed.

Touch of Evil, Universal, $26.98 (Oct.)