Everything 'Touch of Evil' Tells You in Its Opening 4 Minutes | Film 101 

The scenes with Dietrich and Welles are priceless.

One of the all-time great noir masterpieces!

Seeing Touch of Evil on TCM back in the day is what really got me into classic movies so it is cool to see some more analysis and appreciation for it! Sure, it’s geared a little more towards younger viewers with the Marvel and transformers references but there was some good analysis and will hopefully attract a new audience to the film!

The exact connection between the timer and the length of the shot (3 1/2 minutes) was first noticed by professor John Locke at Concordia University in the mid-1970s. He also suggested that the shadow on the wall behind Heston and Leigh was, in fact, Welles' own. The director "signed" the shot. Furthermore, the rest of the film is not a rapid montage - a very long take where Quinlan plants dynamite, was done to save on the budget, and there is another flamboyant long take filmed in an actual elevator.

Russell Metty's cinematography was flawless,as always!

I'm so glad you're doing videos like this. But seriously, please rethink all the "cool" references. They don't have the effect you want. They beak the video's train of thought and make you seem desperate, and young people never fall for this. Look up the "how do you do, fellow kids" meme. That's what this feels like.

One of the Most Brilliant Films Ever Made!!

The comments about Chuck Heston were inappropriate in the beginning. It’s one of his best performances and he brings a powerful dignity to the film. These new critics fail to see that the greats were stars for a reason, no matter what the part.

Thanks! Welles' numerous "oners" were one of my inspirations when storyboarding my series!

Now I want to see the full movie.

One of my all time favorite films! Isn’t this film considered to be the last film noir movie?

Complimenti! I really like you video and your analysis of this beautiful shot.

I stumbled on this film already in progress on the late night TV movie back in the Seventies, didn’t recognize Welles or Heston! Thought it was brilliant, knew no one who’d ever seen it. Like this and The Third Man more than Citizen Kane!

one of my 13 all time favorite films

Love this movie

I love this movie

Beyond!!!

Who writes this narration? Yes, it's been common knowledge since the premiere in 1958 that Charlton Heston was not Mexican. And yes, today it is completely inappropriate. But does TCM have to continue hitting young audiences, whom they are desperately trying to gain, over the head with how old movies are not "modern?" Isn't this supposed to be focusing on the opening tracking shot? Viewers are not as stupid as the channel thinks they are.

He made masterpieces, and could have made more, had it not been for his own stubbornness and Hollywood politics. He made "Citizen Kane" at RKO and "Touch of Evil" at Universal, but couldn't get a job in Hollywood for many of the 17 years between them. Orson Welles mastered radio in New York in the 30's and movies in the 40's. A one-of-a-kind.

🍁🍂Cool flicks where characters are screening Touch Of Evil?Sneakers-1992,Get Shorty-1993&In Bruges-2007:)🍁🍂

As much as I love old movies..somehow I had never seen this until yesterday..I'd heard of it..but never seen.. great..Wells makeup was great.

I wonder if that Samuel L. Jackson cameo was AI.

yes! charlton heston was og white nick fury in TRUE LIES

I'm not clear what indicates the bombing victims are coming from the Red Light district, and the narrator completely ignores that driver is at on friendly speaking terms with Vargas, which goes against the narrative that he and his companion feel above it all.

Tom Reimann's detailed description of the opening sequence misses one of its major images. Just as the Heston and Leigh characters prepare to embrace at the moment before the explosion is about to happen the car passes across the white wall lit up behind them a shadow is thrown onto the wall and moves across it. It's the same image of Quinlan's shadow on the film's billboard.

That line “she doesn’t look Mexican either” was a shot at the studio for casting Heston in that role where Welles wanted a more authentic actor. Your analysis falls way short. Gotta ask, did you even watch the movie?

I appreciate the gratuitous and overwrought criticism of (white) Heston being cast as a Mexican. I assume no narratives were hurt during the production of your review.

Creativity

"...the two main characters..."? Well, one of them anyway. The main characters are Vargas and Quinlan.

TCM did a lousy job on not showing Murnau's Nosferatu last night on their Silent Sunday Night midnight show. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Nosferatu, and TCM doesn't do a thing to mark the anniversary. TCM blew it. Badly.

I miss Robert Osborne.

good, good, but you realise that there are blond Mexicans right? In fact, he looks super Mexican.

"Extremely white" Charlton Heston-? Take a look at Mexican fighter Canelo Alvarez--he's whiter than Heston ever was.

13 minutes long and no mention of Hestons ethnicity? do you even woke, bro?

The analysis lacks insight or understanding. Whoever wrote this clearly had no idea what they were looking at or what Wells was really doing.

You're an adult, stop saying words like "Raddest". You aren't doing commentary on the Skate Or Die video game.

...over critiqued, which is fine, relative to this reviewer, however not to be taken as the standard for the masses. Maybe Orson WANTED whatever Heston provided as an actor for the lead character. You maximize the film structure yet minimize the director's motivation in actor selection/character representation. There were plenty of Latin actors of this era, Ricardo Montalbán, Fernando Lamas to mention two. Maybe Orson wanted Heston, period. The role was unconventional as was.IS Heston's acting presence in all his films. Was Heston to refuse the role of someone he wasn't ? I think he and the movie made the right thing as history shows, AND as "actors" do.

Oh brother. There's some merit in this, but there's a lot of pretentious film-school BS. If you can find any reference to Texas in TOUCH OF EVIL, you're one-up on me. And Miguel Vargas is a law enforcement officer, not a lawyer. Details. They count.

OK TCM stop being woke. I am so tired of you making cracks like "Charlton Heston I'm brownface". Yes he was not Hispanic. I get it. But his acting was fine. I believed him. You don't need to keep making the emphasis about this casting. The movie is a classic. Appreciate it for what it is. Stop acting superior to classic film makers. Looking around at modern, woke movies I find "Touch of Evil" a refreshingly wonderful film noir

👍👍👍👍👍 There isn't much in this world that I like, but I did like this.

OK...so Heston plays a Mexican. So what. Remember this was pre-woke. Dietrich does too, but it doesn't bother you. Why?

Whose idea was it to play that sappy, treacly piano music on the soundtrack of this video? It is totally out of step with the whole tone and intent of this towering classic of a film noir. It grates irritatingly on the psyche and impairs listening- I gritted my teeth at this saccharine, sentimentalist intrusion on the narrative of the video. You would have done better to include more excerpts of Henry Mancini's tough, topical Latin-jazz and rock-and-roll-infused score. Don't use sappy piano crap that fits in a Big Pharma commercial for erectile dysfunction or type II diabetes pills.

Good to know TCM is morally superior to Orson Welles

Great opening but overtated film just because its directed by Wells. The film is rather boring and has many flaws beneath it´s outward look.

Great film, lousy woke editorializing.

ha ha...one minute in before this gets woke. This is the reason I don't watch content between the movies anymore.