Touch of Evil


This Orson Welles film was based on a book which no one wanted to film. Welles took it on almost as a challenge. His tendency to go overbudget and to fail to finsih his films as well as other disagreements with the production companies over artistic matters made in increasingly difficult and finally almost impossible for his to raise money. <p>

This film has many famous performers and shots in it which are discussed in the notes about the film. It also expands somewhat or reading of symbols. One can, for example, read the crossng of the US-Mexican border and a metaphor for the crossing of the moral borders that take place in the film. The set design often gives information - the poster which is splashed with acid is one of Zita, who is the woman killed in the car explosion. It gives us some information about who she is so it clarifies the statement made by Marcia Linnekar in which she says she does not know her father's "lady friends".<p>

The set design also includes images of toreadors as well as a bulls head and the spear used to encourage the bull to fight which become metaphors for the "corrida" involving Menzies, Quinlan and Vargas.<p>

Click <a href=http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/jbeatty/COURSES/FILM1/summer_2007/L13.htm><i>Touch of Evil</i></a> for more about the film