Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

An Interview with

RICK SCHMIDLIN

The re-edit producer of ORSON WELLES' masterpiece TOUCH OF EVIL

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The following interview with Rick Schmidlin took place shortly after the re-edited version of the film debuted in 1998. Since that time I've not spoken with Rick, although I was quite happy that he posted many comments about his work on the Touch of Evil re-edit right here at the Wellesnet message board.

Now, I'm pleased to report that Rick has returned to the Wellesnet messageboard, and I'm sure he'll be willing to answer any questions about the new Touch of Evil DVD that readers may have for him. I'll also be speaking to him about the new Touch of Evil DVD shortly, so there will be an update to add to this interview in the near future.

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There are scenes in TOUCH OF EVIL I neither wrote nor directed, about which I know absolutely nothing. I’ve been working since I was 17, I’ve directed 8 films, and I’ve been able to edit only three of them myself: CITIZEN KANE, OTHELLO and DON QUIXOTE—in 17 years! They always tear the film out of my hands—violently. For my style, for my vision of the cinema, editing is not simply one aspect: it’s the aspect. The only time one is able to exercise control over the film is in the editing.

—Orson Welles, in a 1958 interview with Cahiers du Cinema

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LAWRENCE FRENCH: How did the re-editing and restoration of TOUCH OF EVIL come about?

RICK SCHMIDLIN: What happened was about four years ago I was trying to get a laserdisc done on TOUCH OF EVIL. I thought it would be a good idea, to do a laserdisc, the way other discs have been done on different Welles films. There could be commentary to document the different versions of the film. I then talked to a friend, Allen Daviau, (the cinematographer of E.T.) and asked him if he knew anything about TOUCH OF EVIL. He told me that there had been a recent article in Film Quarterly, that excerpted a memo from Orson Welles to Universal about the editing of the film, and I should talk to Jonathan Rosenbaum. So I talked to Jonathan, and looked at the short version of the memo, and found out there was a complete 58-page memo written by Welles, that still existed—indicating the editorial changes he wanted to make before the release of the film. So I met with my friend Louis Feola, the President of Universal Home video, and they decided it was a great idea, and then they decided to re–issue TOUCH OF EVIL theatrically.

LAWRENCE FRENCH: How did you find Welles 58-page memo?

RICK SCHMIDLIN: What happened was once we got the go-ahead, the project was put in the hands of Jim Waters and Bob O’Neil at Universal, and they put in a request to Lew Wasserman (the former chairman of Universal Studios) to see if they could find the memo. Within 48 hours Lew Wasserman had produced an copy of the original memo for us. Jonathan Rosenbaum and I are doing a book on TOUCH OF EVIL, for the UC Press, which will include the 58-page memo, as well as Orson Welles’ original screenplay. The book will have all the documents we worked with, because I want people to understand what we did (Due to rights issues the screenplay was unable to be included in the book and it never appeared.)

(more...)

Vargas: You framed that boy, Captain. Framed him!

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Firstly, Universal Home Entertainment must be greatly commended for finally releasing all three versions of Orson Welles's Touch of Evil on DVD. This is, in itself, a rather historic milestone and one which Criterion helped paved the way for, with it's own groundbreaking three-disc set for Mr. Arkadin. Perhaps now, Warner Home Video will step up to the plate and deliver worthy deluxe editions of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.

Ironically, this new 50th Anniversary edition of Touch of Evil was made possible by Beatrice Welles, whose earlier objections stopped much of the material on this new DVD from appearing on the first release in 2000.  Even if the extras had appeared on the earlier version, that DVD would not have contained the two earlier versions of the film, which is undoubtedly the most exciting aspect of this new release.

Looking back at Universal's original press release for the 2000 DVD of Touch of Evil, here is what it was supposed to contain:

* Reconstructing Evil: The Making of Touch of Evil - The 57 minute behind the scenes documentary, featuring interviews with stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, and noted filmmkakes George Lucas, Robert Wise, Curtis Hanson and Peter Bogdanovich. Featuring in-depth explanation of the re-edits by the restored version's producer Rick Schmidlin and editor Walter Murch.

* The 58 page memo Orson Welles wrote to Universal Pictures, requesting changes to the 1958 theatrical release.

* An interview with Beatrice Welles (Orson Welles daughter).

* Never before seen outtakes.

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(more...)

Orson is primarily an artist — a great one.

—Albert Zugsmith

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One of the great unsung heroes behind the making of Touch of Evil has to be Universal staff producer Albert Zugsmith. As can be seen in Zugsmith's comments below, he and Welles had a wonderful working relationship on the two pictures they made together and it was most probably due to Zugsmith that Welles got to shoot Touch of Evil with so little studio interference.

Unfortunately, Zugsmith had left Universal and moved over to MGM by the time Welles began editing Touch of Evil, so Zugsmith was no longer around to protect Welles from the meddling of studio executives. In fact, given Welles own comments about how much he looked forward to continue making films at Universal, one wonders if he may have been thinking about his talks with Zugsmith, who probably represented Universal to him. For his own part, Zugsmith was eager to continue making films with Welles.

The following interview with Zugsmith is taken from Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn's wonderful 1975 book King of the Bs.

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ALBERT ZUGSMITH: The story on Orson is: I became sort of a troubleshooter and a script doctor at Universal. They’d throw me all the properties they were having difficulties with. There were also certain people I could handle, and work with. Jeff Chandler was becoming a bit difficult and he was their second biggest star at that time. I guess one of the reasons he was difficult was that he was the biggest, and then Rock Hudson came along! So they had me make some pictures with Jeff. They also had me make Westerns, which I'd kind of duck and avoid; they even made Ross Hunter make a Western, which was a terrible flop! It was the last picture Ann Sheridan ever made!

(more...)

Now that we can compare all three versions of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil on DVD, here are the last twelve pages from Welles's original script, so we can see just how much Welles concept evolved during the actual shooting of the film. This script includes Welles changes up until February 16, 1957, two days before he actually started shooting the film on February 18, 1957.

As can be seen from these script pages, Welles took important dialogue sequences that he had originally crammed into the climax, and wisely transposed them to places earlier in the film. The two most notable being Quinlan’s clash with Vargas over how a policeman should conduct his job ("a policeman's job is only easy in a police state"), and Quinlan’s nostalgic, Bernstein-like remembrance of his young wife’s murder, which he still thinks about every day, as told to his long time friend and partner of 18 years, Pete Menzies.

Welles decision to move both of these scenes clearly helped the overall structure of the movie, by giving us important information on the characters' background earlier in the film, while keeping audiences from becoming too overloaded with information during the picture's climax.

The first transposed scene establishes Quinlan’s antagonistic attitude towards Vargas right off the bat, when they first meet during the investigation of Rudy Linnekar's car exploding. The second scene gives us the reason for Quinlan’s obsession with strapping murderers to the electric chair, explaining how the killer of Quinlan's young wife got away scot-free when Quinlan was just a rookie detective.

Of course, that is a device Welles claimed to have greatly abhorred in Citizen Kane – dollar book Freud he called it – but in reality, it works quite well in both Kane and in Touch of Evil.  After all, how else can you explain a great man's life in such a short period of time?  Likewise, how can we understand the reasons for Quinlan's actions, without a case history...  As a screenwriter, this is a very quick and effective device for explaining Quinlan's "compulsion" to frame his murder suspects.

There is also a wonderful bit when Quinlan asks Menzies if he recalls one of their past cases,  where Mr. Burger killed Mrs. Burger with an axe in the basement, chopping her into bloody bits.  While it didn’t make it into the film, it certainly gives the movie one more “touch” of Hitchcock, right before Janet Leigh made Psycho in a very similar California motel only a year later.

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The script excerpt below begins as Menzies approaches Tanya's to get the drunken Quinlan out of her establishment, so he can tape Quinlan's confession without the pianola music ruining the recording. But in this version of the script Tanya has not yet been fully developed; instead she is called "Mother Lupe" and it is easy to imagine Welles using Katina Paxtinou for the part of "Mother Lupe," if Dietrich should have turned him down. It is also significant that Welles includes almost no indication of any of the visual stylistics or camera shots he was to actually use in the climax of his movie. Clearly, the elaborate camera work he would eventually employ was to be based almost entirely on the locations that he had found in Venice, CA, so there was no need to include camera instructions that would be dictated by the locations - other then a vague suggestion of what Welles might want to accomplish in the scene.

Welles told Andre Bazin some of the reasons why he shot the scene as he did, in these interview comments from Cahiers du Cinema in 1958:

ORSON WELLES: Vargas has to go through this labyrinth, among the derricks, because he is the intruder; it's a scene where there is no place for him. Two old friends are talking; if they saw Heston, nothing would happen. I therefore thought he ought to look as though he was having a hard time of it, laboring, as one labors to dig up gold, climbing, like one climbs a mountain. This kind of job doesn't suit him and he detests it, as he says to Menzies: at this moment Vargas loses his integrity. He is therefore thrown into a world in which he does not morally belong; he becomes the low kind of person who listens at doors and he isn't able to do it. I've therefore tried to make it as though the machine were leading him, so that he is the victim of that, rather than of his own curiosity. He isn't very familiar with how to use the recording machine, and he just follows it and obeys it, because this thing doesn't belong to him; he's not a spy, he isn't even a cop.

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(more...)

To introduce Mercedes McCambridge's comments about her one day of work with Orson Welles on Touch of Evil, I think it's interesting to note that although she had won an Academy Award, she was not deemed worthy enough by Universal to be listed alongside Marlene Dietrich and and Zsa Zsa Gabor as one of the guest stars in the picture.

It's also clear that both Dietrich and McCambridge agreed to appear in the film without any studio deal in place, or even any kind of payment. They just showed up for a day, or a night of filming, after Welles asked them to appear in the film as a favor to him. The studio had no knowledge of their participation, nor, we can assume, did the actresses agents, since if they did, they would have probably scotched their appearance without a firm contract in place.

Of course, this was back in 1957, when actors weren't under such strict control by their agents and managers. By 1982, no major actor would agree to appear in The Big Brass Ring, written and to be directed by Welles, even if they wanted to work with him, since their agents would certainly have "advised" them to turn down the "paltry" $2 million fee. After all this was a time when Jack Nicholson was being offered $4 million or more to make more "commercial" films.

Unfortunately, the 10% difference between what Welles could offer a leading actor in 1982 and what those top actor's agents could get, would amount to a difference of at least $200,000. So it's not very surprising to see why The Big Brass Ring never got made.

Which is why it is so refreshing to read Mercedes McCambridge's comments, below.  She wasn't interested in what kind of money she would get in her "deal" since there wasn't one. Nor were Dietrich, Janet Leigh, or Charlton Heston. They all simply wanted to work with Welles as their director. Today such a concept seems almost beyond belief! Of course, Welles himself agreed to work as director on Touch of Evil essentially for free, since he was already being paid as an actor. Sadly, by 1982, deal making in Hollywood had changed to such a degree, a Orson Welles project on the level of Touch of Evil, like The Big Brass Ring, was simply no longer a viable proposition.

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MERCEDES McCAMBRIDGE on making TOUCH OF EVIL

One day in Hollywood, when I was minding whatever was my own business, of the moment, the phone rang, and it was Orson Welles. He was filming Touch of Evil in the late fifties, and he wanted to know if I could come out to the set in time for lunch. Sure I could. Did I have a pair of black slacks and a black sweater? Sure I had. Did I have a black leather jacket? I said I wouldn't be caught dead in a black leather jacket. He said never mind, come anyhow. I went.

(more...)

As Marlene Dietrich reports in her autobiography, MARLENE, the Academy Awards have had a long history of embarrassing mistakes.

A prime example of this occurred in 1933, when a movie called CALVACADE won best picture. Does any movie goer alive actually remember this forgotten film? That same year a little picture called KING KONG received NO nominations whatsoever! Has any movie goer alive NOT forgotten KING KONG?

Of course, it's quite understandable why most of the greatest icons of the cinema, like Alfred Hitchcock, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and Orson Welles never actually won competitive Oscars when they were in their prime: Envy. The Academy Awards were (and still are) examples of politics and popularity within the rather insular world of Hollywood. They are a collective vote, so to suggest they have any individual measure of real lasting artistic worth or merit is absurd. Which is why I'm always astonished when someone is surprised by who hasn't been included in the nominations. Let's face it, based on their respective Academy Award nominations, Orson Welles career would have been over in 1942, and Marlene Dietrich's in 1931!

So here is Ms. Dietrich's own take on the Academy Awards, followed by her memories of working with her great friend Orson Welles in 1957, on TOUCH OF EVIL:

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What must one do to receive an Oscar?

MARLENE DIETRICH: Play biblical characters, priests, and victims of sad and tragic disabilities, such as blindness, deafness, muteness or different varieties thereof, or alcoholism, insanity, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders, which have already been seen in successful films. The more tragic the disability, the greater the chance of grabbing an Oscar.

(more...)

In 1958, the year Touch of Evil and Vertigo were released, these were the nominees for best picture: Auntie Mame, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Gigi (the winner) and Separate Tables.

Besides Richard Brooks bowdlerized version of Tennessee William's great play, I don't own any of these pictures. I certainly don't think any of them is better than Touch of Evil or Vertigo. 50 years later, I don't think any serious film historian would dispute that, except perhaps for the members of the Academy who never saw fit to give Welles, Hitchcock, Kubrick or Hawks an Oscar as best director. In fact, looking back, here are five superior films from 1958 that should have been nominated:Touch of Evil, Vertigo, Man of the West, Bonjour Tristesse and Nazarin.

Of course, back in 1958, it is understandable how the Academy could actually manage to ignore Touch of Evil given the way it was released. Yet, how in this 50th Anniversary year, they could still ignore the film and all the other very major mistakes they made in their 1958 awards, seems to defy logic, but I can still understand it (see Mr. Arkadin's fable about the Scorpion and the frog.)

So in 1958 Touch of Evil received no nominations. Alfred Hitchcock's great masterpiece, Vertigo, received two nominations, for art direction and sound, but won in neither category. Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad also failed to get a nod for it's groundbreaking special effects. In the music category, two of Bernard Herrmann's greatest scores were totally overlooked in favor of Dimitri Tiomkin's mediocre The Old Man and the Sea ! And Russell Metty's great black and white camerawork was considered lesser than the five nominated films for best cinematography. Clearly the Academy was wrong about many of the "best" films of 1958. The three they are most wrong about will all be released on October 7th in 50th anniversary DVD editions.

In 1958, the Academy's big winner was Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, a film so far behind the work of Hitchcock and Welles, one can only wonder how the Academy can seriously offer up a salute to Leslie Caron (on October 10th with a sold-out screening of Gigi) on the 50th anniversary of their idiotic mistakes, while still ignoring the 50th anniversary of Touch of Evil, Vertigo and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad !

Well, as Oscar Wilde said, "We learn nothing from experience believe me. Experience is merely the name men give to their mistakes. And all it really demonstrates is that our future will be the same as our past. And that the sin we did once and with loathing we will do many times and with joy."

(more...)

Universal Home Entertainment has released an official press release containing some additional details about the features that will be on their two-disc set of TOUCH OF EVIL, due out October 7, 2008.

Charlton Heston on TOUCH OF EVIL:

We finished shooting on TOUCH OF EVIL down on the canals in Venice, California, after we had shot for several nights, all night - the death of Quinlan and all of that, and then we finally finished about six o'clock one morning. So Orson and I went to have scrambled eggs at some coffee shop in Venice, and Orson had a bottle of champagne, and we told each other how wonderful we were, and all of that. I said, "Orson, I must tell you one thing. There are two or three scenes in this picture that you put in really because you knew I was supposed to have the leading role. The story is really about the fall of Captain Quinlan." I said, "But I knew that. You didn't need to put those in." He said, "Then I don't have to worry about it in the editing, do I?"

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UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Aug. 14 -- Orson Welles' film noir masterpiece celebrates a home entertainment milestone with the release of the "Touch of Evil - 50th Anniversary Edition" DVD on October 7, 2008 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. For the first time on DVD, audiences can experience this cinematic achievement as never before: All three versions of the film including the preview version, the theatrical version and the restored version based on Welles' vision, contained on one two-disc set for $26.98 SRP.

Also, a specially printed reproduction of the complete 58-page memo Welles wrote in 1957 to the studio outlining his recommended edits after viewing the rough cut of the film, is available for the very first time with the DVD set.

Headlined by an all-star cast that includes Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Ray Collins, Dennis Weaver, Akim Tamiroff and Welles along with memorable appearances by Mercedes McCambridge, Zsa Zza Gabor, and Marlene Dietrich, "Touch of Evil" is the dark cinematic portrait of an intricate criminal plot that combines in lurid and fascinating detail, a kidnapping, betrayal, police corruption, drug use and murder. An essential addition to every movie lover's library, the DVD's bonus features with cast, crew and film historians, delve deep into the complicated backstage story of what has become a film that was misunderstood in its day, but is now considered one of Orson Welles' greatest and lasting achievements.

(more...)

On the odd chance you haven't already seen the news elsewhere, Universal finally announced the rumored Touch of Evil special edition DVD, one that will include all three versions of the film, namely the preview version, the release version, and the 1998 "memo restoration" version. As per the Universal press release, the set will include:

Disc 1:

1998 "Restored to Orson Welles memo" version
1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
English DD 2.0 Mono
English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles
Bringing Evil to Life
Evil Lost & Found
Audio Commentary featuring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Restoration Producer Rick Schmidlin
Audio Commentary featuring Restoration Producer Rick Schmidlin
Theatrical Trailer

Disc 2:

Original 1958 release version (93 minutes)
Early 1958 preview version (found in 1975 - 108 minutes)
1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
English DD 2.0 Mono
English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles
Theatrical Version: Audio Commentary featuring F. X. Feeney
Preview Version: Audio Commentary featuring Welles scholars Joanthan Rosenbaum and James Naremore.

Plus, the complete text of Welles 58 page memo to Edward I. Muhl, Universal studios head of production in 1958:

http://www.wellesnet.com/touch_memo1.htm

The question remains about the aspect ratios of course, as both sides (academy vs. 1.85) have their arguments for and against, and will no doubt continue long after the set is released. Whether the extras on the first disc derive from the "Restoring Evil" documentary is unknown as well. Still four commentary tracks is pretty impressive, and I have to say I never expected this film to get such a lavish release. Now if we can get a Blu-Ray version, I'll be even happier.

In celebration of TOUCH OF EVIL's 50th Anniversary release on DVD, Wellesnet will soon be publishing an interview with Bob O' Neill, Univeral's head of restoration, who  talks exclusively to  Wellesnet about the  problems he encountered in restoring Orson Welles's TOUCH OF EVIL.

Given the ongoing controversy over how Touch of Evil should be exhibited - at 1.85 or 1.33 - here are Orson Welles own thoughts about filming in CinemaScope, VistaVision and other wide screen film processes, as published in the 1958 International Film Annual, No. 2 edited by William Whitebait. Strangely enough, the book was published (in London by John Calder), just as Touch of Evil was being shown in theaters.

Welles also wrote a letter in response to an article by Whitebait in The New Statesman, that touched briefly on how Welles liked shooting in the old camera format of 1.33 to 1 and black and white, rather than using the new wide screen formats and color.

From Welles comments, it's a fairly safe bet that he probably never wanted to shoot a movie in CinemaScope or Panavision. In fact, it seems likely that Universal might have tried to pressure him into using CinemaScope for Touch of Evil, since at the time it was all the rage, and Albert Zugsmith's previous picture with Welles, Man in the Shadow was in CinemaScope, as was Zugsmith's other masterpiece from 1958, Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angels.

Given Welles comments, it seems quite possible he may have wanted Touch of Evil to be shown in full frame. VistaVision was essentially a 1.85 ratio when projected, so it seems probable that Welles may have realized that Touch of Evil would be projected in 1.85, and thus agreed to compose it for that format, but may still have preferred to have seen it projected in 1.33. to 1.

I've also included Rick Schmidlin's comments from the message board, that explain his reasons (along with the studio documentation he found) for releasing the DVD in the 1.85 format.

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RIBBON OF DREAMS

By ORSON WELLES
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A sheer joy in everything big was once the hallmark of Hollywood production. People have not hesitated to chide us for thinking 'colossal' the best superlative.

What has changed? Certainly not Hollywood.

Pure size excites us as much as ever. And what are the new screens but a paroxysm of this excitement?

But now those who mocked us run most eagerly to join in our madness.

More... More...

What was the reaction, under skies one might have thought reasonable, when this monster (Frankenstein's grandest mistake) issued, head held high, from the laboratories of Southern California? Instead of charging with pitchforks, the cinemagoers of the entire world hurled themselves to embrace this monster in a tight embrace. No shape is too demented, no size too paranoiac. In the most popular process the image is blurred, camera movements are strictly limited; good montage impossible. The frame which superficially encloses its action somewhat in the guise of a frieze is ill suited to the human form, cutting it off somewhere above the ankles and below the haunches. Which means that the actors must play their scenes thrusting themselves at us like Punch and Judy. This 'giant screen' is ideally suited to a ground plan of a procession or of a serpent elongated.

These very strange proportions have been dictated by the very low overhang of the balcony in certain super-cinemas, and their object has been to prevent the spectators in the back rows of the stalls from thinking that perhaps they would be better off in cheaper seats. Note that these balconies are rare and specifically American. Yet it is here, in Europe, that the new system is most popular.

Certain other processes are even larger. Many screens are bigger: observe that they are all more uproarious like an outbreak of panic. All these new processes express an identical fear: loss of confidence in the cinema itself. Technical astuteness combines in a frantic attempt to bewitch the public while submerging it.

It is unnecessary to explain in detail how the enlargement of the screen does not augment but diminishes the possibilities of expression. Every active film-maker can testify to this; there are few effects to be got by yells and shrieks. The most exuberant stage actor would hesitate to play a piece throughout at the top of his voice. Beyond a certain point exaggeration becomes a bore. To find oneself next to the siren on the Isle de France is a magnificent experience, but one that does not gain by repetition. When the passing pleasure of physical shock has passed, the range of sensation cannot be extended by more familiarity. With the novelty vanished, we no longer respond to the appeal of the outrageous. We are content to fall asleep.

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

Distributors, naturally, are all of the opinion that poets don't sell seats. They do not discern whence comes the very language of the cinema.

Without poets, the vocabulary of the film would be far too limited ever to make a true appeal to the public. The equivalent of a babble of infants would not sell many seats. If the cinema had never been fashioned by poetry, it would have remained no more than a mechanical curiosity, occasionally on view like a stuffed whale.

Everything that lives and in consequence, everything commercially saleable derives from the ability of the camera to see. It does not see naturally in place of an artist, it sees with him. The camera at such instants is far more than a registering apparatus; it is a means by which come to us messages from the other world and which let us into the great secret. This is the beginning of magic. But the charm cannot work unless the eye of the camera also is human. That eye should be on the scale of the human eye.

Man is made in God's image. To enlarge that image is not to glorify but to deform it. It's a sort of joke, and one doesn't joke with God. That is not only religion but good aesthetics.

A film is a ribbon of dreams.

It can happen to us to dream in colors and sometimes in black and white, but never in CinemaScope. We never wake from a nightmare shrieking because it has been in VistaVision.

Our fantasies are not more erotic in Cinerama, and saints know no visions in Cinemiracle.

Where lies the cause for the crisis in world cinema?

In us who make films: and we have not deliberately plotted to make bad ones. Yet we attach ourselves to the dimensions laid down to us by producers. Why? Why allow the mammoths to wipe away our last normal screens?

We have discovered that the enlargement of the image, so far from enriching form or content, impoverishes the film itself. But do we not impoverish ourselves even more by abandoning the sole means which enabled us once to speak of art?

What are we referring to when we speak of the world march of the cinemas, that indispensable figment of statistics? An individual sitting in a seat, in a hall. Multiply him by quite a few millions and what do you get more than the same spectator in the plural? Unconscious of his statistical importance his dreams depend obstinately on the old human scale. No super-screen will make him a superman. He is no giant, he is only numerous.

But already he is less than this; he gets smaller every day.

Who can say that it's an accident that the public is dwindling away as the importance of the artist is destroyed? Are giant screens a symptom or a cause?

Let us joyfully admit that there will always be a place for the circus. But let us also insist that room will always be found for whatever clowning may be foisted on us. What perverse, morbid desire delivers our world cinema to an era of nickelodeons?

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ORSON WELLES LETTER TO THE NEW STATESMAN
regarding TOUCH OF EVIL

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May 24, 1958

Sir:

Without being quite so foolish as to set my name to that odious thing, a 'reply to the critic', perhaps I may add a few oddments of information to Mr. Whitebait's brief reference to my picture TOUCH OF EVIL (what a silly title, by the way; it's the first time I've heard it). Most serious film reviewers appear to be quite without knowledge of the hard facts involved in manufacturing and, especially, merchandising a motion picture. Such innocence, I'm sure, is very proper to their position; it is, therefore, not your critic I venture to set straight, but my own record. As author-director I was not and normally would not be-consulted on the matter of the 'release' of my film without a press showing. That this is an 'odd subterfuge', I agree; but there can be no speculation as to the responsibility for such a decision.

As to the reason, one can only assume that the distributor was so terrified of what the critics might write about it that a rash attempt was made to evade them altogether and smuggle TOUCH OF EVIL directly to the public. This is understandable in the light of the wholesale re-editing of the film by the executive producer, a process of re-hashing in which I was forbidden to participate. Confusion was further confounded by several added scenes which I did not write and was not invited to direct. No wonder Mr. Whitebait speaks of muddle. He is kind enough to say that 'Like Graham Greene' I have 'two levels'. To his charge that I have 'let the higher slip' I plead not guilty. When Mr. Greene finishes one of his 'entertainment's' he is immediately free to set his hand to more challenging enterprises. His typewriter is always available; my camera is not. A typewriter needs only paper; a camera uses film, requires subsidiary equipment by the truck-load and several hundreds of technicians. That is always the central fact about the film-maker as opposed to any other artist: he can never afford to own his own tools. The minimum kit is incredibly expensive; and one's opportunities to work with it are rarer less numerous than might be supposed. In my case, I've. been given the use of my tools exactly eight times in 20 years. Just once my own editing of the film has been the version put into release; and (excepting the Shakespearean experiments) I have only twice been given any voice at all as to the 'level' of my, subject matter. In my trunks stuffed with unproduced films scripts, there are no thrillers. When I make this sort of picture -- for which I can pretend to no special interest or aptitude -- it is not 'for the money' (I support myself as an actor), but because of a greedy need to exercise, in some way, the function of my choice: the function of director. Quite baldly, this is my only choice. I have to take whatever comes along from time to time, or accept, the alternative, which is not working.

Mr. Whitebait revives my own distress at the shapeless poverty of Macbeth's castle. The paper mache' stagy effect in my film was dictated by a 'B-Minus' budget with a 'quickie' shooting schedule of 20 days. Returning to the current picture, since he comments on the richness of the urban scenery of the Mexican border' perhaps Mr. Whitebait will be amused to learn that all shooting was in Hollywood. There was no attempt to approximate reality; the film's entire 'world' being the director's invention. Finally, while the style of TOUCH OF EVIL may be somewhat overly baroque, there are positively no camera tricks. Nowadays the eye is tamed, I think, by the new wide screens. These 'systems' with their rigid technical limitations are in such monopoly that any vigorous use of the old black-and-white, normal aperture camera runs the risk of seeming tricky by comparison. The old camera permits use of a range of visual conventions as removed from 'realism' as grand opera. This is a language not a bag of tricks. If it is now a dead language, as a candid partisan of the old eloquence, I must face the likelihood that I shall not again be able to put it to the service of any theme of my own choosing.

ORSON WELLES
ROME

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Posts from the Wellesnet messageboard:

RICK SCHMIDLIN: 1:33 was the ratio Citizen Kane was shot in, as was the practice at the time. Touch of Evil was composed by Welles in 1:85 but shot full frame at the order of the studio. Welles was very aware on the composition he shot the film in. Welles never complained about the ratio because he screened it a 1:85. I guess those who prefer the studio version feel more is better, but that is going against the way the picture was shot and was meant to be seen in theaters. This was supported by both Russell Metty and Philip Lathrop by the records on the original studio screening and the theatrical release screenings. A little homework on this matter goes a long way.

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SERGIO: When I was preparing a lecture that I gave on Touch of Evil last year at the National Film Theatre in London I had the chance to compare the prints of the standard and re-release versions of Touch of Evil both on a Steenbeck and projected on the big screen. I found that the ratio really should be 1.66 and was in fact indicated as such on the re-release print. The easiest way to confirm this was the simple fact that in the third shot of the film, the backward dolly shot in which Heston and Leigh run towards the explosion, if shown at 1.33 then the bottom of the dolly would be clearly visible, but was removed at 1.66. The DVD says that it is masked at 1.85 but in fact it is masked at around 1.77 so as to accommodate widescreen TVs, and I believe that this is still a little too tight, to be honest.
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