TOUCH OF EVIL thread 2

[jaime marzol]

erased all the old shit and put some new shit back in.

Welles having to defend himself from the political ramifications of his film:

Cahiers: We'd like to extricate a certain ideal character who runs through all your films, from Citizen Kane to Touch of Evil. Is he the man of whom Truffaut spoke, in Arts, a propos of Touch of Evil; that is to say, the man of genius who isn't able to restrain himself from doing evil? Or is it necessary to see a certain ambiguity in him?
Welles: It's a mistake to think that Quinlan finds any favor in my eyes. To me, he's hateful. There's no ambiguity in his character. He's not a genius: he's a master of his field, a provincial master, but a detestable man. The most personal thing I've put in this film is my hatred of the abuse of police power. And it's obvious: it's more interesting to speak of the abuse of police power in connection with a man of a certain size?not only physical but also with regard to his personality?than with an ordinary little cop. So Quinlan is better than an ordinary cop, which doesn't prevent him from being hateful. There's no ambiguity there. But it's always possible to feel sympathy for a son of a bitch. Sympathy is a human thing, after all. Hence my soft spot for men for whom I in no way hide my repugnance. And this sentiment does not come from the fact they're more gifted but from the fact they're human beings. Quinlan is sympathetic because of his humanity, not because of his ideas. There's not the least particle of genius in him: if he seems to have any such quality, I've made a mistake.
(CDC-COM PG 204)

[jaime marzol]

the honeymoon hotel scene as Welles wrote it:

REVERSE - TIGHT TWO SHOT - MIKE AND SUSAN- HOTEL ENTRANCE

MIKE: Darling, let me take you
to the hotel.

SUSAN: (as Mike turns to go)
-- You mean you're leaving me?

MIKE: (breaking in gently)
I'll be just across the street
I hate leaving you like this but
after all, I'm working on a case-

She glares at him; then turns to the honky-tonk.

HER VIEWPOINT - FULL SHOT - "GRANDI'S RANCHO"
with big cheesecake blow-ups.

BACK TO SCENE

SUSAN: (reading the sign)
"Twenty Sizzling Strippers--"
Some case! Who pinned the tin badge on you. Fearless Fosdick?

MIKE: Well, Susie

SUSAN: Oh., for heaven's sake!

MIKE: (breaking off, doing a mild
double-take) Fosdick? Who's he?

SUSAN: (with a sigh) A corny detective in a comic strip.
She marches indignantly INTO the hotel --

MIKE: Susie --

But she has gone. He sighs and moves across the street.

[jaime marzol]

Editor Frank Mazzola Braves Welles' 'Wind'
By Amy Waddell
May 22, 2000
Even for an editor as seasoned as Frank Mazzola, cutting Orson Welles' last film -- the never-released "The Other Side of the Wind" -- will be something of an apex.
Mazzola, who distinguished himself in 1970 with montage and re-editing work on the late Donald Cammell's "Performance" with Mick Jagger, was approached last year by Orson Welles' companion, Oja Kodar, and cinematographer Gary Graver at the Orson Welles Conference in Munich, Germany. They asked him to take a look at some partially cut footage from "The Other Side of the Wind," which had lain dormant since Welles' death in 1985.
"When all the pieces are put in, it will work beautifully," Mazzola said. "I have a complete vision about the film."
Raised in Hollywood, Mazzola began his film career as an actor, when director Nicholas Ray spotted him during auditions for "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955). Mazzola, who at the time was a member of a street gang called the Athenians, was not only cast as bad boy Crunch, but off the set, took Indiana-born James Dean down the rabbit hole of street-savvy Hollywood teenagers.
During the filming of "Rebel," Mazzola got his first stab at directing when Ray asked him to stage a knife fight for Dean. "That was like the highest high I'd ever had," Mazzola said. He smiled at the memory. "The first person I ever directed was Jimmy, which isn't bad."
Mazzola turned to editing, which at the time required an eight-year apprenticeship at a studio. Growing up in a family of musicians influenced his editing style. "I was able to break away from the structure of a piece of music and see what the jazz musicians did in an improvisational way. Film, to me, is music -- it's visual meter."
Mazzola became one of the highest-paid editors in Hollywood. While in the midst of an unpleasant editing experience involving an intrusive producer, Mazzola received a life-altering phone call. "There's this guy named Donald Cammell. He's got a film with Mick Jagger in it, and he's looking for an editor to cut it."
Mazzola's and Cammell's collaboration on "Performance" was the first of many. Their friendship lasted until Cammell took his own life in 1996. In a letter to actor-producer-director Barbet Schroeder, Cammell wrote, "The final word about Frank is loyalty to the director and the movie...He has soaked up some relentless poundings from producers on that account."
Perhaps it was because of Mazzola's reputation as a director's editor that Francis Ford Coppola asked him to cut "The Godfather." However, Mazzola had already committed to director-cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, who was slated to do a film with MGM Studios.
"I still believe in loyalty and the whole idea of having honor and a code of ethics to live by," he said, "because that's going to put you with the people you should be with.
"What blew my mind about Donald was that he was the highest I'd ever seen him in our last conversation," Mazzola said. "He was like a kid with a big dream; his eyes were full of light, full of the potential of what we were going to do and then, BAM, he was gone."
Mazzola said he has begun taking care of unfinished business, "like this short I did with (cinematographer) Vilmos Zsigmond back in 1970 that was in (my) mom's garage for 25 years, 'The Argument.' Donald and I were waiting to do this film called 'Ishtar,' which had Orson Welles in it and Marlon Brando, Malcolm McDowell and Jane Fonda. Donald said, 'Why don't we just shoot something?' Vilmos brought in Panavision equipment he was testing for a (Robert) Altman film. I basically used all my credit cards and whatever money I had at that time to produce this short film."
Eventually Mazzola ran out of money, and "The Argument" was put aside. He found the footage after Cammell's death and decided to cut the short. "I started going to people I knew: (editor) Dede Allen, (sound editor) Don Rogers. If I had had to pay for it, it would probably cost more than $125,000."
Mazzola met producer Hamish McAlpine of England's Tartan Films at his first screening of "The Argument." McAlpine was determined to re-cut Cammell's last feature, "Wild Side," as Cammell and Mazzola had initially edited it, so he hired Mazzola to resurrect the director's cut.
"The Argument" and "Wild Side" took Mazzola and his wife, Catherine, to film festivals worldwide: Chicago; Vienna, Austria; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Munich. While screening a temped version of "Wild Side" at Munich, Mazzola met Graver, Welles' cinematographer, and Kodar, Welles' companion, co-writer and an actress in "The Other Side of the Wind." They showed him the footage and asked if he would be interested in editing the film. Welles had only cut 42 minutes of the 400,000 feet of film he and Graver had shot in 1972.

In "The Other Side of the Wind," John Huston plays a director overcoming conflicts in his attempt to finish a film. Similarly, Mazzola's journey toward completing "The Other Side of the Wind" has not been without contention. "Why should Orson Welles' last film disappear from the face of the earth because it won't be financed?" Mazzola asked. "I think there is this feeling that the money controls it all, but actually the artist controls it all. If the artist doesn't put it down (on paper), what are they going to sell? Fellini said he spent around 80% of his time looking for money. Orson Welles said the same thing.
"I believe there are people in this town who are tied into their muses, who haven't crossed over and lost their sense of perspective. All the great artists fight being conformist. All artists should have their expression. And they can't do it if they've sold out, can they?
" 'The Argument' took me to 'Wild Side,' to 'The Other Side of the Wind.' So you pick up James Dean, and you got Donald Cammell and you've got Anthony (Mazzola's late brother, executive producer of 'The Argument'), and Orson Welles. Interesting combination of people, isn't it?" Mazzola asked. "At this age I look back and say, 'What's wrong with the individual having his own expression?' When a producer leaves the studio because he can't deal with the bureaucracy anymore, the other side of all this bigness is not living for money or power, but for the expression -- which is great, because that is what happened in the Renaissance. A lot of artists have been holding on; a lot of the drugs are disappearing, and everybody's getting focused, ready to stand up and be called and do the work."

[jaime marzol]

mercedes macaimbrge:

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, I guess, 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.

At four o'clock that afternoon I was back in my house minding again whatever was my own business. I had been in a movie in the time between Orson's phone call and the stroke of four.

That's what it is like to work for Orson Welles. A phone call or a cryptic telegram giving no information whatsoever serves as the summons, and if you are like me, you drop everything and go to wherever Orson is ... no script, no talk of money, billing, nothing ... go!

The Touch of Evil experience was typical. I arrived on the set in my black pants and sweater. Orson waved at me and forgot about me. I sat on a stool and watched the action. There wasn't any. Janet Leigh and a bunch of greasy-looking hoodlums were cluttering up a very small set that looked like a broken-down motel room. Nothing was being filmed. Orson was thinking. People were just hanging around, waiting for some kind of direction. Finally one of the assistant directors came over to me. He was in shock. He said, "He's going to cut your hair. I mean, he's going to do it ... himself!"

Very quietly I said, "Yes, I know." I expected him to faint. He nearly did. I decided to play the whole misadventure in that attitude ... unflappable! So far nobody else had said anything to me. No representative of the studio had asked me if I wanted to be in the picture; no script person had given me a page of dialogue; no costumer or hairdresser or makeup expert had been anywhere near me. I was a black-clad object over in the comer on a stool, that's all! And if Orson Welles was harboring the faintest notion in his gloriowsly genius-brain that I was going to ask him why I was there in the first place, he was, oh, so sadly mistaken. I would sit there, unnoticed and unpaid, forever. And not one eyebrow would I twitch in frustration.

At one point he looked up from his script as he was lighting a cigar, and he waved at me again. I waved back. Ile son of a bitch is just going to let me sit here. I never stopped smiling. When he did approach me, arms outstretched, he greeted me as though I were Stanley and he were Livingstone; he was so pleasantly surprised to find me in his line of vision. Imagine meeting me here! Such a small world! I was placid.

He asked for a light to be brought over to my comer so that he could see what he was doing. So far he hadn't done anything. I beat him to the draw. I said, "I understand you are going to cut my hair, Orson."

Orson said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, my sweet dear girl......


[i have no idea what could have happened to the rest of this article. will search for it, sorry]

[jaime marzol]

macliammoir's book ALL FOR HECUBA below.

soon will replace it with The 58 Page Memo. though it's the condensation of the 58 page memo that appeared in FILM magazine. does any one have a copy of the full 58 pages?

is what appears on the dvd the full 58 pages? what a huge pain in the ass it would be to make jpgs out of each frame, then ocr the jpgs, then have to format the text. hope some one has the 58 pages for trade.

[jaime marzol]

welles' faust:
from houseman book, which is out of print. i got it through an inter-library loan and had to pirate all 500 pages at 2am at a 7-11 under the nose of a sleepy paki. i now have a copy machine and can pirate in the comfort of my own home.

FROM HOUSEMAN'S RUN THROUGH.
Orson's production of Marlowe's tragedy was designed and executed as a magic show, employing as its basic technique one of the oldest and most effective of stage-magicians' deceptions-the trick professionally known as "black magic." Used for vanishing acts and miraculous appearances, it exploits the absorbent properties of black velvet so that, under certain lighting conditions, not only do black surfaces become totally invisible against each other, but all normal sense of space, depth and perspective becomes lost and confused in the eye of the spectator. Orson, with Feder's assistance, extended and elaborated this device. By using almost no front light and crisscrossing the stage with parallel light curtains and clusters of units carefully focused from the sides and from overhead, he was able to achieve mystifications that would have impressed the great Thurston.
Not the least ingenious and maddening of his inventions was a series of collapsible, forty-foot black velvet cylinders, each carrying in its head one or more i,ooo-watt spotlights pointed vertically downward. Hung high up against the grid, these circular curtains were so rigged on large curtain rings along lines of strong, smooth cord, that they could rise or fall, concertina-wise, at high speeds in complete silence. With these cylinders Orson was able to conjure Marlowe's characters out of limbo and, then, equally miraculously, to snuff them out by means that remained quite inexplicable to the audience.
Far away, from depths of darkness, Faustus is disclosed, surrounded by his diabolical books while Mephistophilis is first seen as two gigantic horrible eyes which Faustus conjures into a human head wrote one perplexed reviewer.
There were other equally magical effects, culminating in Faustus's reception by the Pope in Rome. Here a procession of scarlet and purple princes of the Church and their servants, carrying golden platters piled with roasts and sweetmeats, paraded across the stage to ceremonial music on their way to the banquet hall. Suddenly, under the Pope's nose, a suckling pig was seen to rise from its golden dish, fly straight up to a height of twelve feet, execute a few steps of an obscene dance, then melt into thin air. A haunch of beef followed, then two fat chickens and a gaudy pudding. In consternation, the procession faltered. At that moment, to the accompaniment of subterranean thunder, three Cardinals' hats flew off like giant saucers. When the Pope's own miter rose from his head and a flash box exploded under his skirt amid cries of terror and fiendish laughter, the procession broke up, leaving Faustus alone on a stage that was suddenly and completely bare.
This mystification was accomplished with the aid of eight dancers, dressed from head to foot in black velvet, moving alongside the procession, just far enough upstage to be out of the blaze of the light curtain and thus completely invisible to the audience against the darkness of black velvet. In their black-gloved hands, they held like fishing poles thin, black, flexible steel rods whose ends were affixed to the meats, the pudding and the episcopal headgear that were marked for flight. On cue the boys in black swung those loaded rods up over their heads and brought them down behind them, where their own black costumes formed a screen for them till they were able to leave the stage unobserved in the confusion of the dissolving parade.
Still another form of magic was achieved through trap doors which permitted characters to enter and exit as though they were rising or sinking through the solid black floor of the stage. Among their users was that sinister puppet troupe, the Seven Deadly Sins, who appeared, one by one, through small holes in the apron-obscene, diminutive specimens of evil that flapped and wriggled and squeaked their lewd temptations at the doomed doctor's feet. These, together with the explosions, subterranean rumblings and jagged sheets of lycopodium flame that swept the stage with bursts of hellish brightness, were the gaudy theatrical devices with which Welles adorned his revival. But underneath, at the center of the production, there was deep personal identification which, across a gulf of three and a half centuries, led him to the heart of the work and to its vivid recreation on a contemporary American stage.
Some of this anguish found its way nightly onto the stage of Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Amid the rank fumes and darting flames, there were moments when Faustus seemed to be expressing, through Marlowe's words, some of Orson's personal agony.

[L French]

Does anyone know where the comments from Mercedes McCambridge posted by Jaime above came from - only the beginning paragraph is in her autobiography. And Jaime, what happened to the rest of the article?

In the meantime, here are the liner notes from the original soundtrack album from TOUCH OF EVIL.

It's nice to know that Orson's wishes were conveyed to Henry Mancini, even though they actually never met on the film, since Orson had been barred from the lot!

* * *

THE MUSICAL SCORE FOR “TOUCH OF EVIL” is unique among motion picture scores. In the parlance of the film composer it is called “source music”, which means that the music comes from a visible source such as a juke-box, orchestra, radio, or in some cases, a player piano.

Orson Welles who not only stars in “Touch of Evil” but also directs the movie, in his discussions with the composer as to what type of music should be written, suggested that the conventional type of musical score would not be suitable for a picture of this type. In his mind, he felt an up-to-date mixture of rock and roll and Latin-jazz where needed to capture the feeling and effect of a modern Mexican border town. In this soundtrack album, you will find that his wishes were carried out and resulted in a very exciting and compelling blending of picture and music.

The music of Henry Mancini, conducted by Joseph Gershenson, with the Universal-International studio orchestra, is, in every sense the music of today.

“TOUCH OF EVIL” IS A DYNAMIC COMPELLING STORY of the narcotics underworld carried out along the United States-Mexican border. This movie packs a terrific wallop that will keep the audience continually on the edge of their seats. A series of scenes of violent intrigue, murders, and seamy characters, build up to a climax that cannot be anticipated, yet is inescapable. There are stars galore in the cast, including Charlton Heston as a special investigator for the Mexican government, and Janet Leigh as his American wife. Orson Welles in a superb make-up, is a murderous American cop. His portrayal of a thoroughly despicable character remains in the mind of the moviegoer long after the show has ended.

Co-stars are Joseph Calleia and Akim Tarmiroff with guest-stars Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Albert Zugsmith produced and Orson Welles directed from his own screenplay, based on the novel by Whit Masterson.

[jaime marzol]

what i posted came from macambridge's bio. can't beleive that the publisher did not include the rest of the welles stuff to save on paper. if you got the book from library, maybe some anti-welles subversive ripped the page out. i think i copy pasted that from ms publisher, and didn't copy what was on the following page. will look and see if i can find the rest of her welles memories.

her recollections on nick ray, and welles are great.

no so with the ann baxter bio. i expected at least 2 or 3 pages on welles, but her bio was about 200 pages of cooking recipes, and travel stories about her and her husband. ann baxter bio is a double-yawn.

[jaime marzol]

wow, what were they smoking when they wrote this?
.............................

TOUCH OF EVIL” IS A DYNAMIC COMPELLING STORY of the narcotics underworld carried out along the United States-Mexican border. This movie packs a terrific wallop that will keep the audience continually on the edge of their seats. A series of scenes of violent intrigue, murders, and seamy characters, build up to a climax that cannot be anticipated,

........................

a dynamic compelling story? it's a trite, linear, one dimensional story at best.

the audience continually on the edge of their seat? i wonder what movie they were watching?

the film is so misrepresented in almost everything that has been written about it, except by stephen heath, and james naremore.

[Glenn Anders]

Jaime: I assume that the reference is meant to sell TOUCH OF EVIL on TV or on Video. Perhaps, it is just someone's synopsis. It is hard to tell.

Still . . .

For 1958, it is "a dynamic compelling story," somewhat ahead of its time in suggesting in such an upfront way that a police detective could be corrupt, capable of faking evidence. Past movies usually had crooked cops by implication, usually in secondary roles.

I would certainly not call the story "trite," and though it is not so convoluted some Welles' films (we usually think, CITIZEN KANE), a careful examination of the Murch's restoration suggests that it is not entirely linear. There is considerable parallel action, if not in flashback.

A "one dimensional story at best"? Not to my mind. What do others think? I see a complex story of racial and class division, political corruption, police chicanery, organized crime, the battle of the sexes. All in the "Leave It to Beaver Land" of 1958. There is also the deeply corrosive story of the story of Hank Quinlan's wife, and how her death motivated the revenge crimes by Quinlan for the next 40 years. And there is the the complex relationship of Quinlan and Menzies, one of symbiosis. Not to mention Quinlan's jealousy of Vargas' youth, education and power.

You may have a point about how exciting TOUCH OF EVIL is to modern audiences. They tend to prefer color to black and white, simplification rather than complexity. They often do not recognize the prescience and perception of a picture made nearly 60 years ago. Many film buffs who see the restored version will have had the edge taken off their excitement about the film by the two earlier botched editions.

And yet, it certainly has enough action and suspense to put the average present police procedural to shame.

At least, that's how I see it.

Glenn

[jaime marzol]

i never found any action, or suspense in TOE. i've never felt it's any more complex than an episode of any 70s cop show on tv.

i think the plot is disposable. however, it is visually stunning. dissecting it is like being in a film examination lab. it never stops giving. just when you think you have found everything welles packed into this package something new pops up.

the plot is just what welles had to follow to be able to lay this incredible visual on us.

also, you can look up what the writers of the book, and the writer of the first draft of the screenplay did after BADGE OF EVIL, and you will be able to guage how much greatness they were capable of giving.

[Glenn Anders]

Jaime: I don't mean to be obtuse; I have been often enough with Blunted. But isn't the point that, in 1958, there were no cop shows on TV except for perhaps THE NAKED CITY, a ground breaker, showing the way for what followed, but the three cops in that were great people.

And is not the point of TOUCH OF EVIL's source material what Welles added to it, and made of it? Racism and police corruption were not common currency in 1958. By the 1970's, perhaps they were becoming so.

Welles said on the BBC, several years earlier, that the job of police was to protect citizens, innocent or guilty, not to simply catch bad guys. We needed police, but a democracy was judged by how good the police were in protecting the rights of all citizens. He said later that this was the thesis he brought to TOUCH OF EVIL.

That extended to our Government, in general, is why we are in the unholy fix we are now in the World.

I quite agree with you about the technical resouces he invested in the picture, but if for you, "action and suspense" relegated to car chases, creepy music, and stock situations, perhaps you have been watching a "70's cop show" instead of the TOUCH OF EVIL that I see.

Glenn

[jaime marzol]

if you can find that in it, more power to you. that is wonderful. we all have something that keeps drawing us back to the picture. brothers devoted to welles, with liberty and justice for all visions and opinions.

[dmolson]

I'd like to throw in another element to this fascinating chat on TOE -- that Welles' story was also greatly framed by a sweaty sexual tension that passed from story to story, character to character. Whether it was in Quinlan's lusty looks at Dietrich, the suggestive stare of McCambridge, the loony fluttering of Weaver, or the licking of Uncle Joe, each player brought in a degree of sexual texture that, if not ground-breaking, was certainly a few notches higher than most 'main-stream' films (especially those starring some one of the likes of Charlton Heston) in the mid-50s.
Weaving that all into the sidestory of a mixed newlywed couple (rarely depicted in the 60s until Look Who's Coming to Dinner, nevermind the stade Eisenhower 50s) who are torn between honeymoon desires and honourable duties, and the entwined relationship of devotion and decaying respect between Quinlan and partner, all these elements add to an already fascinating canvas, as Jaime points out. I've always thought the story, in the usual Hollywood hands of a dependable director like Robert Wise (oops!) or John Sturges would have been likely an enjoyable, if somewhat one-note, potboiler. Welles created something completely Wellesian and engrossing, I think, from visuals to story to performances.
That's just my 2 Canadian cents worth...

[dmolson]

:^O
I meant to type 'lip-licking of Uncle Joe'... Just to dispel any rumours that John Waters has unearthed a pre-release version of TOE that is waiting for Beatrice's approval...
But that Joe did end up taking a licking and stopped ticking, in the end.