A Narrative of TOUCH OF EVIL'S Torturous Editing Process

[mido505]

Finding the published accounts of the anguished, convoluted editing history of TOUCH OF EVIL to be incomplete, contradictory, and confusing, I have teased out this narrative for easier reference. Please feel free to comment.

April 1957: Welles completes principle photography on TOE and begins editing with Virgil Vogel, an undistinguished Universal staff editor who would soon afterwards settle into a run-of-the-mill career directing bread–and-butter television series such as BIG VALLEY and WAGON TRAIN. Welles had dismissed his first editor, Edward Curtiss, an old Universal hand whose credits go back to the silent HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, after they clashed during preliminary discussions.

Vogel, who spoke highly of Welles to biographer Barbara Leaming, seems to have been sympathetic to Welles’s approach, if occasionally struggling to understand his method and intent. Nonetheless, he and Welles work well together and, by June 1957, have made substantial progress.

June 1957: Welles flies to New York to appear on the STEVE ALLEN SHOW. In his absence studio executives, whom Welles had barred from the cutting room, schedule a screening of the rough cut. Tipped off by Vogel, Welles blows a gasket, and post-production head Ernest Nims calls off the screening. At this point Vogel “freezes up”, according to Welles, and steps down, suggesting that another cutter finish the picture. Nims, himself an editor, and who had previously cut Welles’s THE STRANGER, appoints Aaron Stell, another Universal staff editor, as Vogel’s replacement.

Welles returns to L.A. and, although Nims “politely” suggests that Welles leave Stell alone in the cutting room so as not to “bother” him, the two men collaborate productively, although Stell initially is taken aback when Welles, projecting the then-current rough cut, watches Stell’s face for his reactions, rather than observe the footage. Welles edits by proxy, viewing Stell’s footage in a projection room, and then conveying his instructions via conversation and memo.

During this period, according to Barbara Leaming, Welles asks the studio to allow him to direct a few brief retakes and is rebuffed by Nims, who wants Welles to save all the retakes for later, presumably to save money and time. Welles is insulted and, according to Stell, becomes increasingly angered, frustrated, and depressed at the studio’s impatience, disrespect, and interference. Despite these setbacks, by mid-July Welles and Stell assemble what Welles would later describe as a fairly complete rough cut of his preferred version of the film.

July 1957: On July 22nd studio head Ed Muhl, Nims, producer Albert Zugsmith, and a number of other Universal executives screen the Welles/Stell cut over Welles’s furious objections. At this crucial moment Welles, enraged and depressed, takes off for Mexico to work on DON QUIXOTE, and is incommunicado for over a month. The screening does not go well; Welles later states that the film was “too dark for them, too strange”. According to Nims, Welles “had really messed up those first five reels…He was making those quick cuts—in the middle of a scene you cut to another scene, and then come back and finish the scene, and then cut to the last half of the other scene”. Muhl assigns Nims the task of re-editing TOE to conform to more conventional standards of continuity and mis-en-scene. Welles later claims that entire dark, comedic sequences inessential to the plot are completely removed from the film.

August 1957: Welles returns to L.A. and, on August 22nd, is shown Nims’s version. Welles is diplomatic and surprisingly complimentary about the main thrust of the changes and, promising a memo containing more detailed criticism, leaves for Louisiana to act in THE LONG HOT SUMMER.

Nims continues to tinker. Muhl screens Nims’s cut, but agrees to delay further work until he and Nims can examine Welles’s memo. The memo never arrives.

November 1957: Welles’s nine-page memo belatedly arrives on November 4th (Welles claims it was lost in the mail), but by then Muhl, angry over the delays and Welles’s perceived intransigence, orders additional scenes shot for the sake of clarity, and pointedly refuses Welles’s offer to direct them without compensation. According to Frank Brady, Nims does make about half of Welles’s proposed changes. Around this time the latest version of TOE is screened for star Chuck Heston. Sympathetic to his director, Heston, who has received a copy of the memo and several letters from an aggrieved Welles, at first refuses to participate in the reshoots, until legal pressure from the studio forces him and co-star Janet Leigh to relent. The reshot scenes, directed by Harry Keller, are completed on November 19th.

The latest version, which includes the scenes shot by Keller, is screened for Welles in late November. Welles responds to this screening with his famous 58-page memo which details his objections to the cut. As we now know, the studio does accede to a number of Welles’s suggestions, but ignores several major criticisms concerning Nim’s recutting of the early reels. After writing this memo, a bereft Welles sets sail for Genoa, Italy, leaving TOE behind.

January 1958: Universal previews the “Kellerized” version of TOE at the Pacific Palisades Theater. Although this 108-minute version is presumably locked, Universal then proceeds, inexplicably, to hack TOE down to 95 minutes, not only removing the Keller scenes, but also cutting other segments which, after all the exaggerated concern for clarity and “smoothness”, leaves the film an incoherent, fitfully brilliant muddle. The “preview” version will not be seen again for twenty years, until it is miraculously unearthed from Universal’s vaults.

April 1958: TOE is dumped into general release, without a press showing, and with a confused, haphazard, pinchpenny publicity campaign. Universal is bleeding out, and will soon sell its back lot to Lew Wasserman’s MCA, which will eventually take over the entire studio. A toxic combination of financial calamity, artistic incomprehension, and personal hostility (Welles and Muhl grew to loathe each other) likely explains Universal’s actions after the lackluster Palisades preview.

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks for that chronology, Mido. I believe Clinton Heylin's DESPITE THE SYSTEM also indicates that, somewhere along the line, it became "personal" between Muhl and Welles. The main contention seems to have been Welles's criss-crossing back and forth between scenes towards the beginning, something that's not in the shooting script. The '98 restoration is probably the closest thing we'll ever have to a Welles version, but I like the preview version just as much. Some Welles scholars, like FX Feeney, even prefer the 93-minute release version, for it's rapid pacing. I'm glad all three versions exist.

[Richard--W]

I appreciate the effort you put into assembling this chronology of the editing process.

I thought I knew the film well, having seen the theatrical re-release several times and the three versions on blu-ray more times than I can count. But I'm thoroughly confused.

What scenes did Keller shoot, specifically?

What scenes did Keller reshoot, specifically?

Perhaps the best way to identify the Keller scenes is by using the timecode function on the remote stating where they begin and where they end by minute and second, even if the footage is only a matter of seconds.

In terms of plotting, the interlude at the rural motel strikes me as incongruous. The same exposition could have played out more effectively in town, in one of the hotels.

An aside on Virgil Vogel: he became a much better director than most people realize. Principle photography has always been a pressure-cooker in network television. Vogel was someone the networks trusted because he could pull together tough projects very quickly and economically without sacrificing quality. He brought the episodes / telefilms in on time and on budget. That takes talent. Vogel was known for his imaginative set-ups that cut together with flawless continuity and which needed minimal editing time. I suspect his brief collaboration with the maestro stood him well over the years. While it is true the material he worked with was usually no better than average, Vogel's directing was always above average. Of course, he was no Orson Welles, but nobody is.

[Roger Ryan]

What scenes did Keller shoot, specifically?

What scenes did Keller reshoot, specifically?

I don't have the Blu-ray or DVD in front of me, so I can't provide timecode, but the Keller footage is pretty minimal in the "reconstructed" version. He shot the car scene between Vargas and Suzy where they discuss the length of the Mexican border and the follow-up scene where Vargas leaves in the police car and Menzies starts to drive Suzy to the motel. Since Welles disliked rear-projection for car scenes, I'm fairly certain the footage of Menzies first noticing Grandi tailing him is Keller's whereas the location footage on the road outside of the motel is Welles'. I believe the only other Keller footage found in the "reconstructed" version is the brief exchange between Vargas and Schwartz near the stairwell right after the hotel room confrontation with Quinlan.

In his 58-page memo, Welles complains about Keller's re-shoot of the scene where Vargas leaves with Quinlan and Menzies agrees to drive Suzy to the motel, noting that the meeting on the desert road feels arbitrary since there's no indication that the parties have planned to meet there. Welles is right, but his own "final" shooting script doesn't indicate this chance meeting to be any less arbitrary: Vargas drives off with Suzy and stops the car near a bus station where Schwartz, Quinlan and Menzies are waiting (nothing in the script indicates this is a planned meeting place). Importantly, there are practically no changes in dialogue between Welles' shooting script and the Keller footage in these two scenes. The only difference is that Quinlan's few lines are given to Schwartz or Menzies since Welles was clearly not present for the re-shoot (a double representing Quinlan remains seated in the police car). Welles may have recognized the set-up for this scene was weak all along and was hoping the studio would make improvements. As it is, the scenes are not directed by Welles but they adhere to his script. As to the brief exchange between Schwartz and Vargas near the hotel stairwell, Welles complimented the addition as a good lighting match. I don't think he thought it hurt anything and neither do I.

The only other Keller footage can be found in the "preview" and "theatrical" versions where Vargas and Suzy have a painfully on-the-nose summary conversation in the hotel lobby. Welles had scripted a different exchange, but the dialogue was changed for the re-shoot. The "reconstructed" version simply cuts the scene out altogether which I think was a good choice.

In terms of plotting, the interlude at the rural motel strikes me as incongruous. The same exposition could have played out more effectively in town, in one of the hotels.

Interestingly, in his shooting script, Welles inter-cuts the exchange between Menzies, Suzy and Grandi outside the motel with the beginning of the Sanchez apartment scene. No idea if Welles carried this idea through to his initial edit, but it would have been similar to how Suzy's earlier encounter with Grandi was inter-cut with the car bomb investigation.

[Richard--W]

My thanks to Roger Ryan for his prompt and helpful reply.

I would like to know more about who shot what on Touch of Evil. For that matter I would like to follow its production history from prep to delivery insofar as is possible. No reason for doing so other than curioosity and an admiration for the film, and for Orson Welles. Is there a collection of the production paper in an archive somewhere, does anyone know?

[rubbydub]

I don't recall the source but I remember reading an analysis of "TOE" that suggested a conceptual strategy was at work within the narrative. According to this reading of the film, the characters and settings were contrasted against each other in such a way as to give the film a metaphorical depth unusual for a typical policier. For example the relationship between the caucasian Capt. Quinlan and the hispanic Tanya was to mirror and contrast with the relationship between the hispanic Detective Vargas and the caucasian Suzy. Much is made of crossing borders and races. Part of the strategy involved the settings. The scenes on the American side of the border take place during the day whereas the scenes on the Mexican side take place at night. I'm not quite sure if that holds up 100%. Perhaps Welles consciously did this and maybe that's why the scene at the rural "American" motel begins during the day.

[Richard--W]

There is also a bullfight metaphor going on. The three men circle each other as if playing a deadly game in a ring. The way the Matador (Uncle Joe Grandi) distracts and lances the bull (Quinlin) -- who thinks it's the other way around -- to weaken him, so the Torero (Vargas) can finish him off. Or something like that.

[Roger Ryan]

There is also a bullfight metaphor going on...

In the "reconstructed" and "preview" versions, there is that lovely symbolic shot (unusual for Welles) where Vargas' face is reflected in a mirror hanging on the bordello wall lined with photographs of bullfighters (effectively including Vargas among them). As Quinlan stands up in the same shot, the camera tilts up to frame the bullhead directly above Quinlan.