Movie #162: Touch of Evil

Movie #: 162
Movie Title: Touch of Evil
Year Released: 1958

Director: Orson Welles
Notable Cast: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff

Short Description: A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: N/A
IMDB.com: N/A
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: #58



Date Watched: 2/27/2016

Grade: 2 out of 5 (Fair)
Adjusted Grade: 1.5 out of 5 (Marginal)

Rationale: When a movie is anchored by legends in the industry like Charlton Heston and Orson Welles and has a plot (per IMDB) that sounds as interesting as Touch of Evil’s does, one should have high expectations going in. Unfortunately, mine might have been too high. Touch of Evil wasn’t necessarily bad, just boring. It took until the last scene of the movie for me to get into it and really care about what happening. Also, in a movie with Hispanic people cast in minor roles, I didn’t care for Heston playing a Mexican character. He didn’t look the part, even with heavy makeup and a fake mustache, and he definitely didn’t sound the part with absolutely no attempt at an accent. I get wanting to have a strong lead in your film, but he was badly miscast.