Touch of Evil - The Masters of Cinema Series

Touch of Evil begins with one of the most brilliant sequences in the history of cinema; and ends with one of the most brilliant final scenes ever committed to celluloid. In between unfurls a picture whose moral, sexual, racial, and aesthetic attitudes remain so radical as to cross borders established not only in 1958, but in the present age also. Charlton Heston portrays Mike Vargas, the Mexican chief of narcotics who sets out to uncover the facts surrounding a car bomb that has killed a wealthy American businessman on the US side of the border. As Vargas investigates, his newly-wed wife Susie (Janet Leigh, two years before Hitchcock's Psycho) is kidnapped by a gang out to exact vengeance for the prosecution of the brother of their leader (Akim Tamiroff). Meanwhile, Vargas' enquiries become progressively more obfuscated by the American cop Hank Quinlan (played by Welles himself, in one of the most imposing and unforgettable screen performances of his career), a besotted incarnation of corruption who alternately conspires with Susie's captors and seeks solace in the brothel of the Gypsy madame (Marlene Dietrich) who comforted him in bygone times.

Actor: Akim Tamiroff
Actor: Keenan Wynn
Actor: Mercedes McCambridge
Actor: Dennis Weaver
Actor: Marlene Dietrich
Actor: Joseph Cotten
Actor: Joseph Calleia
Actor: Janet Leigh
Music: Henry Mancini
Actor: Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Writer: Orson Welles
Producer: Albert Zugsmith
Actor: Lalo Rios
Cinematographer: Russell Metty
Actor: Charlton Heston
Actor: Zsa Zsa Gabor