Touch of Bronzer

Orson Welles’ 1958 film Touch of Evil is fantastic. Except for one thing; Charlton Heston. It’s mostly not his fault. It’s the make-up.

I assume it is the make-up because with black and white there is that ambiguity of what the colour of things actually was. I was too busy trying to guess whether he had a really strong natural tan, or whether the man was heaped with make-up to concentrate much on his performance. He plays a Mexican detective in the film, Mike Vargas, which is why I assumed the semi-blackface make-up. It’s off putting.

So is his thick American accent, mind you. The other Mexican characters in the film seemed to be played by South American or Hispanic actors, so Heston stands out like a sore thumb. I guess in that regard casting was a star vehicle; they probably didn’t have an option to cast someone better suited to the part.

Welles is deliciously ugly as the corrupt cop Quinlan. Even though her scenes are brief, Marlene Dietrich oozes... well, I can only think of clichés, but whatever it is she oozes makes me weak at the knees. That woman was a goddess.

Welles as a director is incredibly good. I hate to sound like a wanky film nerd but Touch of Evil is why films should be made. The choreography of that opening scene is just masterful, as is the lighting, the angles at which characters are shot and the editing. This is one of the last noir films to be made, but unquestionably one of the best.

If truth be known it makes me feel quite bourgeois. That is, it makes me want to discard all the lowly second rate films and books and TV around and only watch the best. The best of the best of the best, the classics, those things that have lasted and are still loved and worshipped; the epitomes of genre and the revelations of changes in style. None of this reaching the end of something and saying, ‘It was okay, but....’ That *meh* kind of feeling you get when something turns out to be not as awesome as you first thought. No More Meh! Who’s with me!