Treasures from the Yale Film Archive: Touch of Evil

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958, 35mm, 111 mins)

New print! A car bomb, crooked cops, and heavy chiaroscuro. In this florid film noir masterpiece, Welles “takes a B-movie thriller set on the Mexican border and gives it a Shakespearean grandeur” (Geoffrey Macnab). Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Welles himself lead a cast that includes scene-stealers Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Introduction by Richard Deming, author of the BFI Film Classics study entitled Touch of Evil. 35mm print (1998 reconstruction) from the Yale Film Archive, special thanks to Universal Studios.

The “Treasures from the Yale Film Archive” series is presented with support from Paul L. Joskow ‘70 M.Phil., ‘72 Ph.D.