Tuesday 17 September @ The Lord Palmerston 8pm
"Having the Touch of Evil envisioned by our most creative filmmaker, is a wondrous gift no movie lover should miss." - Chicago Tribune
Our contribution to the UK-wide Scalarama festival is one the great cult classics.
If Citizen Kane can be seen as a perfect representation of Orson Welles’ (considerable) ego, Touch of Evil is where he let his (equally considerable) id run riot. The result is a film that, while not as perfect as Kane, is darker, funnier and – arguably – more entertaining. A brilliantly warped piece of Wellesian noir populated by a cast of grotesques that was clearly an influence on David Lynch, the Coen Brothers et al.
Set in a Mexican border town, Charlton Heston and Welles go head-to-head as a pair of sweaty lawmen. In addition to Janet Leigh as Heston’s new wife, the film features memorable cameos by Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Encompassing police corruption, organised crime, racial tension, recreational drugs, prostitution, sexual perversion, a truly terrible wig, an opening shot that has justifiably gone down in cinematic history and a great score by Henry Mancini, Touch of Evil is an unforgettable, flawed masterpiece.
