'Touch of Evil': 50 Years Later

It has been 50 years since Touch of Evil made a small ripple as a seedy little crime movie, but since then, that ripple has become a tidal wave of appreciation for not just the film but also its director, Orson Welles.

Welles could never live up to Citizen Kane, his debut made as a 25-year-old maverick that would eventually be remembered by most critics as the greatest, most influential film of all time. It's doubtful that any director could match Kane, regardless of whether or not it was their first film. Welles had other obstacles, however. He struggled both in and out of Hollywood for years trying to make one movie after another until 1957: First came the stolen ambition of his Kane follow-up, The Magnificent Ambersons, which was notoriously re-edited by RKO. Then came an uncredited stewardship of the forgettable Journey Into Fear and the mostly average spy caper, The Stranger. The Lady From Shanghai, a bizarre noir was his next film as a director, followed by a low-budget Macbeth. Before landing at Universal for Touch of Evil, Welles also made a film called Confidential Report, or Mr. Arkadin. Fans love it. Nobody else has ever seen it. Welles recalled the unusual circumstances which lead to his involvement with Touch of Evil in an interview with director Peter Bogdanovich for the book, This is Orson Welles.

"I had just acted in the Jeff Chandler Western for Universal (Man in the Shadow), and they sent me another script -- a very bad one that took place in San Diego, with a crooked detective in it. And they said, 'Do you want to play it?' I said, 'maybe,' and I was still wondering whether I could afford not to make it when they called up Chuck Heston and said, 'Here’s a script -- we’d like you to read it. We have Welles.' And he misunderstood them and said, 'Well, any picture that Welles directs, I’ll make.' So they got back on the phone quick and said to me, “Do you want to direct it?' and I said, 'Yes, if I can rewrite it.' Well, they said they’d let me do that if I wouldn’t get paid as a director or a writer -- just my original salary as an actor. So I had about three and a half weeks to go before it began, and I locked myself up with four secretaries and wrote an entirely new story and script."

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The Top Ten Charlton Heston Movies

I'm genuinely heartened by the fond remembrances of Charlton Heston this week. That he was a political firebrand, there is no doubt, but whether he was the President of the NRA or its most outspoken critic, it doesn't detract from his impressive career and his stature as one of Hollywood's last great leading men of his era.

So, let's forget the "cold, dead hand" business; there's a forum for that but it's not here, at least not now.

As you may know, we have a weekly feature here at The Big Picture called The Top Five. I think it's self-explanatory. I thought we'd do a special edition of The Top Five in honor of Mr. Heston, so here are out Top Ten Charlton Heston Films.


1 - Ben-Hur

It's hard to argue with a dozen Oscars, but Ben-Hur is here for another reason: It's the quintessential Charlton Heston performance. He was never better, and though it's easy to see points in his career at which he reverted back to the same performance he gave here, it's still cinematic dynamite. At a time when mumbling had become the vogue acting method, here was a guy with more bombast than a John Phillip Sousa march, and at least for once, it was exactly the right tone.

2 - Touch of Evil

If there's a movie from the 1950s that has gotten better with each passing year, it's Touch of Evil. Too seedy for its own good in 1958, Orson Welles' last great achievement has grown in legacy to become one of the top American films of that decade, and without Heston in the starring role, it probably would've never happened.

He wanted to work with Welles, having long been a fan, so the studio paired them up and Heston allowed Welles to transform him into a Mexican cop trying to shake corruption out of an American border town, in what would be the last film noir worth a continental damn.

3 - The Ten Commandments

I don't know that

4 - Planet of the Apes

I don't know what else there is to say about this. To that point, the greatest movie makeup effects ever. It has one of the top two or three twist endings of all time. It's both science fiction and cheese, wrapped up into a bit of dime store prophecy. It's got both Charlton Heston and the gorgeous Linda Harrison in loin cloths. It's got Zaius. It inspired one of the greatest Simpsons episodes ever. We use Damn Dirty Apes here at The Big Picture as our measuring stick for all movies.

Come to think of it, why the hell is it at number four?

5 - Omega Man

Starting to show his age and slowing from the more macho roles of his past, Heston displayed a new wrinkle in Omega Man: Vulnerability. As the last man on Earth, as Will Smith also proved in the remake I Am Legend, these guys are only strong because they're afraid not to be. Smith is better, has more to work with and is the superior actor, but there's a good deal to learn from Heston's angle as well.

6 - The Big Country

More Gregory Peck's film than anything else, The Big Country proved that Heston didn't need to be the leading man to give a substantial performance, here in a Western for William Wyler, one of the great directors he ever worked with.

7 - El Cid

It may be hard to grasp, but for a few years, Charlton Heston was probably the biggest blockbuster "action" hero in America. He was younger than John Wayne, had more range, and always had that lean but muscular physique that lent credibility to the more physically demanding roles. Put it this way: You wouldn't buy Henry Fonda as an 11th Century Spanish warrior, but Heston could always do it.

I don't know that El Cid has gotten better since it was released, but it's one of the last worthwhile Hollywood costume epics before the studio system was completely kaput.

8 - Soylent Green

It's a catchphrase movie now, but as a dystopian epic in the very dystopian 1970s, Soylent Green was right up there with movies like The Parallax View and THX 1138. It feels dated now, but the story structure is still strong, as is Heston, giving his last great "Heston" performance.

9 - Dark City

As a sucker for great film noir, it's hard to beat a movie like Dark City, which I discovered before knowing Heston was even in it. It's Heston's first big break, and the kind of compromised morality that came to typify good Hollywood noir. Not a significantly well-made film, but that kind of enhances the experience even more. If you want to see Heston at his least regal, this is the one to check out.

10- Hamlet

Even though as a film (and as a spectacle), Kenneth Branagh's unedited version of the best-known piece of drama in the world is better than about half this list, Heston only has a small amount of screen time as the Player King. Even still, he's better at Shakespeare than Jack Lemmon, who's also featured, and you could argue that of all the non-Royal Shakespearean Company actors in the film, Heston is the best. It's a worthy view for people who think all Heston could do is yell.

Charlton Heston Dead at 83

The legendary Charlton Heston has passed away at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 83.

The actor and former Screen Actors Guild president became as well known later in life as a political firebrand as the president of the National Rifle Association, and for the generation that knows him primarily for his famous quote, "From my cold, dead hands," you owe it to yourself to go back and discover one of Hollywood's most unique leading men.


Heston's career spanned over 50 years, and while casual moviegoers would likely list The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and Planet of the Apes as Heston's high watermarks, he often took pretty big risks in an era that leading man of his standing seldom did so. He was fantastic as the border cop in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir classic, Touch of Evil, which at the time would be akin to Will Smith popping up in a crime movie with a $100,000 budget.

Heston was an enormous star at this point in his career, but his belief in the director and the project led him to Touch of Evil, which failed to find an audience at the time, although history has certainly proven him right; the film was recently ranked 68th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest films ever made.

In the early 1970s, Heston famously appeared in a pair of peculiar sci-fi gems, Soylent Green and Omega Man. Again, Heston bucked conventional wisdom to take roles in films that were ahead of their time and out of touch with the mainstream.

Charlton Heston won the only Academy Award for which he was nominated, for the title role in Ben-Hur, but as his appearance as the Player King in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet proved nearly 40 years later, Heston remained a capable and powerful performer well beyond when the industry relegated him to thankless roles in small, underperforming films.

Though Heston has often been portrayed as a bully in politically correct circles because of his tenure as NRA president, he was a champion of civil rights in the 1960s, marching on Washington with Martin Luther King, and was even approached for a Senate run in California in 1969...by the Democratic Party.