Structure

In Touch of Evil's structure there is a strong opposition between the two main characters, Sheriff Quinlan and Mexican authority Mike Vargas. Each of them embodies opposite values, and fight to impose their own vision of the world: while Quinlan represents modern corruption, abuse of power and evil, Vargas embodies romantic purity, decence, respect of the law and goodness.

The binary opposition between them is made by Welles not only through their attitudes (Quinlan plants evidence and tries to save himself, Vargas wants to give legal guarantees to the suspect and to unmask Quinlan, but “finding proofs” instead of manufacturing them [Truffaut 230]), but also through the construction of the characters. Quinlan, played by Welles, is a huge person, old, who cannot walk properly (a twisted man?), wearing dirty clothes and showing a dirty face, a partially restored alcoholic. Vargas, on the other hand, is a fit man, young, well dressed, who walks straight (a straight man?) and is always clean. It is not by chance that his character is played by Hollywood star Charlton Heston. He represents, in some ways, a “young Quinland” (Johnson 240), a person before he makes his first sin (which could be his spying of Quinlan, at the end of the movie [Johnson 247]). A pure hero.

Moreover, their social situation is relevant: Quinlan is a widower and Vargas is just married. Quinlan's wife was murdered several years ago, and that was the declining point of the policeman, who arrives to his lowest point when he himself becomes the same character his wife's murderer was. His wife's murderer killed her with a rope and escaped, and Quinland killes Grandi (the local mafia chief) with a rope and tries to escape. Quinlan's breaking point in the film is the moment in which he makes the deal with Grandi: it is the moment in which he accepts to drink bourbon (he had not been drinking for 12 years).

It is the moment when he crosses the line: he not only abuses of his power to incarcelate delinquents but also makes deals with other delinquents in order to save himself. Note that Grandi is a small reproduction of Quinlan (Higham 155). Quinlan becomes a delinquent himself, and his falling afterwards is fast, up until he arrives to his worst moment when he comits assasination by his own hands. As all of his victims, Grandi is not innocent, but what's important is that Quinlan abuses and comits crime.

THE CANE

All this also find a strong symbolization through Quinlan's cane (any sonic remembrance to Citizen Kane?). It appears in the film not only to emphasize how much this character is twisted (physically, mentally, spiritually, socially), but also to symbolize the use of power.

This phalic conventional symbol of both power and straightness is what helps him to be standed, is what “corrects”, artificially and from outside, his twisted and corrupted “natural” personality. But this power, this correctness, is not really in his hands. He “forgets” the cane twice - the cane is nor part of him, but he needs it. The second time he forgets it (at the motel where he killed Grandi), it is found by Menzies, and that's the moment in which others decide his definitive fall. The others have the real power on him. The others (the American twisted society?) are who valorate him. The first time Quinlan forgets his cane in the car, Menzies regrets the fact, and knows that the support the society gives him is what maintains him alive. In the symbolic narrative, this means without drinking - without his cane, Quinlan comits the “sin” of falling in the alcohol again, and Grandi occupies then the place of the cane. It is not the “good” side which supports him now, but the “evil” one, the crime side.

The second time he forgets his cane, Menzies decides to take this power and this artificial straightness from Quinlan's hands, and gives it meaningfully to Vargas. When Vargas has Quinlan in his hands (when he has his cane in his hands), he has everything of him: his social support, his power and his life.

BINARY OPPOSITIONS

I have found many binary conceptual oppositions in this film:

• Modernism vs. Elegant Past
• Simple Justice vs. Law
• Corruption vs. Purity
• Social vs. A-Social
• Civilization vs. Anarchy
• Hero vs. Anti-Hero
• Good vs. Evil

In terms of form:

• Fat vs. Fit
• American vs. Mexican
• Married vs. Single
• Machine vs. Man
• Dirty vs. Clean
• Static vs. Dynamic

I think all these oppositions lead to a single abstract topic, a big question, which is, in my opinion, Welles's structure as an auteur: What kind of civilization does America want?

Let's take Quinlan. He is a physically big man, but actually he is weak. He needs social artificial approvement, he needs others to support him (Tanya, Menzies, Grandi, his cane), and when the others decide to take that authority from him, he stays answerless.

His own attitude towards the delinquents and ervyone in general reflect his weakness as a human being. He abuses of his power to hide his human weakness. As a detective, he has a great talent and a strong authority. As a human, he loses against alcohol, he needs the support of a lover-mother, he feels guilty about his wife's destiny, he is corrupted. And as a human, too, all he wants is to save himself. There is an internal struggle between his strongness and his weakness. Between his possibilities to do good and his actually doing evil.

CONCLUSION

If Touch of Evil's central topic is the struggle between simple justice and law justice, between fascism and a liberal system (say democracy), then we can abstractize this struggle in one single question: What kind of civilization is better?

The film, made in later fifties, is in the context of post-war (Second World War and Korea War), and approaching to Vietnam War. America sees himself as the perfect model other countries should follow, the best democracy.

And we trace connections from Quinlan as a character, through the American justice as a determined system and, finally, to America as a society. This big strong man (big and strong justice system, big and strong country) have an ideal: he wants to fight crime. But in doing so, in his obsession, he acts exactly as the ones he pursues. The same way takes the American justice system (through Welles's perspective) and so does America in general - a country, a society, which sees itself as the perfect one, the one that fights in the world with strong hand in the name of democracy and justice, but under the surface everything is corrupted, infected, and in that fighting way, that country has become the object of its fighting, has become actually weak.

And how alll of this is expressed so that Welles become a real auteur? Touch of Evil is no doubt a Film Noir movie and Welles, as a good auteur, respects Film Noir's rules, but in effect he reverses them completely. As Schatz teaches, social order films need the gangster dead at the end (34). Here it is not important what happens to the gangaster (the Mexican murderer of Linnekar), because the actual gangster is the policeman, something unthinkable in the genre rules.

Welles not only reverses genre rules but he also uses them to give an opposite message to thatwhich can be expected from a Film Noir movie. True, at the end the bad is killed, but here the bad is the good of Film Noir movies. Welles strikes the American society with its own tools.

• 1931

  • M

    Prototypical noir directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. In German with English subtitles. This is a German Expressionist film about a child murderer and is essential in helping viewers see the influence of German Expressionism film upon subsequent noir films in America.

• 1934

  • They Made Me a Criminal

    Interesting early noirish film directly by Busby Berkeley starring John Garfield as boxer on the lam and Claude Rains as his pursuer. The film begins in the corrupt city but soon makes the leap to the undefiled country where Garfield gets involved with the Dead End Kids who are working on a farm. Sunny noir.

• 1936

  • The Wrong Road

    Young lovers noir directed by James Cruze (The Great Gabbo, I Cover the Waterfront). Lionel Atwill wants the stolen $100,000 back but wants to help the misguided thieves even more. I’ve always believed in you kids from the very start.” See also You Only Live Once, Gun Crazy, They Live by Night, Side Street, etc.

• 1939

  • Convict’s Code

    Lambert Hillyer’s parolee noir. Falsely-accused ex-football star “Whiz” Tyler (Robert Kent) gets out of prison and wants to clear his name. Cinematographer Arthur Martinelli’s uses Expressionistic shadows to advantage. See Fritz Lang’s American noirs You and Me and You Only Live Once.


• 1944

  • Bluebeard

    Edgar G. Ulmer’s tale of horror. Perhaps thematically a noir but, though atmospheric, not a noir visually. John Carradine is the murderer who strangles the women he “paints.”

  • Lady in the Death House

    Steve Sekeley directed this film, most notable for its use of flashbacks. Its title (and thus basic situation) is its most noirish aspect. Stars Jean Parker who was also featured in Ulmer’s Bluebeard.


• 1945

  • Detour

    Ulmer’s noir masterpiece. Exemplary noir both in look and in theme. With Tom Neal as the hapless sap Al Roberts and Ann Savage as Vera, the femme fatale. Nasty noir.

  • Scarlet Street

    Fritz Lang’s remake of Jean Renoir’s La Chienne (The Bitch) from 1931. Scarlet Street is a wonderful noir starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. Though sanitized in the Hollywood way, this is true gutter noir. Even the ending irony is dark.

  • Strange Illusion

    Not to be confused with Anthony Mann’s noir Strange Impersonation of 1946. This is Edgar G. Ulmer’s Hamlet noir. A dream warns the young protagonist that his mom shouldn’t remarry, particularly the man who murdered his father. “Mother, no! This man isn’t Father!”

• 1946

  • Shock

    Evil doctor noir starring Vincent Price and Lynn Bari. Directed by Alfred L. Werker (He Walked by Night).
  

  • The Stranger

    Orson Welles directs and stars along with Loretta Young and Edward G. Robinson in this New England, disguised-Nazi noir. Compare to Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), the prototypical sunny noir compromised by the shadow of foreign menace.

  • The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

    Outstanding cast (Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott, and Van Heflin—all to have significant careers in noir films) in Lewis Milestone’s psychologically complex noir.

• 1947

  • My Favorite Brunette

    Parody noir with Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, and Peter Lorre. Directed by Elliott Nugent.

  • The Red House

    Absolutely fascinating though unconventional psychological noir starring Edward G. Robinson (Scarlet Street, The Stranger) and Judith Anderson and directed by Delmer Daves. Creates a noir atmosphere out of country sunlight.

  • Fear in the Night

    Hypnotism noir directed by Maxwell Shane and starring DeForest Kelley (aka Dr. “Bones” McCoy of Star Trek) and Paul Kelly (Crossfire, The File on Thelma Jordan, Side Street). Voiceover. Mirrors. Visually stylish. “All the evidence points to me!” theme. Plausible villain. From a Cornell Woolrich story. See Black Angel, The Blue Dahlia, The Blue Gardenia, etc.


• 1948

  • He Walked by Night

    Police (Jack Webb) pursue cop-killer (Richard Basehart) noir. Directed by Alfred L. Werker. Compare the ending of He Walked by Night with the ending of Carol Reed’s The Third Man out the following year. Its documentary nature also bears comparison with Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (also 1948).

  • The Amazing Mr. X

    Con-man noir with Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari (Shock), and Cathy O’Donnell (They Live by Night). Outstanding cinematography by John (“It's not what you light - it's what you DON'T light”) Alton. Directed by Bernard Vorhaus.
  

  • Inner Sanctum

    Twilight Zone noir—turns on a mystical prediction. Gritty sizzle noir directed by Lew Landers. With Charles Russell and Mary Beth Hughes (The Great Flamarion).

  • The Scar or Hollow Triumph

    Deeply ironic noir with Paul Henreid and Joan Bennett (Scarlet Street). Well directed by Steve Sekeley (Lady in the Death House).


• 1949

  • Jigsaw

    Fletcher Markle’s socially-conscious film about a conspiracy of extremists. Considered noir by some but lacks characteristic noir plot, characters, look, and tone. Stars Franchot Tone (The Man on the Eiffel Tower). Notable for multiple cameos by famous Hollywood actors and actresses (John Garfield, Henry Fonda, Marlene Dietrich, Burgess Meredith...) who supported the film’s moral and political viewpoint.

  • Port of New York

    Drug smuggling New York noir with Yul Brynner with hair. Directed by László Benedek. See Borderline.

  • Impact

    Impressive noir from Arthur Lubin starring Brian Donleavy, but it’s the women who dominate this film: Ella Raines as Marsha Peters, Anna May Wong as Su Lin, and Helen Walker, despicably delicious as Irene Williams. The film is Shakespearean in its ABA structure, the “green world” being Larkspur, Idaho, and San Francisco as the frame city.
  

  • D.O.A.

    Edmund O’Brien (The Killers, White Heat , The Hitch-Hiker) poisoned and dying in San Francisco as the film opens, the action of the movie is the search for the identity and the motive of his killer. Classic noir from Rudolph Maté.

  • Too Late for Tears

    Bryon Haskin directed this femme fatale noir that has Arthur Kennedy and Dan Duryea (Scarlet Street, Black Angel, The Great Flamarion) up against the deadly avarice of Lizabeth Scott (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers).

• 1950

  • The Second Woman

    Underrated noir with Robert Young and Betsy Drake. Atmospheric and psychological like The Red House. Chandleresque twists. Directed by James V. Kern.
  

  • The File on Thelma Jordan

    Barbara Stanwyck (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Double Indemnity, Clash by Night) as a femme fatale who grows a soul. With Wendell Corey as another of the helpless noir males who succumb to females whose hearts are in the wrong place. Directed by Robert Siodmak.

  • Borderline

    William A. Seiter noir about drug trafficking stars Claire Trevor (Murder, My Sweet; Born to Kill; Raw Deal,) working for the police. She gets involved with two criminals: Raymond Burr (Raw Deal, Pitfall, The Blue Gardenia) and then Fred MacMurray (Double Indemnity). Begins as noir, transforms to comedy. “It Happened One Noir.” See The 39 Steps.
  

  • Quicksand

    Irving Pichel’s unrelenting noir starring Mickey Rooney whose lust for Jeanne Cagney leads him to theft to feed her greed. Also with Peter Lorre (M, Quicksand, My Favorite Brunette, Beat the Devil). Downward-spiral noir. See also Detour, Pitfall, The File on Thelma Jordan, etc.
  

  • Panic in the Streets

    Chase noir with Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death, Road House, Night and the City, No Way Out, Don’t Bother to Knock, Pickup on South Street) as the chaser and plague-ridden Jack Palance (Sudden Fear) as the chased. With Barbara Bel Geddes, Paul Douglas and Zero Mostel. Directed by Elia Kazan.

  • The Man on the Eiffel Tower

    Paris chase noir directed and starring Burgess Meredith. With Charles Laughton as Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret and Franchot Tone as the Nietzschean villain Johann Radek. Compare Radek with Harry Lime in Carol Reed’s Viennese noir The Third Man, also 1949.


• 1951

  • Cause for Alarm!

    Brilliant Loretta Young film, noir because of its nightmarish, noose-tightening plot. Directed by Tay Garnett (The Postman Always Rings Twice¬). A subset of sunny noir; one might call it suburban noir.

• 1952

  • Kansas City Confidential

    John Payne taking revenge against the men who framed him: Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Neville Brand under the leadership of Preston Foster. The gang doesn’t know each other. They’ve always worn masks! Coleen Gray as the love interest. Outstanding noir. Iconic images abound.


• 1953

  • Beat the Devil

    Parody noir scripted by Truman Capote. Only slightly more serious than My Favorite Brunette. Top notch cast (Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre), top notch director (John Huston).

  • The Hitch-Hiker

    Wonderful noir directed by Ida Lupino, star herself of many classic noir films (High Sierra; They Drive by Night; On Dangerous Ground; Road House; The Man I Love; Beware, My Lovely; and her own directorial effort The Bigamist). The small cast all brilliant: Edmond O’Brien (The Killers, White Heat, D.O.A.), Frank Lovejoy, and William Talman as Emmett Myers, the psychopath kidnapper who sleeps literally with one eye open.


• 1954

  • Suddenly

    Psychotic-killer noir starring Frank Sinatra as John Baron, would-be presidential assassin. With Sterling Hayden (The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing) as the good guy. Small town noir. The infiltration of big city evil. Anticipates The Rifleman.

All films are available on the internet.

See The Internet Movie Database for detailed information on individual films.

Stills by Bill Yarrow from public domain versions of the films

This information is current as of April 30, 2008