Given access to Hollywood's superior technical resources for the first time in ten years, Welles responded with an outpouring of creative energy that dazzled the cast, crew, and, for a while, the studio management. From its legendary opening camera movement to its haunting Marlene Dietrich envoi, TOUCH OF EVIL is Welles's most spectacularly stylized film. The plot pits a corrupt border-town sheriff (Welles) against a Mexican narc (Heston) and his vulnerable American bride (Janet Leigh). The film's gargoylish supporting characters (especially Akim Tamiroff's toupeed drug lord and Mercedes Cambridge's leather-jacketed bull dagger) and sensationally seedy setting (filmed in Venice, California) contribute to an exhilarating sense of baroque overload. Once again, the film exists in several versions; we are showing the 1998 restoration, sometimes referred to, not quite accurately, as the "Director's Cut." 35mm. (MR)

www.siskelfilmcenter.org/touch-of-evil