the poetry of lost souls: Night of the Iguana (1964)

Editor’s note: minor spoilers in the comments below.

Night of the Iguana. Burbank, CA: Turner Entertainment, distributed by Warner Home Video, c2006. Originally released as a motion picture in 1964. John Huston, director; Gabriel Figueroa, director of photography; Ray Stark, producer; John Huston, Anthony Veiller, script. Based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Performers: Richard Burton; Ava Gardner; Deborah Kerr; Sue Lyon; Grayson Hall; James Ward; Cyril Delevanti. Featurettes: “The Night of the Iguana: Huston’s Gamble;” “On the Trail of the Iguana.”
   Summary: a defrocked, alcoholic, American minister becomes a tour guide, and while travelling in Mexico with a bus-load of school teachers and their 18-year old charge, becomes entangled with the girl, with a woman of eloquence and wisdom, and with an earthy and beautiful former love.

Sometimes the events and personalities surrounding the making of a movie are as legendary as the final product itself. Conspicuous examples might include Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane, two more or less contemporaneous exemplars from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Jump forward a generation or so and we have Night of the Iguana, which certainly fits the sensationalist mold but with an unmistakable early ‘Sixties vibe. The circumstances involved in the making of the film have been much discussed and thus we’ll not duplicate here, but rather concentrate on the merits of the film itself.

I’ve not seen or read the Tennessee Williams original and can’t say whether the cinematic treatment represents an improvement on, or falls short of, the play. What I have inferred from commentary, both online and otherwise, is that the movie, for better or worse, is a condensation and simplification of the play, along with some inevitable softening of more risqué content. However, considering the talent in front of and behind the camera, I can’t help feeling that the film version doesn’t quite deliver the goods, though it stands pretty tall on its own merits. Exactly what I find wanting in Iguana is not so easy to identify, except perhaps my reservations about the black and white look, discussed below. Moreover, repeated viewings reveal an ever growing appreciation of just how good the movie is: like fine wine its metaphysical message mellows and improves with age, perhaps mirroring one’s own mellowing and – we hope – growing in wisdom with the years.

The cast, even the much maligned Sue Lyon, is well nigh perfect. All inhabit their roles so honestly and so well it’s difficult to imagine any other actor assuming the respective parts. Ava Gardner in particular delivers a knockout performance as the rough-around-the-edges Maxine. I have one minor criticism: though her Southern bonafides are impeccable, hailing as she did from North Carolina, her accent doesn’t sound quite right, a little overcooked perhaps as if she’s trying too hard. Otherwise her mildly over-the-top take is spot on [1]. Indeed, this portrayal may be the closest cinematic approximation of the real life woman that we’ll ever get. Of course Burton is wonderful too playing an edge-of-the-ledge character and delivering one of his best edge-of-the-ledge performances [2]. And naturally Deborah Kerr shines as the itinerant sketch artist/grifter with more than a touch of wisdom. Ditto for Cyril Delevanti as her ninety-seven year old grandfather whom she proclaims to be the oldest living and practising poet. 

The Warner DVD includes two featurettes, presented in glorious color, and they underscore the film’s major casualty: being shot in black and white and not in color. Director John Huston felt that all the incredible washes of color would have distracted from the somber mood of the story. But then again he later quipped that he was probably wrong. I tend to go along with Huston’s later assessment. While I’m not unsympathetic to the aesthetic, technical and probably even financial considerations that ultimately went into favoring black & white, to miss out on the incredible ocean vistas and lush tropical foliage, all emblazoned in south-of-border sunlight, seems a squandered opportunity that can never be revisited or redone. To my way of thinking, the color wouldn’t have diminished the story or mood a whit, maybe even improved it. Not the popular opinion perhaps, but there it is. At least we have the two, mostly color, bonus features as a kind of consolation, though, while on the topic of bonuses, a commentary track would have been very much welcome.

That being said, in the context of a black and white movie cinematographic legend Gabriel Figueroa does a stellar job of painting with a chiaroscuro canvas: just the right splash of light (or lightning), just the right camera angle, comingling into the darkness to flesh out (and sometimes obscure) the characters in all their follies and glories. Indeed if anything his low keyed, dare I say it, noirish approach tends to downplay the beautiful natural setting, concentrating as it does on interiors, or quasi-interiors (I’m thinking mostly of the patio and restaurant at Maxine’s place). Thus Benjamin Frankel‘s un-Hollywoodish score – spartan, low keyed, sparingly used – perfectly complements the monochromatic gestalt.

If there’s one misstep in the otherwise pitch perfect tone, it’s Maxine’s two Mexican houseboys and sometimes paramours who assume their beach boy roles with obvious, perhaps too much, relish. In its day this was apparently acceptable comic relief, even a little daring, but today the scenes with the beach boys seem a clumsy attempt at risqué humor and as a result fall flat.

Talky, self indulgent, even a tad pretentious at times, Iguana is still a thing to behold, mostly for the joy of watching great artists perform at the height of their powers. For all the drama that happens on the dark night of the iguana, by the end of the film we know that something has changed. Quite a lot has changed actually, a cosmic shift, tectonic plates moving, or something. All the individuals have had a sort of epiphany, even if its nature is unclear, and it’s to director Huston’s credit that he doesn’t emphasize said change in too heavy-handed a manner. Indeed, we don’t know how things will work out for the principals, especially Maxine and Shannon. We can only wish them well. Miss Jelkes and the tour ladies too.

Williams famously did not care for the ending, but I think it’s just right.

[1] Interesting that Ava Gardner, both the real-life woman and the roles she played, never completely shed her down-home origins, the most obvious tell being the residue of a Southern accent that always came through. Of all the characters she impersonated onscreen, echoing the comments above, the closest to the real woman was probably Maxine, and the fictional character closest to Maxine is arguably the, slightly more polished, playgirl Kelly in Mogambo. Indeed, Kelly might be seen as a warm-up for the earthy, worse-for-wear Maxine of a decade later.
   Kitty Collins of The Killers ranks a close second to Kelly: she possesses much of Maxine’s proletarian street smarts, but otherwise has abandoned any humble beginnings in favor of an uptown, high maintenance, strictly urban lifestyle with its attendant comforts and rewards. By contrast, Kelly, like Maxine, must make do in a rustic, primitive environment.

[2] Special mention must also be made of Grayson Hall for her finely nuanced turn as Shannon's nemesis, the repressed, ostensibly Sapphic Miss Fellowes. For all her shrill, intolerant surface, this is ultimately a sensitive, sympathetic character, and Miss Hall does a brilliant job of capturing the woman’s brittleness – and humanity. (I think she was robbed of an Academy Award). Of course the characters in Iguana are so interesting and complex we want to have more backstory on all of them, especially Miss Fellowes. Of all the principals hers is the most sketchy portrayal. What is her history? What makes her so high strung? Why do she and Shannon rub each other the wrong way to such an extreme?

Further reading: R. Barton Palmer, "John Huston and Postwar Hollywood: The Night of the Iguana (1964) in Context," South Atlantic Review v80 n3-4 (2015), pp. 25-35; Lee Server, Ava Gardner: 'Love is Nothing,' St. Martin's, 2006, pp. 413-29; The Night of the Iguana and Puerto Vallarta.

cabaretera noir: Aventurera (1950)

Aventurera [videorecording]. Producciones Calderon S.A.; argumento de Alvaro Custodio; adaptacíon de Carlos Sampelayo y Alvaro Custodio ; una pelicula de pedro y Guillermo Calderón; dirigida por Alberto Gout. Cinemateca, distributed by Facets Video, [2004]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1950. Cinematography, Alex Phillips; editor, Alfredo Rosas Priego; music, Alberto Domínguez, Antonio Díaz Conde and Agustin Lara. Performers: Ninón Sevilla, Tito Junco, Andrea Palma, Miguel Inclán. With: video introduction by Michael Donnelly.

Summary: Elena tries to make a new life for herself after her mother leaves her alone, but she is drugged, seduced, and forced to work as a dancer/call girl in a nightclub. She soon rises to stardom as a dancer, but still plots revenge and escape.

style ****

substance ***1/2

Aventurera is a primo entry in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, and, more important, perhaps the finest exemplar of the Mexican cabaretera subgenre, which is the rough equivalent of the American films noirs of the era. The critical difference, as the name implies, is that cabaretera always uses a club or casino as the backdrop and includes a goodly amount of musical numbers, also that cabaretera was more up front in its depiction of sensuality and sordidness than its Code-inhibited American cousins.

In any case the usual cabaretera story has considerable Sturm und Drang, and to spice things up, as if we needed more, the cabaret often doubles as a front for prostitution and white slavery, with the proprietor (or proprietress) leading a double life, usually as an otherwise respectable figure in high society. And, again paralleling film noir’s leftist sentiments, Aventurera and other films of its ilk swept away the curtain and revealed the seamy side of urban economic affluence in Mexico during the post-World War II years [1]. Changing tastes and other factors doomed the cabaretera to a short life span, little more than five years, and by 1956 it had more or less disappeared.

The plot of Aventurera, such as it is, concerns the character Elena (Ninon Sevilla) and her attempts to go straight after being forced into life as a prostitute and cabaret dancer by an evil bordello madam. Plot twists proceed fast and furious and the viewer can be forgiven for having difficulty keeping up with all the goings-on. But these are smoothed out by the phantasmagoric dance numbers which feature a high-energy Ninon at her most beguiling, never more so so than in the surrealist Arabian nights number, the over-the–top glory of which would do Busby Berkeley proud.

Aventurera was re-released in the late 1990s to much acclaim, and today enjoys a considerable cult following, mostly for its camp elements. But even so, after seven decades the film holds up exceptionally well, but more to the point holds up well when considered against the American films noirs of the period. And ultimately, even with all the talent in front of and behind the camera, this is Ninon Sevilla’s film start to finish.

Echoes of cabaretera can been seen even today in our current pop culture, most prominently in the immensely popular Mexican telenovelas. There was no American equivalent of cabaretera, though the closest is probably Gilda, and, strangely, in its more tenuous way, Casablanca. One quibble: the Facets DVD includes an informative introduction by film historian Michael Connelly, but a film as significant as Aventurera seems to scream out for real-time commentary as well as other extras. Perhaps Criterion can be persuaded to release an all-the-trimmings version in the future. Still, even in its present incarnation, a wild ride, and a fun movie.

[1] Aventurera has also been cited for its proto-feminist elements. The strong-willed Elena refuses to bend to the dictates of a patriarchal system; she resists the machinations of high-handed would be masters, be they a kindly, albeit clueless, husband, or a ruthless gangster, and ultimately her independent spirit prevails. There’s also the character of Rosaura, who, despite the unsavory nature of her enterprise, is a capable and successful businesswoman.

Further reading

Las reinas del trópico: María Antonieta Pons, Meche Barba, Amalia Aguilar, Ninón Sevilla, Rosa Carmina, by Fernando Muñoz Castillo. [México, D.F.] : Grupo Azabache, 1993. "Se termino de imprimir en julio de 1993 en Offset 70, S.A. de C.V., Victor Hugo 99, Mexico,03300, D.F."

Joanne Hershfield, Mexican Cinema/Mexican Woman, 1940-1950, University of Arizona Press, 1996.

Paula Barreiro Posada, ''The Only Defense is Excess: Translating and Surpassing Hollywood's Conventions to Establish a Relevant Mexican Cinema,” Anagramas Rumbos Sentidos Comunicación, v9 n18, Jan./June 2011.
 

 

Love has many faces (1965)

Love Has Many Faces. [Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment] : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, [2011]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1965. Directed by Alexander Singer. Performers: Lana Turner, Cliff Robertson, Hugh O'Brian, Ruth Roman, Virginia Grey, Ron Husmann, Stefanie Powers. Music by David Raksin. Wardrobe by Edith Head. Title song performed by Nancy Wilson.
 Summary: Wealthy heiress Kit Jordan is in Acapulco vacationing with her husband Pete, formerly an American beach boy working the shores for rich women. Meanwhile, the body of one of Pete's fellow beach boys, Billy Andrews, washes to shore. The police investigate whether it was murder or suicide. Romantic conflicts and a bullfight add to the mix.

style ****
substance ***

I just caught Love Has Many Faces recently on GetTV and absolutely loved it, so much so that I promptly ordered the DVD from Amazon. A high gloss, widescreen product typical of the era, Many Faces had its world première a half century ago, and perhaps some thoughts on the film and its charismatic star Lana Turner are in order. First comment: times have changed, haven’t they? Or have they? Plus ça change(?) ... well, that, as they say, is another story, and another post.

But as for LHMF, it’s less notable for the plotline, such as it is, than the high-powered cast, and even more so the lush tropical backdrop. Acapulco was always a favorite setting for movies, but never had it been presented in such technicolored, mouth-watering fashion, here depicted as small-town, unspoiled, and under-the-radar, just the perfect playground for the bored rich.

A kind of synthesis of Peyton Place and a Sixties beach movie, Many Faces is nominally a tale of a suspicious death. But the story line is only incidental: at its essence our movie is about beautiful people in a beautiful place, behaving not very beautifully. Like so many glossy soapers of the era, the characters have every reason to be happy and count their blessings but instead mope around and fill themselves with alcohol to medicate their neurotic state of mind. In other words, it’s an irresistible blend of sleaze and sophistication.

To further cement its bad movie pedigree, Many Faces has more than its share of dialogue clunkers, most of them delivered during the alcohol-drenched interludes, in which we’re given a goodly amount of snappy repartee, some of it good, most of it not so good. Would-be profound observations fall flat or descend into campy absurdity. There are compensations: the catty digs sprinkled throughout are absolutely delicious in their acidy meanness.

My favorite scenes in Many Faces, however, are those of Hugh O’Brian, here cast as the aging gigolo Hank, cavorting with a worse-for-wear Ruth Roman, who plays an ‘older woman’ who is his favorite client. Roman and O’Brian have a chemistry that’s just right, and Miss Roman especially inhabits her role with perfect pitch: a world-weary character full of cynicism that drips like warm honey on, well, an Acapulco afternoon. If she’d had more scenes I’m sure she would have flat-out stolen the movie from Lana. Alas it was not to be.

The presence of veteran Virginia Grey as Ruth’s travel buddy is a plus, but she’s given little to do except lounge around the pool and make a few quips. Enrique Lucero as the Mexican cop does solid work as one of the few appealing characters, though his is a relatively minor part.

Ultimately LHMF is a lot less lurid and unsavory than it seems: most of the steamy activity occurs off-screen and far more is suggested than is shown. In this sense it harkens back to those mid and late Fifties melodramas of the kind Douglas Sirk did so well.

Whatever else it is, this is Miss Lana’s movie and further confirms her status as the queen of late Fifties and early Sixties romantic potboilers. Maybe she wasn’t a great actress – I confess I was never a big fan – but she had plenty of attitude and screen presence. And she always gave it her all no matter how bad the script. Even when she looks bored, as she frequently does in this film, she does so in an intense sort of way and always commands our attention.

Many Faces is hardly what one would call a great film, at least in the conventional sense, and it’s mostly the visual beauty of the film that makes it so … if not memorable then watchable. Few movies have looked this good – before or since. It’s well worth a visit, especially if you’re a fan of Miss Turner’s later oeuvre or enjoy movies with tropical settings stunningly photographed.

Truth be told, I’m not sure whether we’re the richer or poorer for the consignment of the Old School melodrama to history. The silver lining is that we have the originals, many now available on DVD, and for that we are grateful. There’s also the, far too infrequent, worthy homage like Far From Heaven that gets pretty close to the heart of the matter.

Time has been kind to Love Has Many Faces. A masterpiece of its kind – even if its niche is that of kitsch masterpiece – it actually gets better with repeated viewings, and is eminently deserving of its reputation as one the best bad movies of all time.

Memorable lines:

“Love is thin ice” (inscription on bracelet of dead man).

Margot: “Honey, when someone asks you to tell them the truth, always lie … and when you lie, make it a big one.”

Kit: "There's a world out there. Let it stay there."

Hank: “Haven’t I seen you around?”

Margot: “It’s possible. I’ve been there.”

Kit, to Hank: “You're ninety-percent MAN, ten-percent RAT!"

Further reading:

Lana Has Many Costumes

Stefanie Powers, One from the Hart, N.Y., Gallery, 2010, pp. 50-54.

Lana Turner’s Million Dollar Wardrobe (fascinating behind-the-scenes featurette)

Las reinas de las rumberas

Las reinas del trópico: María Antonieta Pons, Meche Barba, Amalia Aguilar, Ninón Sevilla, Rosa Carmina, by Fernando Muñoz Castillo. [México, D.F.] : Grupo Azabache, 1993. "Se termino de imprimir en julio de 1993 en Offset 70, S.A. de C.V., Victor Hugo 99, Mexico,03300, D.F."

Las reinas del trópico is a loving pictorial tribute to the five Latina actresses* in the book's subtitle, focusing on their spicy dance numbers in the rumberas (aka cabaretera) cinematic genre popular in the 1940s and 1950s. In the context of cine negro the book is also noteworthy for its many tasty and very noirish photos of the (non-cabaret) scenes from individual films. See also : Rumberas cubanas, reinas en el cine.


* They all attained fame in Mexican films but only one of them (Meche Barba) was actually of Mexican descent.

Our Man in Mexico

Morley, Jefferson. Our man in Mexico : Winston Scott and the hidden history of the CIA. Foreword by Michael Scott. Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 2008.

The Mexico connection 
In the 1940s and 1950s a different kind of noir engulfed the U.S. and the entire Western world -- the specter of the Cold War, with all its attendant Red Scare paranoia and uncertainty. Because of its strategic pole position in the Cold War sweepstakes, Mexico came in for special attention from both sides. This was due mostly to Mexico’s status as gateway to Latin America as well as its proximity to Cuba. With the U.S. government’s near-pathological concern over Leftist uprisings in the Americas, it’s not difficult to see why Mexico City achieved such prominence.

The hero of our story is Winston Scott, CIA career officer, eventual Mexico City station chief, and a man of surprising shadings and complexities [1]. A strict taskmeister on the job but a coddling father at home, Scott had a picaresque temperament which metamorphosed into a certain suave, business-like exterior which served him well in his diplomatic cover. The downside was a predilection for inconvenient romantic entanglements which seemed to inspire the dreamy poetry he wrote during off-hours. A good soldier and true believer who was entrusted with the most sensitive assignment in the Western hemisphere, he nonetheless was left out of the loop by his Washington masters on matters relating to JFK's assassination, and he eventually came to have considerable doubts about the agency [2]. Tellingly, his memoirs, unpublished at the time of his death, were considered so potentially explosive that legendary spymaster James Angleton rushed to Mexico City only a few days after Scott’s death to whisk away the originals plus any copies, taking them back to Washington for safe keeping. Even today, four decades later, they’ve not seen the light of day [3].

Not quite conspiracist
Thus, on one level the book is a straightforward narrative of Scott’s life and colorful career, with especially good coverage of his years in Britain in WWII and his acquaintance with one Kim Philby. It also gives us a good flavor of social and political life in Mexico City the 50s and 60s (“Casablanca of the Cold War”). But the centerpiece of the story is of course Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico City in late September and early October of 1963 [4]. The two oustanding issues raised by the book seem to be the CIA's advance, pre-assassination knowledge of Oswald generally, and in particular the degree to which the Mexico office was or was not involved in monitoring his activities there. There’s lots of facts to ponder and dots to connect, but the evidence – as ever, maddeningly incomplete and fragmentary – suggests more than it delivers. Lots of good stuff, but no smoking guns [5]. But even with these imperfections, Our Man in Mexico makes a substantial contribution to JFK assassination studies and will give historians and general readers plenty to chew over.

[1] Not so surprisingly, considering his line of work, Scott ultimately remains a mystery and enigma.
[2] Scott’s misgivings about the agency were primarily regarding its organization and management style, not necessarily its philosophy or mission. In this respect he was a true believer to the end.
[3] To be sure, about one half of Scott’s memoirs have been released publically. The only complete copies of the original manuscript, however, remain at CIA headquarters. 
[4] An alternate, conspiracist version of the events - not necessarily endorsed by Morley - posits that the man who visited Mexico City was an Oswald double or impersonator. 
[5] In a recent article on the subject, author Morely seems to lean toward a conspiracist interpretation.

arqueológico noir

Plunder of the sun [DVD]. Warner Bros. presents a Wayne-Fellows production; produced by Robert Fellows; screenplay by Jonathan Latimer; directed by John Farrow. Based on the novel by David Dodge. Originally released as a motion picture in 1953. Special features: Commentary by Peter Ford and Frank Thompson; On location with Glenn Ford; Sean McClory; Plundering history. Performers: Glenn Ford, Diana Lynn, Patricia Medina, Francis Sullivan.

style ***
substance ***


exotic noir

Film noir buffs are divided as to whether Plunder of the Sun is genuine noir or not. I include it here because of its heist/missing treasure plot and its shadowy look (the latter is actually quite strikingly done; kudos to director John Farrow and cinematographer Jack Draper). Two more strengths: 1) it’s refreshing to see a movie about Mexican archaeology that’s not a horror film; 2) the novelty of the filming locations (Oaxaca, Mitla and Monte Alban).

Looking great at forty-ish, Glenn Ford is solid as always. Here he's part villain and part hero, and seems bemused much of the time as he tries to locate some sort of mislaid Aztec parchment. His leading lady Patricia Medina is terrific. I’d never heard of her until this film, and her exotic looks make her perfect for the part: she's absolutely gorgeous in every scene she's in, though I was never sure, even at the end, whether she was a femme fatale or virtuous heroine.

But the great coup of the story - and the casting - is the group of eccentric characters who are sprinkled around the nominal leads: Francis Sullivan as an obsessive collector; a Gloria Graham-esque Diana Lynn as the film's de facto femme fatale; and the, alas unidentified, singer of  “Sin Ella” at the saloon in Havana. Miss Lynn in particular practically steals the movie from ostensible leading lady Patricia Medina. There's also a nice cameo by Mona Barrie (her last film) as a chatty American tourist.

First among supporting equals is surely Sean McClory’s oily villain, an excommunicated archaeologist named Jefferson who is Glenn Ford’s principal rival in tracking down the McGuffin-like treasure. McClory steals every scene he’s in, despite (or perhaps because of) his albino looks. What’s up with that bleached hair and shades, anyway? Whatever the intentions of the scriptwriter and director, it all gives a fey element to an already offbeat, vaguely sinister character. In any case, it's a marvelous performance by McClory.

A curious little movie, then, alternatingly compelling and boring, and with more than a few touches of The Maltese Falcon. The real star of Plunder, of course, is the authentic Mexican atmosphere, so effectively underscored by Antonio Díaz Conde's brash, idiomatic  score. In sum, Plunder of the Sun is not quite an undiscovered masterpiece, but rather a well-heeled, quasi-noir adventure film, definitely worth a watch. Raiders of the Lost Ark with feeling, if you like.

Border noir I part 1

  "Think Hitchcock's Psycho with Chicana biker dykes, the desert, and pachucos, and you are ready for Welles's frontera Odyssey.” - William Anthony Nericcio, Tex[t]-Mex : seductive hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2007, p41.

“You people are touchy.”

   Touch of Evil is an irresistible, one-of-a-kind movie; it inspires so many thoughts and associations that there’s the inevitable impulse to want to write them all down. Alas, Touch of Evil is also, with the conspicuous exception of Citizen Kane, probably the most written-about Orson Welles film. Thus the embarrassing fate to offer my proverbial two cents’ worth. But I will, and I’ll do my best to be mercifully brief. Suffice to say that if there is indeed a cinematic subgenre we could call border noir, then present film is arguably the supreme example [1]. I’ll leave it to others to determine whether it’s the last film noir, the first post-noir, or first, albeit proto-, neo-noir.

   Time alters the way we see a movie, and Touch of Evil indeed improves with repeated viewings. My initial impressions of disjointedness and strangeness are a large part of the joys of subsequent viewings of the film. So are the almost caricature-like noir motifs which lard the proceedings: sinister back alleys; sleazy, smoke-infested night clubs; Spanish-deco architecture; flying trash; jagged staircases; dive hotels; off-kilter camera angles. Indeed, the border town universe of Touch of Evil might be seen as the Lady from Shanghai fun-house come to life for a couple of hours. Or as one critic so aptly expresses it : “Touch of Evil is a seedy experience.” [2]

   Looming over all is the malevolent, hulking presence of Capt. Hank Quinlan (played by Orson Welles). Brutal, physically repulsive, and more important, morally so, Quinlan is the type of cop who doesn’t hesitate to plant evidence in the cause of “aiding justice.” A rampant, unapologetic American supremacist [3], Quinlan carries with him an anti-Mexican bias that translates into a guilt-before-the-fact philosophy of law enforcement. Yes, Quinlan is a no-nonsense, realpolitik sort of cop. For him those starry-eyed idealists like Vargas (Charlton Heston) cause all the problems in the world (“they’re worse than crooks; you can always do something with a crook”).

   Yet what makes Quinlan fascinating is that he has several shadings of gray in his professional and personal character. To wit, there's the surprisingly sentimental side, along with a clever if nasty sense of humor. In one scene he reminisces wistfully with brothel madam and former girlfriend Tana about better days as schmaltzy, ersatz Mexican piano music wafts in the background. And for someone who sits atop the power structure, Quinlan has little flair for, even patience with, politics; he chides his nominal bosses, the D.A. and police chief, for their tuxedoed garb which they wear to a steakhouse dinner, which Quinlan, ever the detective, quickly divines is a political event.

   But if Quinlan isn't exactly a heroically tragic figure (then again, maybe he is!), he’s nonetheless deserving of some sympathy from the audience [4]. In his own twisted way Quinlan has a sense of professional integrity. He pushes himself to and beyond his physical limits. And he reminds us that he never framed anyone who wasn’t already guilty. Perhaps even more important, he never personally profited from his work as a policeman, with only a small turkey ranch to show for his 30 years of dutifully taking on the dirtiest jobs. Most of all, Quinlan attaches a highly personal, moralistic righteousness to his work; his capturing criminals is a revenge-laced atonement for the unpunished murder of his wife decades prior. The one silver lining for him in his sordid world is a certain police celebrity status. All in all, one of cinema’s great villains, with a touch of the hero.

Border Nor I Part 2 here   

Border noir I part 2

Border Noir I Part 1 here

The movie’s better.

Originally published in 1956 and written by Robert Wade and William Miller under the pseudonym of "Whit Masterson," Badge of Evil was the original title of the novel that was to become the movie Touch of Evil. These days the book is periodically reissued under the film’s title. Upon reading the book my reaction was: it’s ok, a competent if bland detective story, but no Touch of Evil.

  There are numerous differences between the book and the film, mostly of characters, emphasis and setting. There’s no Vargas in the novel; the book’s main protagonist is a Vargas-like assistant district attorney named Holt, who has a Mexican (albeit thoroughly Americanized) wife. There’s no Sgt. Menzies; the film collapses the characters of McCoy and “Sgt.” Quinlan into the single character of Capt. Quinlan. The unnamed, rather Santa Monica-like Southern California setting of the novel is transmogrified in the film into an über-border town of irresistible sleaziness and decay.

Most important, the book lacks the poetry and atmosphere of Welles’s film, specifically the Mexican-ness, border tensions, and racially-charged edginess which overlay almost every scene. But bottom line: the movie, with its special alchemy by way of Welles’s magic ‘touch’, transforms a conventional crime thriller into a phantasmagorical, and unforgettable, work of art.

 Despite all the technical razzle-dazzle and convoluted plot, Touch of Evil is at heart a character study, specifically of two characters: the somewhat one-dimensional Vargas and the more complexly textured Quinlan. And if the particular vehicle for the character study is tragedy, then the true tragic figure is not the obvious choice of Quinlan, who has already, self-accommodatingly, sunk to his own moral and ethical heart of darkness, but rather, the by-the-book Vargas, who little by little compromises his professional ethics, eventually employing Quinlan-like methods of aiding justice in pursuit of an ostensible, and probably illusory, greater good.

Contributing in no small part to our identification with the Quinlan character is the uncanny similarity to Welles himself. Thus the bloated visage of Quinlan is a metaphor for the spectacular ruin of Welles's career. And Capt. Quinlan’s relationship to the city parallels Welles’s own outsider, quasi washed-up status in a depraved, indifferent film industry in the late 1950s. Moreover, Quinlan’s previously referenced distaste for politics is mirrored by Welles’ own conspicuous ineptitude in film industry politics.

But, in a classic case of Wellesian one-upmanship, it seems that the wily director may have had the last laugh after all. In particular, by way of the 1998 restoration (which incorporates a goodly amount of Welles’s suggestions in his famous 58-page memo), the artistic vision of Welles the auteur - even from beyond the grave and a half century later - has, at least to some extent, prevailed over philistinic studio interference. Thus, the mythology of Welles as misunderstood genius only continues to grow over the years.

style ****
substance ****

Further reading: Frank Brady, Citizen Welles : a Biography of Orson Welles, N. Y., New York, Scribner, 1989, pp. 496-511; Danny Peary, Cult Movies 3, N. Y., Simon & Schuster, 1988, pp. 255-260; “Touch of Evil” : Crossing the Line; “Hallucinations of Miscegenation and Murder: Dancing along the Mestiza/o Borders of Proto-Chicana/o Cinema with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil," in : William Anthony Nericcio, Tex[t]-Mex : Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2007, pp. 39-80; Benjamin Paquttte, Touch of Evil: A Cognitivist Approach; Brooke Rollins, “Some Kind of a Man : Orson Welles as Touch of Evil’s Masculine Auteur,” Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television, Spring2006, Issue 57, pp. 32-41.

[1] For more on border noir see: Dominique Brégent-Heald, "Dark Limbo : Film Noir and the North American Borders," Journal of American Culture, v29 n2, pp. 125-138.

[2] Eric M. Krueger, “Touch of Evil: Style Expressing Content,” Cinema Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Autumn, 1972), p. 57.

[3] In Quinlan's calculus, American invariably equates to White, as opposed to Mexican, different, or otherwise foreign (i.e. brown-skinned). Thus his nationalistic bias has a pungently racist element to it.


[4] Sympathetic or not, by the end of the film the character of Quinlan isn’t redeemed in any sense – in fact he has become progressively more vile and ruthless. To be sure, there’s the minor bone tossed his way with Sanchez's confession which confirms his repute as a detective. The really nice twist, however, is that it’s the squeaky clean Vargas who’s ultimately dragged down to Quinlan’s level, literally, as he meanders through the sewer-like, oil-drenched waters trying to collect surreptitiously obtained evidence to, in effect, frame Quinlan.