Touch Of Evil (1958) ****

To my knowledge, I had never watched the Theatrical Version of Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil (1958) prior to tonight. I'd always gravitated toward the Reconstructed Version of the film, even though I previously owned a Blu-ray edition with all three available versions of TOE (the Preview Version being the third). Now that the film is on 4K UHD, I decided it was time to see how the film was originally widely viewed by audiences.

And I have to say—given Welles' experimental, sometimes meandering editing and dialogue style, along with what I could remember regarding specifics of the Reconstructed Version—it doesn't feel all that dramatically different to me. To be clear, the Theatrical Version is 15 minutes shorter and there are some key differences (this website provides a comparison), of which I am aware, but the overall feel of the film remains similar.

I do think the Theatrical Version is not quite as good (I give the Reconstructed Version an extra half star), but even in its truncated state, it's still an evocative film noir—a stylish tale of corruption, obsession, and prejudice, with strong performances, bold cinematography by Russell Metty, and a frenetic score by Henry Mancini.

You can find my Orson Welles Feature Films Ranked list here.

You can find my Film Noir Feature Films Ranked list here.