‘Touch of Evil’ Needed Final Touch of Welles

I was glad to read your update on Universal’s restoration and re-release of Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil” (ironic note: the work will undoubtedly cost more than the original film--we had 30 days and $800,000; we came in one night and $29,000 over budget). I’m sure [film editor] Walter Murch and his colleagues are equal to their task (“Orson Welles Gets Final Cut--at Last,” Calendar, Jan. 31).

It’s often been said that Welles deserved more of Hollywood than he got; true enough. Also true: Film, the art form of our time, deserved more of Welles than he gave.

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Once I’d persuaded Universal to accept Welles as director, he flung himself into the project with the full range of his protean creative capacities. He rewrote the entire script in 10 days, vastly improving it.

The shoot went very well, as did the editing, some of which I watched and learned from. I also saw several reels of Welles’ rough cut, superbly done. I then went off to film “The Big Country” for William Wyler.

Two months later, the studio called me in the Mojave: Could I reach Welles? On turning in his cut, he’d gone off to Mexico to raise money for “Don Quixote” and hadn’t called them since. When I got back in town, I found Welles and read his 58-page memo, but by then, the fat was in the fire.

In terms of sheer talent, I admire Welles as much as any of the fine directors I’ve had the good luck to work for, but the director cannot abandon a film in post-production.

I look forward to the film’s reincarnation, warts, wonders, cross cuts and all, though it occurs to me that the most memorable scenes in the film--the stunning boom shot that opens the picture, the 12-page scene in Sanchez’s apartment, the scene driving down the alley (with me and my partner running the sound and the camera during the take)--were all shot as seamless setups, with no cuts at all.

In the end, Cahier du Cinema’s early judgment may be the best. “ ‘Touch of Evil’ is not a great film,” they said. “It is undoubtedly the best B movie ever made.” I’ll settle for that.

P.S.: I’m bemused that your reporter found my casting as a Mexican attorney “bizarre.” It was the first of more than a dozen non-American roles I’ve played, from Brits, Scots, Irishmen to a variety of kings, tyrants, cardinals and geniuses. Don’t we call that nontraditional casting nowadays?

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Charlton Heston starred in Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil.”