Under the sign of evil
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Under the sign of evil |
| Original title | Touch of Evil |
 | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 (new version 16) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Orson Welles |
| script | Orson Welles |
| production |
Albert Zugsmith Rick Schmidlin for Universal Studios |
| music | Henry Mancini |
| camera | Russell Metty |
| cut |
Virgil W. Vogel Aaron Stell Edward Curtiss 1998: Walter Murch |
| occupation | |
| |
In the sign of evil (original title: Touch of Evil ) is an American crime film from 1958. It is assigned to the genre of film noir . Directed by Orson Welles , who wrote the script based on the detective novel Infallibility Can Be Deadly (Badge of Evil) by Whit Masterson (a pseudonym of the authors Robert Wade and Bill Miller). The studio shortened the original version so much that Welles wrote a 58-page memorandum asking for changes. A version of the film, restored on the basis of the memorandum, has been around since 1998. It was also the last Hollywood film by Welles, which, frustrated by the paternalism of commercial interests, was only produced in Europe.
action
Los Robles is a small town on the Mexican-American border that makes money with brothels and drugs. Shortly after crossing the barely monitored border from Mexico to the United States, the wealthy businessman Linnekar and his young companion are blown up by a bomb in their car. This happens in front of the respected drug investigator of the Mexican government, Miguel Vargas, and his newlywed American wife Susan. At the site of the explosion on the US side, Vargas meets the old police captain Hank Quinlan. Quinlan relies on his so-called "intuition" in his investigations and he quickly found his culprit: in Sanchez, the Mexican lover of the daughter of the murdered Linnekar. He wanted to prevent his daughter's relationship with Sanchez, which is why Sanchez killed him. Although he denies the act, the police find dynamite in his apartment. Vargas happens to know that the dynamite wasn't there. He suspects Captain Quinlan of constructing the evidence.
A story rich in intrigue develops between the two antagonists, in which the corrupt Quinlan does not shy away from falsifying evidence and accusing Susan of drug use. He wants to damage Vargas' reputation with all his might. To do this, he works with the criminal Mexican bar owner Grandi, who still has an account with Vargas because his brother was arrested by him in Mexico City. Grandi's henchmen threaten and abuse Susan for hours in a lonely motel. A little later, Grandi is killed by Quinlan, who wants to blame Susan for the murder. Meanwhile, Vargas is looking for documents in archives that clearly prove that Quinlan falsified evidence for years and thus apparently caused the deaths of innocent people. He is supported in this by Al Schwartz, assistant to the district attorney. But the public prosecutor and police chief Gould are still holding on to Quinlan, as the renowned investigator has threatened them with resignation.
When Sergeant Menzies, Quinlan's longtime associate, admitted in the course of persistent investigations that his boss had in many cases falsified evidence and put innocent people on death row, his conscience wore him. He helps the Mexican to corner Quinlan, who has relapsed after a long period of abstinence. Quinlan made a serious mistake during the murder of Grandi, whom he strangled himself in the hotel room of the unconscious Susan: he left his cane at the scene. Menzies takes Vargas's side and presents the evidence. Equipped with a microphone, Menzies Quinlan is supposed to induce incriminating statements when they meet at night. The old, experienced policeman, however, senses the trap. An exchange of fire ensues in which Menzies is fatally shot by Quinlan. The sergeant is able to save Vargas, who taped the dialogue between Menzies and Quinlan, at the last moment by shooting Quinlan. So Vargas can finally go home with his young wife. In the end it turns out that the Sanchez accused by Quinlan is actually the murderer of Linnekar and his companion.
interpretation
This film is considered to be the end of the classic era of film noir . Characteristic are the threatening milieu in which good and bad cannot be distinguished, and the reversal of roles - Quinlan, a representative of the law, turns out to be evidence of falsifying fraudsters and later even to be a murderer. Orson Welles plays him extremely unsympathetic. His moral, strictly rational opponent Vargas, who soon sees through Quinlan's game, has largely tied his hands on the American side of the border. He also has to fight for his wife, who is drugged and kidnapped by a Mexican gang. In the end, it turns out that Quinlan was right: The crook, initially imprisoned on the basis of falsified evidence, confesses to the car bomb crime.
The opening scene, in which the camera follows a car uncut for almost three and a half minutes and shows a view of the streets of Los Robles , went down in film history.
Awards
- 1993 - Entry into the National Film Registry
- 1998 - New York Film Critics Circle Awards Special Award for Walter Murch's restored version.
Cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop was posthumously awarded the Society of Camera Operators (SOC) prize for the best historical sequence for the opening sequence of the film, a three-minute tracking shot ( plan sequence ) .
Others
- The film composer Henry Mancini thought the music for the Orson Welles film was the best of his time at Universal. At that time it was the first major film score with Latin American jazz .
- In addition to Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor in guest supporting roles, other well-known actors appear in small roles: Mercedes McCambridge as a criminal, Joseph Cotten as a coroner and Keenan Wynn .
- Scenes from this film are shown in several other films, for example in the cinema scene in Snap Shorty with John Travolta or in the film Bruges See ... and Die? on the television of the hotel room.
Reviews
“A complicated thriller that ties in with the tradition of the black series, but at the same time takes it to absurdity. Intelligent, impressive in terms of both staging and acting, the film thrives on the ambivalence of an atmosphere that is as oppressive as it is fascinating. "
"Welles has completely rewritten the pulp template, this 'ridiculous script', into a maze. Nothing is, it seems, blurring the lines between day and night, sensible crime-hunting and toxic intoxication. Janet Leigh, alone in the motel with a heroin gang and the confused night porter - that's psycho by day. And Quinlan, just because he's the bad guy, doesn't have to be on the wrong track with his suspicions. A succinct sentence, mumbled from the off at the end , lets the lonely sheriff triumph over the honest Vargas and dismantles the genre of the noir crime film. "
“During the end credits one can be a little nervous about the questionable sense of justice that Welles is propagating here. But that is the great thing about this film: Welles is duping with the usual visual conventions, raising doubts that what appears to be right on the surface is really right. And that in the end the degenerate, drunk, finished schemer turns out to be the real figure of identification, precisely because he appears much more human and therefore above all more honest than the ambitious nerdy youngster. "
literature
- Whit Masterson: Infallibility can be fatal. Detective novel (Original title: Badge of Evil) . German by Hubert Deymann. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1978, 152 pages, ISBN 3-499-42452-5
Web links
- Touch of Evil in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- In the sign of evil at marlenedietrich-filme.de
- Sound carrier with the film music
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for In the Sign of Evil . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2005 (PDF; test number: 17 288 V / DVD).
- ↑ In the sign of evil. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Alex Rühle, blurb for the edition of the film in the series Süddeutsche Zeitung Cinemathek No. 13 ISBN 3-86615-013-X
- ↑ Lina Dinkla - Filmzentrale.com