Institute History
Description
Coming towards the end of the film noir cycle, Touch of Evil is even more harsh, perverse and bizarre than The Lady From Shanghai. Charlton Heston plays a Mexican police chief recently married to Janet Leigh. An attempt on Heston’s life brings Welles into the picture, playing a grotesquely overstuffed American detective, a sweaty pig of a man slurring out lines like “Didn’t ya bring any doughnuts or sweetrolls?” Other highlights include Marlene Dietrich in a cameo as an aging whorehouse madame and, in a particularly weird scene, Dennis Weaver playing a proto-Norman Bates to Janet Leigh in a destitute hotel (remember the film precedes Hitchcock’s Psycho by three years.) Five stars for this cult classic.
Screening Details
Credits
As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication.
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