Touch Of Evil (1958)

A car-bombing on the US/Mexico border pits a righteous Mexican cop (Charleton Heston) against his corrupt gringo counterpart (Orson Welles).

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I know everyone loves to hold up Citizen Kane as the ultimate auteur film, but I'd like to make the case for a different Orson Welles film. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, Touch Of Evil could have been absolute trash. Yet despite the cheap title, incomprehensible plot, Charlton Heston playing a Mexican and numerous scenes of an innocent white woman being menaced by lustful Latinos, it's actually a rather amazing film. This is all due to Welles and his camera. Right from the beginning with the endless crane-shot, you are made aware that this is not your average suspense-thriller. And from there the train just keeps rolling. So what if the source material is crap? Orson swung for the fences...and knocked it out of the park! As his 58-page memo critiquing the studio's tinkering with the final cut can attest, he was playing for keeps. Which brings me back to where we began: Citizen Kane had the benefit of an extremely solid (and Oscar winning) script, this film had only Orson. His iconoclastic style was the film's salvation.