"Touch of Evil" opening shot

Brian Babarik · March 8, 2004

A coworker and I were watching "Touch of Evil" by Orson Wells one night and got into a discussion about the opening shot of the film. This long-take goes on for around three minutes and moves through a town near the Mexican/USA border introducing two of the main characters and mysterious activity. After this shot the film cuts to an explosion of a car from the beginning of the first shot. The film then proceeds into a story in the same town as the first shot.

Now his argument was that the film was unique for its time insofar as it shot predominately on location versus in a studio. He believes that the first shot was actually done in that town at night lit with studio lighting.

I felt that the first shot was shot in a studio but everything thereafter was shot on location. First, the opening shot tracks to show a town with a main street receeding deep in the center of frame to a taller buildingblocking off the road. Everything from the front of frame to that building in the back was in focus. With the film stocks at that time I believed that a lot of light would be necessary to stop down far enough to make that happen. Because of the light needed I didn't think that a non-studio power supply could support the amount of fixtures that were needed to run simultaneously. Secondly, there was a difference in the quality of the buildings when the first shot and other shots were compared. The first shot had a cleaner feel to the texture while the other shot had a more honest feel to the wear and tear.

Well, we were never able to come to a conclusion between the two of us and are now looking for some help on where to find information about this opening shot. All we were able to find on our own was the information about the titles being removed from over the shot and that is not what we were looking for. If anyone has any information about this shot or knows where to find said information any reply would be great. thanks.

Mitch Gross · March 9, 2004

The film was shot on location but not exactly far from the Hollywood studios. The location was Venice Beach, which is part of greater Los Angeles near Santa Monica. The opening shot was indeed on location, with lots of generators hidden behind buildings and likely power directly tied into the local power grid. You're correct that it took a lot of light and a lot of lighting units, as they covered a lot of ground in that shot and obviously everything had to be hidden. But big night exteriors were commonly done even back in the silent days--just bring in the gear and set it up.

The shot is one of the most written-about in history, if you couldn't find information then you didn't look hard enough. Welles shot take after take all night long until finally dawn started breaking in the sky. The problem was that the lowly bit-player playing the border guard was so nervous that he kept flubbing his line. Welles finally implored him to just move his mouth so that they could dub in the correct dialog later and that's what you see in the final shot, dawn rising and all.

The entire movie was done on location with the possible exception of the car exploding, which was likely done on the studio backlot for safety reasons.

Michael Nash · March 9, 2004

I watched the restored version on DVD not too long ago. The restoration looks and sounds great.

One thing that struck me was the amount of banded cable in the frame throughout the movie. I can understand it in such a large and complex shot as the opener, but there were other scenes with cable plainly visible as well. I guess they felt it was a little more subtle in B&W.

The other thing that struck me was the OTHER really long continuous-take shot in the middle of the movie, that no one ever talks about. It's an apartment interior with lots of characters and lots of dialogue, constantly moving and revealing new information. The carefully choreographed blocking and camera movement to pull that scene off in a small space seems almost as remarkable as the big exterior opening shot.

Wendell_Greene · March 9, 2004

The restored DVD version of ""Touch of Evil" also features the 58 page memo Orson Welles wrote to Universal executives about the changes he wanted made to bring the film back to his original vision. (including notes on the opening sequence)

It was this memo that Oscar winning film and sound editor Walter Murch used as a guideline for the new DVD.

For more information check out:

http:/www.filmsound.org/murch/murch.htm

Mitch Gross · March 9, 2004

The other thing that struck me was the OTHER really long continuous-take shot in the middle of the movie, that no one ever talks about. It's an apartment interior with lots of characters and lots of dialogue, constantly moving and revealing new information. The carefully choreographed blocking and camera movement to pull that scene off in a small space seems almost as remarkable as the big exterior opening shot.

I'm really impressed by that one as well, as it moves through different framings to build different relationships between characters. Wide shot to closeup to medium two, all in nature to where one might choose to cut to these different shots, but all done seamlessly by Welles.

The famous Welles story: This was the first thing shot by Welles in the production. It is customary for the AD to report to the studio when the first shot of the day is completed. Welles spent many hours planing and rehearsing the shot. As the day wore on, suits from the studio began showing up on location and nervously looking in. This was Welles' first studio film in more than a decade and they were afraid of his maverick ways and that the film was already headed for scheduling and budgetary disaster. Sometime in the early afternoon Welles completed the incredibly complicated shot which ran several minutes and covered out the entire scene. He then turned to the suits and announced that he was now two days ahead of schedule and it was time for them to stop worrinying and leave him alone. Such a smart guy.

For another scene that's equally ingenious, check out "The Lady From Shanghai." When the rich lawyer brings Welles to his office and asks the sailor to kill him, it's all done in a single continuous crane shot. The camera moves to six or seven different frames and does so in such a seamless, natural manner that most viewers would probably never notice. Shows what Welles could do when he had a real budget to work with.

Most people remember the obvious, grandstanding shots like the opening to "Touch of Evil," and these are great achievements. But I think that the shots that are so good are the ones that are just as advanced but are so subtle and perfectly designed to the scene that the viewer never consciously notices the craft behind them.