Touch of Evil

Young narcotics officer Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his wife Susan (Janet Leigh) had actually planned to spend their honeymoon in a small Mexican town. But when a car bomb explodes on the US side of the border, the ambitious Vargas becomes involved in the investigation. And thus, he encounters the corrupt, unscrupulous police chief Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles), who has his very own ideas about law and order. TOUCH OF EVIL is a complex, intriguing thriller that draws on the traditions of film noir in order to simultaneously dismantle them and reduce them to absurdity. (bik)