Directing: Orson Welles
Screenwriting: Orson Welles
Starring: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia
Review:
“Welles’s last Hollywood film” PM is “proof that post-Kane Welles was not a downward spiral.” T98 It is “considered one of the finest classics-era film noir” MSN as well as “a technical masterpiece.” VD It is a “tightly directed and brilliantly scripted film.” A07 which “is remarkably idiosyncratic, from its legendary opening crane shot to the strangely angled setups and crosscut plotlines.” PM
This is “an off-beat, twisted, dark and sweaty…thriller, with murder, police corruption, kidnapping, betrayal, perversion and more” FS “in a seedy border town.” VD Hank Quinlan (Welles) is a “a big, fat, corrupt cop” ML “tracking down some thugs that murdered a wealthy crime lord.” VD He “habitually fabricates evidence to convict the guilty (even though his instincts are usually correct) and frames a young Mexican for the murder.” FS
This puts him in conflict with the “self-righteous” FS Mike Vargas (Heston), a Mexican narcotics agent. Through “persistent, perilous efforts with the cooperation of Quinlan’s long-time partner Sgt. Pete Menzies (Calleia),” FS Vargas is able to bring down Quinlan.
The movie opens with “cinema’s most exhilarating and complex opening-shot ever” T98 and ends “with the explosive, car-bomb murder of an American businessman on the American side of the border.” FS
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