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Got my copy in the mail yesterday and couldn't resist the urge to watch it immediately (1.37:1 reconstructed version)--great film, looks fantastic, obviously, but here are my two cents on the preferred aspect ratio: It seemed to be split about 90/10 between shots that clearly had 1.85:1 in mind (characters approaching the foreground and then stopping quite short of where they would need to be to fill the frame, the camera jolting up or down to keep characters not just in the frame but in the center of it--i.e. the first time you see Quinlan coming out of his car) and shots where 1.85:1 seems like it would be a tad cramped, or where seemingly vital information is entirely contained in the very top or bottom of the frame (an envelope being passed between two characters, Menzies' hat forming a "halo"). I don't know that 1.37:1 is inherently better though just because you're always seeing at least as much as you should, because it can be a little distracting in the shots that seem composed for widescreen. It's wonderful though to have the option to watch the film either way. Great work, MoC!

What's not really that apparent from stills - but became really apparent to me on the fifth or so viewing of each ratio, is that the movement of characters within the frame, and the camera's movement to capture the characters' movements, is all heavily weighted towards keeping everything in the 1.85:1 area.

I just received my Touch Of Evil Steelbook, and like other people, unfortunately, one clip maintaining the booklet is broken.

peerpee wrote:What's not really that apparent from stills - but became really apparent to me on the fifth or so viewing of each ratio, is that the movement of characters within the frame, and the camera's movement to capture the characters' movements, is all heavily weighted towards keeping everything in the 1.85:1 area.

Heresy! By which I mean, sanity at last.

tenia wrote:I just received my Touch Of Evil Steelbook, and like other people, unfortunately, one clip maintaining the booklet is broken.

Call yourself lucky My Metropolis steelbook has two broken clips

I just spent the better part of the last 3 days watching this marvelous MOC edition – all five version and all four commentaries and have gained an insight into and appreciation for this movie that without this edition wouldn’t have been possible.

I first saw the theatrical and preview versions of the movie many many years ago in a local repertoire theater and then on TV and the image of Marlene Dietrich in a black wig as a gypsy prostitute left an indelible impression on a teenage boy. But this is the very best I have ever seen this movie look. And while I always liked the movie, it is really through these two BR discs that I truly learned to love it.

What I find fascinating about this edition is that it works on so many levels. It’s a film school course in editing and use of music, and I wish when I took courses at my university we would have had the possibility of these comparisons – it replaces many weeks and countless lessons on two discs. It also allows people to make up their mind which version they prefer and in what aspect ratio. While I can fully understand that some will always favor the version they grew up with and some will never want to watch all versions, at least every one has the option to do as they please.

And the various commentaries offer additional insights that add a lot to the appreciation and explanation of the multiple versions. Although I also have to say that at least two of the commentaries, the Schmidlin and Feeney one contradict each other in two points. Schmidlin states that the scene in the basement between the Menzies / Calleia and Vargas / Heston characters among the file cabinets was shot at Universal as part of their the accounting department, while Feeney claims it was the basement of the same hotel where the later scene between the same two characters was filmed when Menzies reveals to Vargas Quinlan’s cane.
Also, Feeney says that when Tana / Dietrich gets a phone call and is shown with a hat hanging next to her that resembles Quinlan’s that we can hear Welles’ voice in the background when in reality it is Grandi’s / Tamiroff’s voice. Schmidlin acknowledges Tamiroff’s voice but claims that the film doesn’t explain it, as it wasn’t something that the film wanted to explore further. While I tend to believe Schmidlin who through his restoration work has seen the film probably more often than anyone else, it is interesting (although at least to me not all that surprising) that acknowledged scholars don’t always agree.

As to the picture quality of the three / five versions, I have to say that I find both the reconstruction and theatrical version a notch above the preview version especially in terms of sharpness – most noticeably for me when Quinlan and Menzies stand on the Venice canal bridge in the end, where at least to my eyes the preview version is on occasion lacking focus.

There is one technical issue though that I don’t know how to explain. In all versions of the film during the night scenes when Vargas / Heston confronts the motel nightman / Weaver and later when Vargas trails Quinlan and Menzies with the bugging device, there is on the very left side of the frame a somewhat distracting flickering sensation against the black night sky, as if a flickering light source existed outside the frame. Nothing in the film would indicate that a natural light source exists outside the frame and since it’s in all versions I also find it hard to believe that it’s the master, since if I read the this correctly several masters were used on account of the differently cut version and different aspect ratios. This would indicate that this happened during filming or processing and is part of the original negative, but I have no idea what would cause it. None of the reviews I have read picked up on it and I’m wondering if anyone has an explanation.

Overall I have to say this disc is a real treat and for me easily one of the best BR on the market so far.
Thank you MOC!

From Wellesnet's Facebook:

"Experience Orson Welles' timeless masterpiece, TOUCH OF EVIL, complete and uncut with restored footage for the first time ever!"

Universal will release a DVD of TOUCH OF EVIL with "new collectible O-card packaging" on January 10, 2012 as part of a year long celebration of Universal Studios 100th Anniversary.

From the official press release:

Universal 100th Anniversary Editions: New Packaging

Release Date: 1/10/2012

TOUCH OF EVIL - Theatrical Release: 4/23/1958

SYNOPSIS: Experience Orson Welles' timeless masterpiece, TOUCH OF EVIL, complete and uncut with restored footage for the first time ever!

This exceptional film noir portrait of corruption and morally-compromised obsessions stars Welles as Hank Quinlan, a crooked police chief who frames a Mexican youth as part of an intricate criminal plot.

Charlton Heston plays an honorable Mexican narcotics investigator who clashes with the bigoted Quinlan after probing into his dark past. A memorable supporting cast including Janet Leigh as Heston's inquisitive wife, Akim Tamiroff as a seedy underworld leader, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich as an enigmatic gypsy complete this fascinating drama engulfed in haunting cinematography and a magnificently eerie score by Henry Mancini.

New footage? No blu-ray? This seems odd.

This is just a repackage of 2000 disc. The blurb was the same on that release.

Ashirg wrote:This is just a repackage of 2000 disc. The blurb was the same on that release.

Well, it should be a repackage of the 2008 release I would hope...or maybe the "Theatrical Cut" and "Preview Cut" are being dumped for this issue? Recycling info that is 12 years old in a cut-and-paste press release is pretty sad.

Something I couldn't find, does the MoC disc have the Welles 56 page memo included on the Universal DVD?

manicsounds wrote:Something I couldn't find, does the MoC disc have the Welles 56 page memo included on the Universal DVD?

No, but MoC has kindly uploaded it online and they list the link in the booklet.

The Fopp store in Covent Garden had a stack of the 'Touch Of Evil' steelbook for sale when I went in this weekend. So much for it being exclusive to HMV.

(Yes, I know HMV own Fopp, but still...)

tenia wrote:I just received my Touch Of Evil Steelbook, and like other people, unfortunately, one clip maintaining the booklet is broken.

I'm thinking about ordering this from HMV but am nervous about what shape the case will be in by the time it reaches the states. How does HMV handle international returns/replacements?

I cannot speak for HMV shipping abroad but their packaging is a very sturdy cardboard. The only issue with that I can suggest is a steelbook could rattle about within it and become damaged.

I ordered my Touch of EVil steelbook from HMV, and it got to Canada in flawless condition. Reasonably thick cardboard packaging.

Picked up my steelbook from the post office yesterday. One of the booklet clips was broken (had the same problem with Metropolis, ordered from Eureka) but otherwise it was in a perfect condition.

Gotta admit that before I got this I was firmly in the 1.85 camp, and continue to consider it the 'correct' ratio (I think it is indisputable that the film was primarily composed and intended for it), but I'm really digging the look of this in Academy. Pretty sure I'll watch this one in Academy from now on.

Really hope MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is on the horizon. Not only is it one of my absolute favourite melodramas, but the thought of rediscovering another masterpiece in a new ratio is an exciting prospect to me now.

Like most everyone else, I'd always seen both "Touch of Evil" and "Magnificent Obsession" in 1.37 or 1.33:1 ("TofE" in revival theaters, "MO" on TV), and still prefer them that way. It isn't that cropping to a 1.85 or 1.75 aspect ratio looks so wrong to me, it's that in doing so the telecine operator seems to have zoomed in too tightly on the frame, lopping off picture info that should still be viewable even at those wider aspect ratios. That missing image is often what helps let the frame 'breathe' -- and gives the film an intended rhythm and balance that's often lost by cropping too tightly for home viewing.

When it comes to a film as meticulously shot as "Touch of Evil" it doesn't take an MFA in design to notice something's wrong. I sometimes wonder if the people doing these DVD transfers actually sit down and watch the film from beginning to end after their work is done. Of course, time and money are always a priority, and even when problems are noticed, it's usually in everyone's best interest to keep the project moving forward, till we buy the disc, see what's wrong, and start pulling our hair out. Thank God for Masters of Cinema and a few other companies that actually know what they're doing. I certainly wish there were more of them.

This is screening in Picturehouse cinemas on the 17th

Calvin wrote:This is screening in Picturehouse cinemas on the 17th

But what's the aspect ratio? Or will they poll the audience five minutes before the screening starts and relay the verdict to the projectionist?

david hare wrote:The 58 Studio cut is still my favorite - I love the slight air of chaos that imbues the whole enterprise like the chaotically studio recut Lady from Shanghai. And because the 58 is so much a studio picture I find this makes the Wellesian signatures even more remakable in this context, like the superb refelective/miror transition shots before and after the motel sequence, and the alternation of rapid montage with long takes, the seemingly unique use of ultra wide angle lenses for the whole picture, etc.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The Studio cut has a frenzied momentum that gets lost in the longer Preview and Restoration cuts. After (repeatedly) reading of the 'butchered' Theatrical version, I was initially reluctant to watch anything but the restoration. The MOC blu-ray was an excuse to finally explore the other cuts, and viewing the Studio cut for the first time was something of a revelation. While some great scenes hit the cutting room floor (Quinlan's berating Vargas after the acid-throwing incident is a favorite), the narrative drive of the Theatrical cut is searing in it's intensity. It's so tightly constructed that it leaves the viewer little room to breathe, while simultaneously managing to (largely) preserve Welles intricate themes--more a credit to directorial acumen than studio cutting. In fact, Quinlan's superhuman intuition seems comparatively belabored in the Restoration.

While the idea of the Restoration certainly has it's merits, I think the hype surrounding it is a little crazy. Many have bought into the notion that it's "closer to the director's vision" than the other cuts, but is this really the case? It follows the instructions of the legendary memo, but it's important to remember that these requests were made without the benefit of being able to watch, reflect on and revise them. Welles didn't spend 9 months editing Citizen Kane because he never second guessed himself! Had he been given free reign to edit Touch of Evil, he would most likely have produced a superior film that was vastly different from any of the three available versions. The director even acknowledged that the requests contained in the memo represented a minimum of changes necessary to produce a film even close to what he wanted. With this in mind, it's hard for me to see the Restoration as anything more than an academic curio--certainly not the definitive experience of the film (That, unfortunately, will never exist).

Thankfully, we now have all three cuts in beautiful HD, so we obsessives seeking Welles' vision can watch all three and read between the lines. It may be fragmentary, it may lack the full gritty, grandeur of what might have ultimately been, but it's as close as we'll ever come.

david hare wrote:...I have no idea what is missing from his first cut of Lady From Shanghai or how much it added or subtracted from Harry Cohn's release version. BUt again this is a typical case in which one can easily guess the studio cutting has been a response to something they thought had lost momentum and dramatic arc, tension, energy...

While it's true that Welles liked exploring digressions in his work that studios/preview audiences simply found superfluous, the cutting continuity for the initial edit of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI reveals that this early version was probably a lot more comprehensible to what ended up being released. Numerous short transitional scenes that moved the action from one locale to the next were inexplicably excised as were dramatic moments that clarified character motivation. Not everything in the initial cut appears to be of equal value, but a good 15 minutes of some of this footage would have gone a long way to improving the final result. Keep in mind that I am only speaking about the story structure here. Welles' films often find their value in things other than story. In SHANGHAI, Welles' filmmaking aesthetic is largely trashed by truncating and disrupting elaborate on-location tracking shots with poorly done studio rear-projection process shots. For example, the scene in Acapulco where O'Hara and Grisby climb the hill and reach the cliff edge (where Grisby makes his deranged proposal to pay O'Hara to kill him) was originally shot as a series of long tracking takes showing the leads weaving through groups of tourists who all seem to be discussing wealth or the lack thereof. The released version of this scene removes most of the on-location tracking shots and attempts to cover the deletions with hackneyed studio inserts.

Fortunately, TOUCH OF EVIL is a film that was treated much better by Universal than Columbia treated SHANGHAI. The original theatrical release is simply a faster-paced version of what Welles had concocted, but it retains much of Welles' filmmaking aesthetics. The flaws in the theatrical release are the studio-imposed re-shoots that put too fine a point on story points implied elsewhere. I prefer the 1998 reconstructed version for removing most of this extraneous footage while re-introducing digressions that enrich the film (this material all comes from the preview version) and for the simple act of removing the superimposed credits from that spectacular opening shot.

In the interview with Bogdonovich, Welles said that the only changes made to Shanghai were a changed music track and the removal of one sequence (in the funhouse.) Are you arguing the internal structure of the movie was changed more than that?