Touch of Evil

In 1958, director Orson Welles attempted to make a stateside comeback with this brilliant noirish tale filled with exhilarating visuals and a wicked dose of black humor. Unfortunately, the film failed in the eyes of Universal, its distributor, resulting in Universal destroying some of Welles' original vision via some editing choices. Welles reacted with a 58-page memo detailing changes he wanted to be made. This memo was ignored until two years ago, when Universal decided to go back to utilize Welles' suggestions and release a newly edited version of the film.\nThis DVD presents this new version of the film in anamorphic widescreen format. Also included is the text of the memo and the film's original trailer (which is definitely a nifty trailer to look at). Nothing else but some Universal promotional crappola can be found. No original version of the film is included, which is a costly omission since that is the true version of the film, while this is nothing more than a special edition, a la "Star Wars," with the director not even having a chance to officially do the editing.\nBut it gets worse. Does "Touch of Evil" really need letterboxing? According to various film sources, very little, if any letterboxing is required. Supposedly, some pieces of the frame might be truncated on all sides, resulting in cropped heads and other lost visuals.\nIn the end, this is a DVD not worth owning. Hopefully, Universal will wise up and release a much improved \nversion in the future, with both widescreen and non-widescreen formats and the original version of the film.