Ok folks I really wish I had been at this last night rather than listening to Quint grind corn in his nasal passages... LOUD I tell ya LOUD. Here's a review of Orson Welles' original vision for his TOUCH OF EVIL, a film that many Welles fans love more than CITIZEN KANE, the concept of seeing this as Welles envisioned it will be a real treat. Vinyl Boy back in Austin will see this at least 700 times. And then listening to Janet Leigh's impressions on a remake of her most famous role and film... well it's interesting and just goes to show you how graceful Ms. Leigh is. Read on, this is news about the best of films...
Tonight I had the pleasure of the soon to be re-released Touch of Evil. For those of you who are not familiar with this re-release it is what Orson Welles originally envisioned the film to be. When it was originally released the studio made their own cut of the film after seeing Welles's cut. Upon viewing the studios cut, Welles wrote a 53 page memo explaining what he thinks they should do to restore the film back to his original edit. The film was released in the studios version and didn't perform to well in the USA but did quite well overseas.
Now they have taken Welles's original memo and re-cut the film to what he envisioned. The re-edit was produced by Rick Schmidlin and was edited by Walter Murch
The film is great, I urge everyone to see it as it is the film that inspired stories like LA Confidential.
At the screening was Janet Leigh who basically talked about how great it was to work with Welles. She was also asked about her views on the Psycho remake that was supposed to have completed filming last Friday.
Leigh stated that she knows nothing about the re-make, creation, or whatever and thinks that if someone wants to remake a film they can. It won't detract from the original and will be their own piece of work. She also stated that whenever she says she knows nothing about it she always seems to be quoted as having a negative view on it. From where I was sitting it didn't look like she really has an opinion on it.
So there is a bit of classic cinema scooping for you. Please go see Touch of Evil as it's probably one of the few chances people of this day and age will get to see a film like this on the big screen.
That's all for now, nothing ground breaking but hopefully you'll get something out of it.
The Scarlett Pumpernickel
