Touch of Evil - Opening Scene - With Street and Theme Music

Opening of the film Touch of Evil that honors Orson Welles by removing the title credits and adding street level music while still honoring Henry Mancini's opening theme.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• touch
• of
• evil
• movies
• films
• welles
• mancini

[illaveyoubutler]

superior to citizen kane

[AJDFishbone4]

Most amazing opening ever. Orson Wells you are a genius.

[Padster1972]

One of the best opening sequences of any movie, a one shot masterpiece from Orson Welles, and I'm afraid I'm in the Mancini camp when it comes to the score. Having only ever seen the Mancini music version, I took an instant dislike to the restored ambiant version that was aired recently. I suppose it's what you grow up with! I like it so much, I bought the soundtrack CD!

[KUTVgroucho]

Nothing against Mancini's score, but it's not what the director wanted for the opening shot. It should be the director's call, not those meddlesome creep producers from the studios that for years thought they knew better than Welles.

[elchoya100]

i like this version better

[HCCarey]

That's an astonishing opening scene still--astonishing. And Mancini's score is brilliant--fits the overstated noir tone perfectly

[hebneh]

I watched the studio release version of this on TV repeatedly in the 1970s, and yeah, Welles wanted the soundtrack to be intermingled "street" music, but I find the Mancini theme song to be far superior in terms of assisting the suspense of the time bomb in the car trunk.

I also actually LIKE having the credits onscreen in this sequence (the way I first saw it) because they emphasize the everyday activities going on, which the camera weaves in and out of, while you know the bomb is still there.

[A01002401]

@kevstassi If you think the score to this movie is crappy, YOU'RE the idiot and the moron. It is true that it isn't what Welles wanted, but that doesn't negate the quality of the score, one of the best in cinema history.

[sUPer1upQUEEN]

@kevstassi Yeah buddy, lighten up. People are entitled to their opinions. No need to be redundant either ("an idiot and a moron")

[bmccarville]

@kevstassi it's still an amazing tracking shot. but yes, it would have been better with ambiant only sound.

[kevstassi]

everyone who likes this version of the opening is an idiot and a moron. This opening was not at all what Welles wanted for the film, he did not want that crappy underscore song playing the whole time, he just wanted the source sounds and music to play in the scene.

[shaneu1]

Better tracking shot than even Godard ever attempted. Thankfully, you presented the restored version which omitted the cheesy credits Universal apparently insisted on running over this astonishing scene. TMC recently presented a version that still had the credits obscuring this masterpiece of camera work.