Touch of Genius: Orson Welles, Proto-Chicano Motion Picture Director?

Originally posted April 9, 2007 | updated


The first main chapter of Tex[t]-Mex concerns itself with Orson Welles's masterpiece, the 1958 production of Touch of Evil. I don't want to give too much away about the chapter but its main claim to fame is the assertion that Welles was a proto-Chicano director--one of the first to parse the verge of the border with semio/cultural sensitivity and cleverness. The chapter, a revision of a piece that first appeared in Chicanos and Film, is entitled "Hallucinations of Miscegenation and Murder: Dancing along the Mestiza/o Borders of Proto-Chicana/o Cinema with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil."

Here, courtesy the ever-present, churning servers at google.com are the coming attractions trailer for this sordid, bordertown potboiler...



...as well as the famed opening few minutes of the film--this second sequence is from the "director's cut" version of the film that unfolds without the opening credits. For Touch of Evil fanatics, here as well appears the orginal 1958 opening scene with the credits--the quality is a little dicey with video remnants/scratches in places: