“We were compelled to acquiesce”: The 1958 movie Janet Leigh finished shooting against her will
Janet Leigh wasn’t happy about her work on an Orson Welles film.
Touch of Evil has a unique reputation within classic cinema as an unparalleled work of genius that was denied the chance to be perfect. Despite the fact that Orson Welles had been seen as the ‘Boy Wonder’ following the success of Citizen Kane, he struggled to find funding for his films for the rest of his life and would often brush up against studio interference.
Touch of Evil became one of the most notorious examples of meddling because Welles was forced off the film, and Universal-International took over the editing project against his will. The film was relatively low-budget, featuring an ensemble populated by A-listers, including Charlton Heston, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, and Marlene Dietrich. Although there is often a perception that auteur filmmakers are hated by actors, Welles, himself a former actor, was quite popular among his casts, to the point where one of the biggest stars in the ensemble, Janet Leigh, was fully in support of him, even when his bold sensibilities clashed with what the studio had been expecting.
“I guess they felt they had been ‘had’,” Leigh said, “At the conclusion of the picture, after Orson finished his contractual ‘first cut’, they came to us for retakes. They did not understand all of the detours and believed the flow was disjointed. To some extent, their argument had validity, but to tamper with the content meant to devitalise what was Orson.”
Leigh said that the reshoots were required by the studio contracts, but that they weren’t what she and her co-stars wanted to film because of their loyalty to Welles. “As much as we contested, we were compelled to acquiesce because of the Screen Actors Guild code,” she recalled, “So we did some ‘linking, explanatory, dull’ shots. I don’t even remember what they were.”
She was devastated by how the film was rolled out, but said she was satisfied with its subsequent reevaluation and celebration. “The release of Touch of Evil was disappointing, but it warms the cockles of my heart to at least know that it now is considered a cult classic and honours Orson Welles,” Leigh said.
Despite being initially perceived as a failure and a box office flop, it became very popular among filmmakers and was later proclaimed to be a masterpiece by the time it was more widely accessible in the ‘70s. The initial failure thankfully didn’t have any lasting negative effects on Leigh’s career, as it was only two years later that her performance in Psycho would turn her into one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Given that Welles had so many projects that were in various stages of development and completion by the end of his life, there is some debate as to which of his films should be considered true masterpieces. Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind, was famously completed and distributed by Netflix after years of compiling footage by producer Frank Marshall.
Touch of Evil is still preserved in great condition, unlike The Magnificent Ambersons, of which much of the footage is lost. The most widely circulated version of Touch of Evil is a re-edited release from 1998, for which editor Walter Murch completed editing based on Welles’ notes.
