10 Underrated Films By Amazing Directors

While this too has started to receive a bit more praise in recent years, owing to its rather impeccable restoration courtesy of Eureka!, Touch of Evil remains one of Orson Welles’ masterpieces.

Released in 1958, the story of the production of Touch of Evil is one that has forever lived in the Orson Welles’ mythology. The film’s plot tells the story of Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his wife Susie (Janet Leigh) on honeymoon at the Mexican-American border, when a bomb is exploded on American soil, killing a government official; what follows next, is a story of corruption, intrigue and deception.

Touch of Evil was originally not supposed to feature Orson Welles as the director, he was originally only hired to play the role of Police Captain Hank Quinlan (an early caricature of Gene Hunt), though there are conflicting stories as to how he wound up in the director’s chair.

Either way, the hugely talented Welles ended up taking the director’s seat and producing one of the great masterpieces of his career. While there have been nearly three separate versions of the release (something that Blade Runner stares at and asks how it didn’t get as few as three different versions), the film has since gained a restored print, based off a fifty-eight page memo that Welles sent to Universal, begging them not to change the film too much.

Easily one of the best film-noirs ever released, and still today one of the best releases from Orson Welles as well (which is pretty impressive, if Citizen Kane is your first film) and boasting one of the most gorgeous long-takes ever put to film.