"Touch of Evil" (1958)

“Touch of Evil” is known for its opening shot—a bravura four-minute sequence in tension. But this film deserves a revisit today. Among the last and greatest of the classic Noirs, it is as relevant in today’s tribalism as it was in its own McCarthyism driven climate.

Welles’ Sherif Arp… er, Captain Quinlan is a man driven to hunt evildoers at any cost. His view of law enforcement is quite different from Heston’s Vargas. And, in the end it is not a consolation to know that the man he planted evidence on was guilty. Because Quinlan is willing to destroy reputations and even murder people in order to prolong his career. He justifies no end of evil in a fight against evil. How many innocent people has he convicted or even sent to their death based on his assumptions?

Justice demands that we follow a rule of law and due process even when we suspect that someone may be guilty. The alternative is too devastating. It is better to let some guilty people go free than to even wrongly convict an innocent person.

An interaction between Quinlan and Vargas early in the film sets the conflict up:

Quinlan: I'm no lawyer. All a lawyer cares about is the law.
Vargas: Captain, you are a policeman, aren't you?
Quinlan: Mmm-hmm. Aren't you? You don't seem very positive about the job.
Vargas: There are plenty of soldiers who don't like war. It's a dirty job, enforcing the law, but it's what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it?
Quinlan: I don't know about you, when a murderer's loose, I'm supposed to catch him.

In a society like ours, where opinions are protected and speech is free, there needs to be a civil interaction, a dialogue. But when we reduce all of the opinions of the other side to evil, things fall apart. And when we embrace “little” evils in the name of good, we are still embracing evil. The lesser of two evils is still evil.