Long Take from *The Touch of Evil* (1958)
Directed by Orson Welles
Movie Title: Touch of Evil
Year: 1958
Director: Orson Welles
Country: United States
Director of Photography: Russell Metty (ASC)
Camera Operator: Philip Lathrop (future ASC)
Camera: Mitchell BNC
Main lens: 18.5 mm Angénieux Retrofocus (wide-angle)
Crane: Chapman Titan
Duration of the clip: 3 min 20 sec
Filming location: Venice, California
A close-up of hands setting a timer. A homemade bomb is placed in the trunk of a 1956 Chrysler New Yorker. The camera pulls back, rises, and begins to follow the car as it drives through a bustling Mexican border town. Across the street, a couple is walking: Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his wife Susan (Janet Leigh). Their paths cross, drift apart, and cross again. The music changes with every bar the camera passes. Extras cross the frame with pinpoint timing. At the border checkpoint, the car and the couple find themselves side by side. The girl in the Chrysler says she hears a ticking sound. No one listens to her. The couple kisses. The car drives off. Explosion. Three minutes and twenty seconds. Zero cuts. 1958.
Why This Scene Is a Cult Classic
This is the seminal scene. Every long take shot since then—from *The Goodfellas* to *Birdman*, from *Boogie Nights* to *Come Back to Me*—traces its roots back to those three minutes and twenty seconds. But beyond the historical lineage, what makes this shot irreplaceable is the tension. You know there’s a bomb in the trunk. Welles shows it from the very first second. And for three minutes, the camera refuses to let you forget that car—it loses sight of it, finds it again, loses it once more—while Vargas and Susan walk right beside it. The continuous shot leaves no room for ellipsis: the time on screen is the time on the timer. Every passing second brings the explosion closer. And you can’t look away.
How They Filmed It
No Steadicam in 1958. No digital technology. No stitching in post-production. This shot was filmed in one take, on film, in the middle of the night, using a Mitchell BNC camera mounted on a Chapman Titan crane—a machine massive enough to support the weight of the operator and the moving camera.
Phil Lathrop was operating the camera from the crane. His account, published by the ASC, is unequivocal: "It took all night just to light and shoot that shot. Orson did things that no one had ever done before. I was holding the camera by hand half the time, even when it was on the crane, because Orson wanted visual tension and a documentary-style look.”
The lens used was an 18.5mm Angénieux Rétrofocus, an extremely wide-angle lens for its time. Welles said in a 1958 interview with *Cahiers du Cinéma*: “It’s not that I prefer the 18.5mm. It’s simply that I’m the only one who has explored its possibilities.” The problem was that this lens made it impossible to focus properly through the Mitchell BNC’s viewfinder. Lathrop was shooting blind much of the time.
Russell Metty, the director of photography, gave much of the credit to Lathrop for the virtuosity of the opening shot. Metty was a regular at Universal, known for his crane work. But the challenge here surpassed anything he had done before: the shot spanned several city blocks in Venice, California, featuring elaborate nighttime lighting, dozens of synchronized extras, crane movements shifting from close-ups to wide shots and back again, and a car that had to cross paths with the lead actors at precise moments.
The 50th-anniversary DVD commentary, featuring Charlton Heston, reveals a delightful detail about the final take. Dawn was breaking; it was their very last chance. Welles called for one more take. But the border guard extra couldn’t remember his line. Welles told him, “This time, don’t say anything. Just move your lips—we’ll dub it later. But for heaven’s sake, don’t say, ‘Sorry, Mr. Welles.’”
The version released in theaters in 1958 betrayed Welles’ vision in one crucial respect: Universal superimposed the opening credits and Henry Mancini’s score over the opening shot. Welles wanted only the sounds of the street to be heard, with the music changing from one bar to the next as the camera moved, creating what he called “a surf of sound and atmosphere.” This intention was only respected in the 1998 restored version, edited by Walter Murch based on the 58-page memo that Welles had sent to Universal.
What to Look For When Watching It Again
Car/Couple Crossings: Count the number of times the Chrysler and Vargas/Susan cross paths in the frame. Their paths intersect at least three times. Each crossing heightens the tension—you know the bomb is there, and you’re praying they’ll move away from each other.
The Changing Music (1998 Restored Version) In Welles’s version, each bar plays its own music. As the camera passes by, the sound grows louder and then fades away. It is a sound sequence as much as a visual one. The 1958 version, featuring Mancini’s theme, overshadows this effect.
The shadow on the wall just before the explosion In the DVD commentary, Rick Schmidlin asks viewers to look at the shadow cast on the wall when Heston and Leigh kiss. The silhouette resembles that of Quinlan (Welles). It may be a coincidence—or it may not.
Did you know?
Welles was far prouder of another long take in the film: the scene in Sanchez’s apartment, a 12-minute continuous shot in which Quinlan interrogates a suspect and plants evidence. This shot spans 12 pages of the screenplay, gives the impression of 60 different shots, and was filmed in 40 minutes on the first day of production. The set walls slid open on tracks to allow the camera on its dolly (crab dolly) to pass through, then closed again before returning into the frame. Jonathan Rosenbaum noted that Welles considered the most effective virtuosic work to be that “which the audience doesn’t notice”—exactly the opposite of the opening shot.
The cinematographer for the opening shot, Phil Lathrop, went on to become a renowned director of photography. The film’s other cinematographer, John Russell, shot *Psycho* for Hitchcock two years later. Both films open with a crane shot.
Sources
Philip Lathrop, ASC Interview - "Phil Lathrop, ASC Steps Into the Spotlight" (theasc.com)
ASC - "A Cop Gone Wrong: Touch of Evil" (American Cinematographer, September 1998)
ASC - "President's Desk: The Cranes Are Flying" (2024)
Art of the Title - Touch of Evil, 50th Anniversary DVD Commentary (Heston, Rosenbaum, Naremore, Schmidlin)
Welles, interview with *Cahiers du Cinéma* (1958)
Orson Welles, Memo to Universal (58 pages, 1957)
Wikipedia - Touch of Evil
No Film School - "How Orson Welles Hid a 12-Minute Single Take in Plain Sight"
Wolfcrow - "Sanchez's Apartment Scene in *Touch of Evil*" (technical analysis)
BFI - "Behind the Scenes: Touch of Evil" (set photos)
ShotOnWhat - Touch of Evil (1958), Technical Specifications
See also:
Long Take in *Rope* (1948) https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/la-corde - Ten years earlier, Hitchcock, too, had attempted to make an entire film without any apparent cuts: the other seminal experiment in the long take
Top 20 Best Long Takes in History https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/top-20-des-meilleurs-plans-sequences-de-lhistoire-du-cinema - *The Thin Red Line* appears on every list—see how it ranks against the other classics in the collection
