THE TATTERED DRESS (1957)

When producer Albert Zugsmith (not a well-known name, but check out his stellar late ‘50s credits) offered a pre-BEN-HUR Charlton Heston the lead in what would become TOUCH OF EVIL/’58, Heston wasn’t not interested, but wanted to know who’d be directing.  With no one signed, Heston noted that Orson Welles, his probable co-star directed movies, maybe he’d bring something to this rather ordinary film noir police procedural.  Welles, persona non grata as a Hollywood director since MACBETH a decade ago, rewrote the script to heighten perversity, loaded on gothic visual bravura, and generally added filmmaking genius, crazy ‘guest star’ casting & showmanship.  The rest, as they say, is cultural history of the first order.  Or was after a botched initial release, a slowly growing cult reputation, a couple of refined edits to restore his original vision, and voila!; belated acclamation as a masterpiece.  But what might ToE have been like without Welles?  And here’s the answer!  From the year before, when Zugsmith had Welles acting in MAN IN THE SHADOW/’57, this little courtroom drama, smartly directed by Jack Arnold, plays a helluva lot like EVIL . . . without the trimmings.  Jeff Chandler, speaking with Heston’s constipated cadence, is the hotshot defense attorney in a strained marriage to Jeanne Crain between Not Guilty verdicts.  Currently stuck in a sweaty, corrupt, desert town, he quickly gets a couple of rich shits off on a murder charge only to be set up by a fat, sweaty chief of police (Jack Carson in the Welles spot) who makes documents disappear and a perjurer out of juror Gail Russell.  She claims Chandler paid five thou for her vote.  It’s not so much that the story follows EVIL, it’s all in the tone and the look.  You could easily cast one film with the other and it lets you see with remarkable clarity the difference between reasonably good filmmaking (best in the first half, some courtroom speechifying late in the day hardly convinces) and the haphazard genius Welles brought to a similar type of dramaturgy.  Lots of wicked fun, too.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned above: MACBETH; ToE; MAN IN THE SHADOW.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/06/macbeth-1948.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/07/touch-of-evil-1958.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/12/man-in-shadow-1957.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  The best bit in the whole film sees Carson send a pair of thugs to beat the crap out of Chandler before the trial.  But he’s rescued when a carload of teens rush in.  Not to save him, but to roll the poor guy for whatever’s left in his pockets.  Yikes!  More like this, please.