Editing Touch of Evil (section)

=== Writing ===
{{Quote box|width=33% | quote=It started with rehearsals. We rehearsed two weeks prior to shooting, which was unusual. We rewrote most of the dialogue, all of us, which was also unusual, and Mr. Welles always wanted our input. It was a collective effort, and there was such a surge of participation, of creativity, of energy. You could feel the pulse growing as we rehearsed. You felt you were inventing something as you went along. Mr. Welles wanted to seize every moment. He didn't want one bland moment. He made you feel you were involved in a wonderful event that was happening before your eyes.|source=—Janet Leigh, recalling how Welles asked for input from the actors in the cast<ref>{{cite news |last=Weintraub |first=Bernard |title=Dark Secrets Of Suburbia |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/18/movies/at-the-movies-dark-secrets-of-suburbia.html |work=The New York Times |date=September 18, 1998 |access-date=May 22, 2008}}</ref>|quoted=1}}

For his screenplay draft, Welles made numerous changes along with smaller changes to better tighten the script. His two main contributions dealt with his thematic element of American racism and his decision to shift narrative points of view.{{sfn|Stubbs|1985|p=27}} He shifted the location setting from [[San Diego]] to the [[Mexico–United States border]]. Welles renamed the protagonist from Mitch Holt to Miguel Vargas,{{sfn|Thomson|1996|p=337}} stating he made the character a Mexican "for political reasons. I wanted to show how Tijuana and the border towns are corrupted by all sorts of mish-mash, publicity more or less about American relations".<ref>{{cite book |editor=Mark W. Estrin |title=Orson Welles: Interviews |chapter=A Trip to Don Quixoteland: Conversations with Orson Welles |year=2002 |location=[[Jackson, Mississippi|Jackson]] |publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]] |page=121 |isbn=978-1-578-06209-6}}</ref> Welles's [[shooting script]] was finished by February 5, 1957. Heston stated that Welles re-wrote the script in ten days.<ref>{{cite news |last=Heston |first=Charlton |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-feb-09-ca-17092-story.html |title='Touch of Evil' Needed Final Touch of Welles |work=Los Angeles Times |date=February 9, 1998 |access-date=November 10, 2020}}</ref>