Touch of Evil (1958) is a great American film noir crime thriller, dark mystery, and cult classic, another technical masterpiece from writer/director/actor Orson Welles. [It was Orson Welles' last American film. Before its release by Universal Pictures, some scenes were reshot, and the film was edited, cut and bastardized without his approval.] The film's script is loosely based upon Whit Masterson's pulp novel, Badge of Evil. Although unappreciated in its time, a box-office failure, and criticized as artsy, campy, sleazy pulp-fiction trash, the film, in retrospect has been ranked as the classic B-movie of the silver screen. It was regarded as a rebellious, unorthodox, bizarre, and outrageously exaggerated film, affronting respectable 1950's sensibilities, with controversial themes including racism, sexual ambiguity, drugs, and police corruption. The film parallels and pre-dates Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) by a few years - similarities include actress Janet Leigh in various states of undress who is victimized in an out-of-the-way motel managed by a creepy "night man." The version of the film that was released in 1958 (and later revised with additional scenes in 1976) was disowned by director Welles. In 1998, the film was re-edited and/or restored based upon creator Welles' original, newly-discovered 58 page memo of editing instructions to Universal Studios boss Ed Muhl. The new version does not contain new footage, but it is a "quasi-director's cut" with re-organized, cross-cut scenes (with a total of about 50 changes). The most impressive change is that the legendary opening shot (described below) is seen without obscuring, super-imposed credits, and the blaring, distracting Henry Mancini background music during the scene is stripped away and replaced by natural source music (from doorways of dives the couple passes, or from car radios). The credits are re-positioned at the end of the sequence. Other changes: repaired torn shots, restored sound quality, excisement of "explanatory scenes" added by the studio, re-positioning and trimming of scenes, and restoration of originally-cut footage. The re-edited version, the fourth version of the film, now runs 111 minutes (compared to 96 minutes in the earliest version).