The Greater of Two Evils
The restored "Touch of Evil" is simply stunning
By Jim Ridley [size=-1]OCTOBER 19, 1998:[/size] Orson Welles suffered from the career equivalent of progenia, the disease that prematurely accelerates the aging process. As a two-year-old in Kenosha, Wisc., he was pronounced a genius. At age 16, he was drawing ovations in adult roles at Dublin's Gate Theater. By the time Welles made Citizen Kane 10 years later in 1941, he had already achieved renown as a stage actor, a director, the founder of a theater company, and a radio star. Yet each new triumph only seemed to bring greater risks--of failure, of disappointment. Radio was considered a lesser medium than theater, the site of Welles' early successes, and movies were regarded as essentially flashy and shallow. It's telling that when Welles made his film debut, as a young man of 26, he was already playing a fallen giant whose greatest years lay behind him.