Daily Dialogue — June 12, 2020

Susan Vargas: Mike, do you realize this is the very first time we’ve been together in my country?
Mike: Do you realize I haven’t kissed you in over an hour?

— Touch of Evil (1958), screenplay by Orson Welles, novel by Whit Masterson

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Bomb. Today’s suggestion by Caroline Hoover.

Trivia: Orson Welles was originally hired only to act in the film, but due to a misunderstanding, Charlton Heston thought that Welles was to be the director. To keep Heston happy, producer Albert Zugsmith allowed Welles to direct. Welles made major changes to the already-completed script, including changing Heston’s character from a white district attorney to a Mexican narcotics agent, changing Janet Leigh’s character from Mexican to American, and changing the setting of the movie from a small California town to a Mexican-American border town.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The famous tracking shot opening of the movie. The dialogue is incidental to the fact that the audience knows there’s a bomb ticking away and about to blow any minute.