Engaging. It combines a blow-by-blow account of the thriller's troubled production with a thoughtful rebuttal to Paul Schrader's description of it as "film noir's epitaph", while Orson Welles' shadow inevitably looms large. Total Film
Preface: Touching Back on Touch of Evil.1. Noir's Epitaph2. Scene analysis3. Characters and themes4. Final stages and legacyCreditsBibliographyIndex
Richard Deming (1915-1983) was an author of pulp fiction and an early pioneer of the paperback original mystery novel. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he began publishing suspense fiction after serving in World War II, earning attention for creating Manville Moon, a one-legged detective who appeared in six Black Mask stories and four novels, including The Gallows in My Garden (1952) and Tweak the Devil's Nose (1953).
