Check Out the Trailer

How Orson Welles got involved in this production is up for debate. However, in all the stories, Welles was trying to make a Hollywood comeback after finding little success making films in Europe. But things didn’t quite work out the way he wanted. Universal took the film from him and re-edited it. Welles wrote a 58-page memo on how to restore the film, but it was ignored. Even in the butchered version, many critics hailed it as a masterpiece upon its original release. In 1998, the film was restored as best as it could to the desire of Welles.

The film begins with a tour de force, long tracking shot where the audience follows a bomb placed in the trunk of a car. Along the way we meet Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston, BEN-HUR), a Mexican drug enforcement officer, and his new wife Susie (Janet Leigh, PSYCHO), an American blonde. At the end of the shot, the car explodes on the U.S. side of the border and Mike is pulled into the investigation.
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