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Pencil This In: Jennifer Hall At Metro; Touch Of Evil At Siskel Film Center

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 31, 2012 5:30PM

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Jennifer Hall. Photo courtesy Delia Kropp

Music

Singer Jennifer Hall is quickly building a loyal fan base around town and earning a reputation as an artist to watch. Her influences include singers as diverse as Patsy Cline and Jeff Tweedy, but you can almost feel Rufus Wainwright in her delivery. Hall headlines an 18+ show 8 p.m. tonight at Metro. My My My and Go Long Mule open. Admission is $8.

Film

Orson Welles hoped Touch of Evil would mark his triumphant return to Hollywood as a director. Instead, the film he shot was edited callously by Universal and in some scenes, re-shot, sending Welles on the fast track to berating the directors of Paul Masson wine commercials. A 1998 version of the film was restored according to the specifications Welles wrote in a 1958 memo. This version also gives the film its heft. Charlton Heston dons makeup as a Mexican drug enforcement official enjoying his honeymoon with his wife (Janet Leigh) when a bomb explodes at the U.S.-Mexico border, setting off a chain of events matching Heston's character with a sleazy, sweaty sheriff played by Welles. Touch of Evil is one of the last great films of the classic film noir era and its opening scene—a three-minute, 20-second tracking shot, is one of the greatest long shots in the history of film.

Touch of Evil screens 6 p.m. tonight and Tuesday, Sept. 4 at the Siskel Film Center, launching a month-long retrospective on 1950s film.

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