Anders wrote:
"Excellent novel, but the movie is even better. I don't mind
Heston as a mexican at all. Odd thing is, in the novel it is
Janet Leigh's character that's mexican, not Heston's."
I don't know much about the behind the scenes decisions
involving Touch of Evil (except for Welles's memo), but I'm
guessing that it was a very conscious decision to cast a well
known white man as the Mexican. That way audiences could
accept the mixed marriage with a nod and a wink, knowing that
they were both really white. Remember, execs were very
hesitant about showing Ricky and Lucy as a married couple on
TV around the same time.
And have things really changed that much? From what I've
read, a lot of thought went into the race/ethnicity of Will
Smith's romatic interest in Hitch -- they figured casting a
black woman would render it a black film in the eyes of
audiences, severely limiting its crossover potential, but
casting a white woman opposite him would raise racial issues
in America
(but not Europe), among both blacks and whites. So they went
with a Latina.
Mark
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