Abstract
If one thing is for certain upon viewing Orson Welle’s Touch of Evil (1958), it is that the accompanying score by Henry Mancini is just as disconcerting as the disturbing and confusing narrative and setting. The music on its own would have shocked audiences of 1958 for its use of the newly emerging styles of Jazz (cool, Afro-Cuban, and Latin big band) and rock and roll, which are in direct contrast to the lush Romantic Hollywood scores that had been the norm well into the 50’s. Mancini even goes a step further to incorporate the genres of exotica easy listening, mariachi, bluegrass, and cabaret/turn-of-the-century parlor music as well. The use of any one of these genres would have been surprising enough, but their juxtaposition in Touch of Evil adds a deeper level of meaning to what Jill Leeper terms the “hybrid” theme of the film, in her article “Crossing Musical Borders: The Soundtrack for Touch of Evil,” such that the narrative and the music are intrinsically linked.