The picture’s most remarkable photographic feat is its opening scene, an unbroken 31/4-minute crane shot which ordinarily would have been composed of a series of separate shots. The action covers several blocks of downtown Venice from an amazing array of angles, including close-ups, low tracking shots, very long shots and bird’s-eye views. It is further complicated by being elaborately night-lighted, and there is a lot of detail and activity on the bordertown street. Metty properly gave much of the credit for the virtuosity of this complex scene to camera operator Phil Lathrop, ASC, who soon became a distinguished director of photography in his own right. The camera seems to float through the action, gliding in all directions, without a glitch.
The sequence begins with a close-up of a time bomb in a man’s hands as the clock is being set. The camera swings up as the culprit looks down the street to see if anyone is coming, pulls back as the man runs to the right, and follows his shadow along a building wall to a Cadillac convertible parked behind the building. The man puts the bomb in the trunk and runs away as the car’s doomed passengers, Linnekar and Lita, emerge from the back door of a nightclub and climb into the vehicle. Pulling away from camera, the car circles behind the building as the camera moves to a high angle to show it pulling out on the far side and turning right onto the street. The camera then races past and far ahead of the car, swooping down to eye level and turning back as the car moves toward the lens. Vargas and his wife cross the street in front of the car, and the camera moves close to follow them as they turn and walk ahead of the auto. The camera again moves ahead, to the American side of the checkpoint. The guard and the driver chat with Vargas, congratulating him for nabbing Grandi, while Lita complains that she hears a ticking sound. After the auto passes the Vargases, the camera moves in close and picks up their conversation as Mike says to his new bride, "Do you realize I haven’t kissed you in over an hour?" As they draw close, a terrific explosion occurs offscreen left. Only then is there a cut, to the Vargases’ view of the exploding convertible.
Equally elaborate and difficult, but on a much smaller scale, was the first scene which was filmed. Quinlan interrogates a suspect in the bombing incident in the youth’s tiny apartment, and plants dynamite to frame him. Heston recalls that cast members rehearsed during the night. In the morning, Welles and Metty had laid out "a master shot that covered the whole scene. It was a very complicated setup, with walls pulling out of the way as the camera moved from room to room [on a crab dolly], and four principal actors plus three or four bit players working through the scene." This single take covers 12 pages of script in almost five minutes, creating the impression of about 60 setups, yet somehow never calls attention to itself.
In another unusual location shot, the camera follow Vargas and five men into a building, where the investigator puts the others and the viewer, personified by the camera aboard a tiny elevator. With its operator crouched in a corner, the camera records the shaky ride to the fifth floor, where Vargas is waiting.
One of the most violent and harrowing sequences in any film is the murder of Grandi in the cramped hotel room. The room is dark, with illumination from a flashing neon sign outside the window. Quinlan, a drunken ogre, pounces savagely on the much smaller Grandi, and the fight rages all around the unconscious Susan. Garotting his victim at last, Quinlan drapes the corpse over the brass bedstead. A "shock" scene comes later, when Susan awakes and we see, from her POV, an upside-down close-up of the dead man’s distorted face and bulging eyes.
Most of the picture consists of hard-lit night scenes with jagged, opaque shadows and, toward the end, a few Dutch tilts. Day exteriors were done without fill lights. A few auto interiors were filmed on the process stage, but most were done on location with the camera mounted on the car. The hard-edged style is broken inside Tanya’s brothel, the only place where music is sweet, lighting is diffused, shadows are soft and camera angles are resolutely "normal."
Welles brought in several friends and associates for major supporting roles: Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich (whose personal fondness for Welles led her to join the cast as a "guest star"), Zsa Zsa Gabor (another "guest star"), Ray Collins and Harry Shannon. The latter pair respectively portray a D.A. and a police chief, back-slapping politicos who owe their popularity to Quinlan’s success at getting the goods on murderers.
Welles his substantial bulk padded out grotesquely, eyes rheumy and heavily bagged, nose expanded is barely recognizable. Ever embarrassed about his small nose, Welles usually enlarged it with putty when performing. He makes Quinlan an almost completely despicable character, allowing only brief moments of sympathy such as when the police captain talks about the strangulation murder of his wife by a "half-breed" whom he was unable to bring to justice. (This is Quinlan’s rationale for his hatred of Mexicans and his practice of framing men he deems guilty but beyond reach of the law.) Quinlan also seems more human during his scenes in Tanya’s brothel, where his venom subsides until he returns to the world outside.
Heston, his hair and skin darkened, is remarkable as the idealistic Mexican crime-fighter. His exchanges with Welles are sharp, as when he tells him that "I don’t think a policeman should work like a dog catcher." He swings into action convincingly when he tears into the Grandi boys and wrecks a saloon in the process. Leigh’s delicate beauty and vulnerability, combined with her witty handling of dialogue, set her well above the screen’s typical "ladies in distress."
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