Badge of Evil Badge of Evil Badge of Evil is a novel written by Whit Masterson (a pseudonym used by the authors Robert Allison “Bob” Wade and H. Bill Miller) and published in 1956. This novel was the basis for the 1958 movie "Touch of Evil", directed by Orson Welles and co-starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. A man named Rudy Linneker is killed when a mysterious killer blows up his house using a couple of sticks of dynamite. Assistant district attorney Mitch Holt is called to the case as well as police officers Leron McCoy and Hank Quinlan. The pair have gained
Touch of Evil and was convinced that his Hollywood career was back on the rails. However, the film was then re-edited (and in part re-shot) by Universal International pictures. The editing process was protracted and disputed, and the version eventually released was not the film Universal or Welles had hoped for. It was released as a B-movie, the lower half of a double feature. The A-movie was "The Female Animal", starring Hedy Lamarr, produced by Albert Zugsmith and directed by Harry Keller, whom the studio had hired to direct the re-shot material in "Touch of Evil". The two films even had the same