In a seedy US-Mexican border town, detective Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his newly wed wife Susie (Janet Leigh) become embroiled in a deadly maelstrom of crime and corruption as Miguel’s investigations into a narcotics ring bring him into conflict with local law-enforcer Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles).
Barry Adamson: “Orson Welles stars in and directs this movie. He had it in mind that a conventional score wouldn’t work and so instructed Henry Mancini to score only ‘source’ music, that is, music that plays e.g. from loudspeakers blasting out of bars to invite the tourists in, each bar playing a different Latin number. He thought a mix of rock n roll and Latin and jazz would sit perfectly as a modern day ambience to the Mexican border town setting.”