The film's opening is one of the most celebrated in cinema, its single, atmosphere-drenched, three-minute tracking shot, much imitated but never surpassed for sucking you into a film's action and mood with hypnotised absorption.

Adapted by Welles from Whit Masterson’s pulp thriller Badge of Evil, it had streaks of teen degradation and reefer madness, and the most intense interracial relationship since The Searchers.