Just recently, I was able to wrap up work early and head down to my local rep theater to check out A Touch of Evil on the big screen, crackling from grainy, old film. It was my first taste of Orson Welles in a theater, one that was filled with the wonder of that jaw-dropping opening shot (which you can check out after the jump), as well as the continual amusement that Charlton Heston was supposed to be Mexican.

Throughout the entire movie, my brain was trying to rationalize a different story that would fit in the framework of the story and not seem so ludicrous. Maybe he was born to white parents in Mexico? Maybe he moved there at a young age? Nah. To think it is all because Welles changed the script. Still, while the attempts to change his race might have failed, this Heston film is so very worth the time and effort.

Rest in peace, Charlton -- I hope you're having a dandy, gun-laden afterlife.

*Last Rewind Answer: Believe it or not, it was Mick Jagger who was once considered for the role of Fletch.

There aren't many true "Hollywood legends" still with us, and now another one is gone, as Charlton Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home after a six-year battle with Alzheimer's. CNN reports that his wife, Lydia -- to whom he had been married for an astonishing 64 years -- was at his side.

The timing of his death was oddly appropriate in several ways. Given that some of his most famous roles were religious in nature -- Moses, John the Baptist, Judah Ben-Hur -- it seems fitting that he should die exactly between the Easter and Passover holidays. His death also occurred one day after the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, and Heston was an ardent supporter of King's. He marched with King, and stood on the platform with him when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Apparently, someone over at Warner Brothers thinks that a third movie version of Richard Matheson's classic sci-fi novel, I Am Legend, is necessary. Well, okay, maybe it is. The first one, the solid 1964 Vincent Price movie The Last Man On Earth, was in black-and-white, so naturally, it cannot be very good, at least in the eyes of the younger audiences to whom a remake would appeal most. And the second one? Well, the mangled and dated 1971 Charlton Heston version, The Omega Man -- it had albino mutant chicks with afros (say no more). This one will be directed by Constantine helmer Francis Lawrence, and is expected to start shooting in 2006 for a 2007 release. The movie has not yet been cast, though both Will Smith and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been attached to the project in the past. The long, strange trip it's been from page to screen is documented in The Greatest Science Fiction Movies Never Made (along with Tim Burton's Superman Lives). In 2003, IDW Publishing released a graphic novel of Matheson's story, which is about the lone survivor of a global apocalypse.