Beat the Devil

Beat the Devil (1953)

A riotous, imperfect, silly, brazen, forward thinking, throwaway, brilliant spoof.

For starters, you know something will happen with Huston directing Bogart. And throw in an aging bulging Peter Lorre as a German named O'Hara. O'Hara comes into a room and says to Bogart, playing a disaffected American, "Why do you always make jokes about my name, huh? In Chile the name of O'Hara is, is a tip top name. Many Germans in Chile have become to be called O'Hara."

And so there is a dig at a lot of stereotypes, most of them with shades of truth. The style of the film is not film noir, as many people say, but more just an intrigue or war time spy film. The most direct connection seems to be Huston's own Maltese Falcon, but even this is based on Bogart and Lorre appearing in both films (as well as a fun appearance in Beat the Devil by Robert Morely doing a kind of less pleasant Sidney Greenstreet).

I sensed a lot of direct influence from Lady from Shanghai, an overlooked and frankly brilliant and daring Orson Welles film from a few years earlier. Check out the slightly surreal plot, the strange sequences of locations (land, boat, land, with an exotic overture in the middle), and the characters themselves, including Jennifer Jones as a kind of decorative female not unlike Rita Hayworth in Shanghai. There is even a man-to-man discussion of Heyworth in Beat the Devil between Bogart and a unlikely Muslim captor in a generally hilarious scene.

The film is flawed by its own excesses at times, and by a kind of frivolousness that Welles, for one, avoided by making his film's excesses more formal and less literary. Huston, like Bogart, was literate by nature, as a lot of heavy drinking men were in those days, and the dialog, as brilliant as it is (and shepherded along by Huston and Truman Capote in tandem), isn't always in synch with the acting, and with the flow of events. So if we don't really expect anything from the plot, per se, knowing it's all just in fun, we come to expect more from the series of remarks, the twists of fate, and the yawning expectations of an audience used to very high quality writing and acting by 1953.

I know some people who just can't finish watching this because it strikes them as phony and childish. Bogart might agree--he lost money on the production. But there are some great moments, and an ongoing repartee that works well, or works superbly, at different moments. I'd cash out a couple of actors for others more idiosyncratic, I think. But no one asked me, I know. Watch it for what it is. And check out Lady from Shanghai and see if you see what I mean.

Humphrey Bogart heads a superior cast in this tale of a gang of swindlers who seek to covertly purchase African lands rich in uranium--but this is not the tough film noir you might expect: the script by director John Huston and Truman Capote upends the tale to create one of the most wry and wicked comedies going, and a remarkably fine cast follows suit with a host of eccentric performances.

Although Bogart does not look his best (this film was made toward the end of his life), he offers an understated yet very witty performance as Billy Dannreuther, the man the crooks hire to make the land purchase. His leading ladies, bombshell Gina Lollobrigida and an unexpectedly blonde Jennifer Jones, are equally effective in the roles of Bogart's cheerfully pragmatic wife and the pathological liar with whom Bogart becomes romantically entangled. But the big news in this film is the supporting cast. Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Ivor Barnard, and Marco Tulli give drop-dead-funny performances as the largely incompetent foursome behind the landsnatch scheme; Edward Underdown (as Jones' long suffering husband) is simply the most completely ludicrous Brit to hit the screen since 1930s screwball comedy; and all the cameo players nail their roles to perfection.

It would be unforgivable to give away too much of the story, but suffice to say that one wrong turn leads to another. The film never overplays its hand, maintaining a low key tone that sets off the wickedly funny script to delightful effect. Some viewers may not get the joke--much of BEAT THE DEVIL requires the ability to appreciate covert humor--but those who do will find the movie bears repeat viewing. Recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Hadn't seen this film in a long time and I'm glad to have caught it again. It's at the apex of black-and-white barely tongue-in-cheek comedies with a stellar cast that had a blast making the film.

Jennifer Jones, beautiful as always, seems barely able to stay inside her role, laughter threatening to break out at any moment. Humphrey Bogart has a recurrent quizzical "Am I really doing this?" expression.

Tied in with a gang of bumbling crooks seeking a fortune in uranium in Africa, illicitly of course, Bogart, married to a cute Gina Lollabrigida, falls in love with a faux English gentleman's wife as fast as his spouse goes for the supposed representative of the landed gentry. Of course cuddling and sweet words substitute for sex.

Robert Morley, always funny, is the putative leader of a gang that can't get their act together with Peter Lorre shedding his customary menacing stare for a busman's holiday as a gangster with a sense of humor.

The action ranges from beautiful Italy to a placid sea voyage aboard a rickety tub commanded by a rum-soaked moron whose Italian expletives are not understandable but who cares? The main characters, shipwrecked, wind up on an African shore where they're greeted by what today are embarrassingly stereotyped Arabs (I cringed at one of the European's comic invocation of Islam but then the movie has to be taken on its own terms and time, right?).

The resolution is lame - the characters all look ready to leave the set and get drunk before undertaking a new film. But this is one of the best spoofs of the noir genre and what makes it fly is the ensemble of first-rate actors in roles neatly the opposite of those they were usually seen performing.

Rent it! (Please)

I've tried, and tried, and tried, and have now given up trying to figure out the appeal "Beat the Devil" has to a certain clique of film fans. There's no denying its surface appeal. Bogie, Huston, Capote, Lorre, Jones, et al, but I'd have to agree with Bogart who called it a "dog." It's not exciting, it's not funny, and it's not appealing to the eye. The shoddy production values (at least for a film with a cast, director, and writer of such high calibre) were apparent to many critics of the time, so the video and DVD releases probably look no worse than the film did in 1953. The fact that the copyright holders (Bogart's company co-produced) let this fall into the public domain may be a clue to what they thought of it.

"Beat The Devil" is one of Bogart's more unusual films. Scripted by none other than Truman Capote and John Huston, it is a very entertaining, offbeat noir satire (quite a description). Upon first viewing a lot of the humor may get lost, but view it a second time, and you can not help but laugh out loud at many of the jokes.

The cast is absolutely top notch. Bogart is perfect as Billy Dannreuther, a man who has a friend that will line him and his associates up with some land in Africa that is rich with uranium. It's always nice to see Bogie prove that he had a great sense of humor, and didn't mind poking fun at himself. Jennifer Jones, who, for some reason, always reminded me of Vivien Leigh (in "Streetcar")in this picture is terrific as Mrs. Chelm. But it is Robert Morley who steals the picture for me. Sometimes menacing, sometimes charming, he is a delight to watch.

Huston and Capote have done a great job of blending the different genres without letting them get all caught up in each other. I do wish that the final scene was written a little better, but the movie is still a lot of fun.

Caution - because the film was allowed to enter the public domain, there are a lot of really lousy prints out on the market, even on DVD. If you want this film for your own collection, do yourself a favor and spend a couple of extra dollars and buy a good print.

7 out of 10