Beat the Devil (1953)

As Hollywood production became ever more individualised, with writers-directors and producer directors working independently of the studios, there were many pictures which attacked Hollywood conventions themselves. In Beat the Devil writer-director John Huston gives us a farcical take upon the recurring heist-gone-wrong subgenre. The style now known as film noir may not have been fully defined and discussed until the 60s, but any keen-minded cinemagoer can recognise a trend. And if a trend can be recognised then it is open to parody.

It looks however as if Beat the Devil may have begun life as a serious thriller. All the business about criminals going after uranium mines in Africa seems fairly original, and is certainly not an archetypal noir plot. And really there is no grand satire here, and no lampooning of specific genre clichés. The story's premise is essentially serious, yet is written with comedy characters and comical mishaps along the way. It's if Huston and his co-writer Truman Capote simply gave up on following it through and instead decided to have a bit of fun with it.

Nevertheless, Huston shoots this one with the same thoughtfulness and precision as he would a drama. As always, he favours set-ups which keep multiple actors in shot together, background and foreground, minimising on cuts between them. With some neat movements he is able to bring the right person to our attention at the right moment, for example the scene in which we first see Humphrey Bogart and Gina Lollobrigida. Bogart paces back and forth in the foreground moving in and out of shot, while Lollobrigida is in mid-shot but sat in the same place, meaning the two of them take turns to be the focal point without lots of editing or obtrusive camera-work. Another neat touch is when the major approaches Bogart at the outdoor table, starting off in the background as if an extra, until it becomes apparent he is worth taking note of. Huston's technique is about elaborate arrangement to keep all characters involved and performances intact without the distractions of film form.

And here there are many characters and performances worth looking at. As befitting for the tone, this is a real outing for oddball supporting players. Peter Lorre is at his very best, all shiftiness and lethargic mannerisms, while Robert Morley gleefully portrays his blustering and conspicuous opposite, and Ivor Barnard hams up his caricature of the puffed-up ex-army fascist. It appears these three fine character actors have been told to simply let go and play their familiar types to the hilt. By contrast, lesser-known Italian Marco Tulli gives a far more restrained performance, but he is in a way the funniest. There's a great moment somewhere in there while the other three are bickering and he is just sat in the middle of the shot, quietly blinking away like some daft meerkat. Even the tiniest roles are filled – often impeccably – by comedy players, many of whom are not well-known in English-language cinema. There's also a great turn by Jennifer Jones, at her most comical and almost unrecognisable as an eccentric Englishwoman, showing superb comic timing as she casually beats her husband at chess. With so much scene-stealing going on, it's possible to forget this is ostensibly a Humphrey Bogart movie.

But while Beat the Devil is full of quirky characters and has numerous funny little moments, it doesn't have much point beside that. The humour is never exactly hilarious because the whole thing really doesn't seem conceive

Fmovies: This movie is the funniest thing I have ever seen. Its very talky, and the plot is thick with double crosses, etc from the four crooks, and of course Bogart himself. Marco Tulli as one of the low-life criminals has a face worth a thousand words. Just seeing him with Peter Lorre, Robert Morley and Ivor Barnard is too much. They all look so incredibly guilty together. The extremely Proper Englishman played by Edward Underdown is a pleasure to watch as he reluctantly interacts with Bogart and co. turning up his nose at their nefarious activities. The plot itself is well thought out and at the same time absurd so you'll never know what to expect, but when it happens you may chuckle and rub your hands together thinking "that's perfect!" Its that kind of movie. This is a comedy for all us Bogart buffs and fans of film noir who enjoy a break from drama to laugh at our beloved genre.

People have complained about the picture quality, which I admit is not what it could be considering it was filmed in 1953. However, its not as bad as all that. It's only that the film has deteriorated a bit. The original camera work and audio work shines through the years of neglect this filmed has had to live through. All in all a hugely under-rated film, which I strongly recommend

Low-key and droll comedy by Truman Capote and John Huston dealing with a quartet of international swindlers named Peterson (Robert Morley), O'Hara (Peter Lorre), Ross and Ravello is stranded in Italy while their ship is being repaired. With them are the marriages Billy (Humphrey Bogart) and Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) Dannreuthers, further Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones ) and Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown). Meanwhile, Gwendolen is keen on Billy and the newspapers have just published this piece of news : 'Colonial officer murdered in Soho' . The eight are headed for Africa, presumably to sell sew-machines but actually to buy land apparently full of uranium . As the plot's McGuffin concerns uranium deposits in a far country from central Africa .They are joined by others who supposedly have identical motives . But their steamer is sinked and they are shipwrecked and imprisoned by Arabs who put them on a firing squad .

Delightful though irregular parody in which Humphrey Bogart steals the show using his wits , breaking all the rules and kicking virtually every cliché in the pants , as he relentlessly deceives , cheats ,laughs and lies . Amiable but sometimes lumbering satire goes on and on about the same premise . Seemingly endless list of character players includes a good support cast as Robert Morley as unlikely crook , Underwood as inept husband and of course the great Peter Lorre who adds surprising sparkles. John Huston's direction keeps things moving with laughs, he directed this sometimes hilarious, but mostly silly and baffling spoof of intrigue movies with ridiculous situations in the wake of ¨The Maltese Falcon¨and ¨Key Largo¨. The jokes come with machine-gun rapidly , though don't always work, there are so many of them that this comedy ends up with enoughs laughs for quite entertaining. It's a stupid movie but also funny and remains like a laugh-filled amusement. Filmed on location in Salerno , Campany ,Italy , Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK (studio); and in Amalfi Coast, Amalfi . The movie hasn't the thematic unity of 'African's Queen', ' Asphalt jungle' , or ' The treasure of Sierra Madre' the John Huston's best . The picture has become public domain in which circulate several lousy copies . Many people , audiences and critics , in its 1953 exhibition eluded this offbeat film but subsequently became a cult favorite that it remains nowadays.

Beat the Devil fmovies. "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

Pleasant enough piffle – a mildly diverting comedy-adventure hybrid – Beat The Devil has a belated reputation as the last word in dry drollery, an arch in-joke to whose hidden hilarity only the select and sophisticated few are privy. Humphrey Bogart didn't think so, saying `Only the phonies think it's funny. It's a mess.' But one of the movie's formidable champions, Pauline Kael, picked up on his line and trumped it: `Yes, but it may be the funniest mess of all time.' Bogart may be the shrewder critic here; after all, he sank his own dough into the venture, which went down like the ill-starred freighter upon which the cast put to sea. Only latterly has it has it acquired dubious `classic' stature.

Beat The Devil (directed by John Huston, who co-wrote the script with the up-and-coming Truman Capote) improvises a loose, comic riff on the international adventure genre. Thankfully, it's not unhinged or absurd enough to be a dreaded `spoof,' and emphatically not one (as it's become a commonplace to assume) of the noir cycle. In narrative, point of view and look (there's no coherent visual style), Beat The Devil bears not the slightest resemblance to film noir, which, by this point, was slyly starting to parody itself anyway.

The plot's McGuffin concerns uranium deposits in central Africa, which draw a disreputable and multinational crew of opportunists who hope to strike it rich by sticking it to their various motherlands. The joke lies in that these bumblers keep getting taken in by one another's cover stories, pretensions and lies – and falling for one another's spouses. It's not a bad joke, but it needs a bit more rigor to flesh it out from a skit to a feature film.

Of course it's funny, if haphazardly. A blonde Jennifer Jones, juggling an English accent as if with a mouth full of prunes, comes straight out of screwball comedy (who knew?), and Gina Lollobrigida (when not waylaid by her own attempts at English) occasionally matches her. Peter Lorre, looking much like the short and rotund Capote of the future, again displays his instinctive flair for subversive comedy (his past in sinister parts limited what might have been a long and enjoyable career). And Robert Morley, crisp as a toasted if unusually thick crumpet, serves up every line like a butler bearing a decanter of vintage port. Bogart, on the other hand, can't persuasively hide his age and infirmity, and his role as debonair lover and man of action demands superhuman suspension of disbelief (maybe he was just thinking of all the money he was going to lose).

Yet having fun doesn't have to mean that plot is irrelevant, some boring old rule made to be broken. Part of the movie's folklore is that Capote stayed up all night writing the next day's pages; maybe so, but didn't he or Huston know where they were going? Once the characters wade up on the North African shore to be apprehended by `Arabs' (surely, Bedouins?), there's no more pretense of a cohesive script or a halfway satisfying storyline. Finding a plausible way out of all the intrigue, however tongue-in-cheek it might have been, wouldn't have killed the laughs, now, would it?

The plot, if you can call it that, concerned a group of six stranded adventurers in an Italian port whose plan is to buy up some East African land that supposed1y contains uraniumÂ… Double-crossing quickly becomes the name of the game as Bogart and his fellow conspirators (including Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Gina Lollobrigida, and a seemingly endless parade of bizarre characters) outdo each other in inspired crazy wayÂ…

Bogart, trying desperately to maintain his composure, delivered such priceless lines as: 'I'm only in on this because the doctor told me I needed plenty of money. Without money I become dull, listless, and have trouble with my complexion." But his lines weren't the only offbeat onesÂ… In a room where he's being questioned after being captured, while a firing squad goes about its routine work outside, he is asked straight-faced, "Now tell me, do you really know Rita Hayworth?"

The film is one of those rare items that viewers either seem to love or hate, no middle ground acceptedÂ… and declared that only the "phonies" thought it was really funnyÂ… Many reviewers thought the whole thing was a tasteless joke and decried the waste of time, talent, and moneyÂ…

In any case, Bogart gave an immensely satisfying performance in his tongue-in-cheek role and the film itself has now become a regular attraction in Bogart film retrospectivesÂ… It is also an excellent example of how much Bogart had matured as an actor, since it is not easy to overcome apparently inept material and still give a performance with some meaning and substanceÂ…