Beat the Devil (1954)

Simply Perfect

Great Film overall

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

There are times when you look at a movie and you have to say "the devil made them do it." This is one of those cases, as a little known novel- Beat The Devil by James Helvick adapted by a writer Claud Cockburn whose writing is best known as the source of Cabaret, then adapted by Truman Capote and John Huston plus a couple of other writers, and you wind up with something oddly eccentric. Then you give the film a very low budget and film it all in Europe with several fairly well known actors and expect the cast to carry the film. It almost works though I am not sure if the cast or the writers got over paid for this one.The British part of the humor stands out, the tuna can not be put any further into a cheek than it is here. Oddities scream out in galore. Gina Lollobrigida is Bogart's wife, who oddly is not cast as an Italian though she seems very much to be one. Jennifer Jones is married to Edward Underdown who is sickly all the time while she is lying about him being an English Noble type. Both women seem to stray to each others husbands, though neither woman seems into either of their men, except using them for money and status.Bogart is doing business with a group of con men headed by Robert Morley and Peter Lorre, and yet he is performing a con job on them, and balancing the two eccentric ladies in his life. There is a rich texture to the cast, script, and story yet the film is done on the cheap. Look for Bernard Lee, M in the classic Bond films, as Insp. Jack Clayton, trying to make nonsense of this whole thing.The film sort of starts near the end, then goes back to the beginning and sort of fills in the strange world with a lot of the smoke and mirrors. That is what this film is, subtle humor with A List Talent performing on a shoe string budget with famous writing adopting a little known novel into a odder film. It kind of reminds me of Fairly Odd Parents being done live without actual parents while the kids are using crayons to color in a slang dictionary without a printed book to base the meanings on.

Billy Dannreuther is working for a group of crooks; they are planning to sail from Italy then head to British East Africa where they intend to acquire land which they believe contains uranium. Their boat is delayed and while they are stuck in Italy Billy becomes friendly with Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm who, with her husband, are also heading to Africa; apparently to grow coffee. Gwen is an unusual character; constantly making up stories to make life more interesting; at one point she suggests that Billy and his associates are doctors planning to carry out immoral experiments on the unsuspecting natives. More dangerously she tells Billy that her husband is intending to get involved in the uranium business; this comment is overheard by one of the gang and soon they see the Chelms as a threat to their scheme; a threat that might need to be dealt with. As well as the drama there is also romance as Billy and Gwen grow closer while simultaneously Billy's wife, Maria forms a relationship to Mr Chelms.If one watches this film hoping for a gritty film noir you will be sorely disappointed but if you are happy with something lighter you may really enjoy this. Having read other reviews I went in with fairly low expectations but found myself having a good time. There are plenty of laughs to be had; many but not all provided by Gwen's stories/theories. The cast do a fairly solid job; Humphrey Bogart is a good lead even if this is nowhere near his best film and Jennifer Jones is a lot of fun as Gwen. The supporting cast, which includes Peter Lorre, Robert Morley and Gina Lollobrigida are entertaining and amusing too. The characters are nicely varied; the bumptious gang leader, the man who thinks the world is a worse place because Hitler and Mussolini are no more and the drunken sea captain to mention just three. Overall I'd say that while the film is a bit messy it is a lot of fun with far more laughs than I'd expected.

Just desserts are dished out with glee in this 'crime drama'. Each character is built up to be disliked enough that when the hammer comes down on them, the result are hilarious. No character ever rises above 'amoral' and most are just downright sleazy, so when each little plot is foiled, it's just more icing on this cake of a movie. The supposed main plot of the movie is vague, and takes a back seat to the characters who slowly sink in the quicksand of their behavior throughout the movie. Humphrey Bogart plays the 'arranger' for a quartet of the most inept criminals in movie history. How they got together, no one knows. What they did before: who cares? What their brilliant caper is? Something about uranium and Africa I think. None of that matters. What matters is the expressions on their faces as one by one their ideas fail, their schemes implode, their Machiavellian machinations collide like bumper cars at the amusement park. They discuss murder, robbery, infidelity with banter lighter than air. Each of the actors plays their parts perfectly straight, one has to wonder if any of them were clued in on this prank noir. This is John Huston to the hilt, no holds barred, no character flaw left unexploited. A must see for any Huston fan. People that take their movies too seriously, may not 'get it', so your mileage may vary.

I wanted to see this movie simply because I was somewhere in the middle of a Humphrey Bogart marathon. Truthfully, I must say that the main plot did not amaze right from the start. Even though the amount of great actors is really terrific, the performances that they give are, sadly, on a much lower level than they should be. Not one of the characters that we see (Billy Dannreuther and his wife, Mrs. Helm and her husband, and the four crooks) stand out from the group. One thing I can say about the four main characters - the crooks - is that their comedic appearances almost burst me into tears. If it was not for the fact that it is hard to attach this movie to one particular genre, and even the director was not sure what the final outcome was, I would have to say that this is one of the first parodies of a classical noir cinema. However, paradoxically, if it was meant to be a parody I would not say that it is truly a good one. That is what amazes me about this movie - you are not sure what kind of a flick you are watching, yet, if you want to categorize it becomes even less entertaining. Still, the plot is enjoyable, because of the obvious conflicts and scams overwhelming all of the greedy and suspicious characters. The events that occur in the three different places (Italy, ship and North Africa) are somewhat adorable, because of the comedic subplots. And in the end even the great old saying comes in handy - where two fight the third one wins. It is, ladies and gentlemen, as simple as that.