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.

"Beat the Devil" opens with the arrest of four criminals seeming to come straight from cartoons' universe. Petersen (Robert Morley) is the biggest, fattest, obviously the leader, at the same height, there is the thinner Italian crook Ravello, and on the vertically-challenged department, the rat-faced Major Ross who makes Peter Lorre look almost like a conventional leading man.The least that can be said is that these guys don't quite exude truthfulness especially when they pose as vacuum cleaners' salesmen. When confronting an Arab sheik, Petersen uses some Pidgin English to explain his presence, the Arab reveals himself a worldly and most literate gentleman rightfully suspecting the men to be smugglers. Petersen then invites him to look at them, to see by himself that they don't have the 'working face' … the efforts these natural born crook-looking fellows pull to all look as respectable as possible is as desperate as hilarious.And as if it wasn't hilarious enough, Jennifer Jones intervenes, claiming that she's a British subject and therefore any harm done to her might create a diplomatic incident, to which the Arab dryly retorts that in his country, woman can move their lips but no word they say is ever heard. Yet later, the man reveals himself to be a fan of Rita Hayworth, a weakness that Bogart's character will cleverly exploit. Now, asking the purpose of the Arab sequence in the course of the story is as irrelevant as wondering where the film is leading up to, at that part. "Beat the Devil" is simply a big joke, an enjoyable, truculent and extremely entertaining one.It's the mark of great directors when they depart from their usual standards of seriousness and put the very trademarks they pioneered into self-parodying perspective. "Beat the Devil" is a remarkable demonstration of John Huston's caustic humor and self-detachment. You can tell that Petersen is a parody of Sydney Greenstreet from "The Maltese Falcon" and Morley plays the part to perfection, mixing his intimidating demeanor with irresistible goofiness. I knew there was comical potential in this actor when I saw him in "The African Queen"… and I'm glad Huston felt the same.Peter Lorre also reprises his suavely sinister character with a cigarette holder, only grinning when Petersen expects a reaction to one of his joke. His shining moment remains his unforgettable speech about time: "What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook." That line comes up early enough in the film, to warn the viewers that this is not a script to underestimate; indeed, it's as full of one-liners as the African lands they try to steal, are in uranium… and as priceless of course.And there is the scene-stealing Major Ross, the only character with no redeemable quality whatsoever apart from being funny: short, ugly, old and with debatable political opinions. Believing Petersen is dead, he utters: "Mussolini, Hitler, now, Petersen" and the worst is that he meant it as a compliment. This is a film where the bad guys bring the most laughs, and where the straight man is Bogart, as a freelance and cynical businessman, with an uncertain approach toward legal matters. He and his wife, played by Gina Lollobrigida, meet an English couple, the Chelms, formed by Jennifer Jones and Edward Underdown. Infatuations grow on each side but since the purity of their motives are questionable, so is the accusation of adultery.Anyway, this colorful gallery reunites in a small port in Italy waiting for the steamer to be repaired so they can go to Africa. The effect of the first frames is startling, the grainy texture of the copy is as poor and under-restored as a (coincidentally) Italian neo-realist movie and the amateurish quality of the sound makes it feel like set in the 20's. We're far from the grandeur and flashiness of "Moby Dick" and "Moulin Rouge", or the menacing shadowy atmosphere of "The Maltese Falcon" and "Key Largo". But this is still a John Huston's film, and only a director so capable of the best can pull so many efforts in a seemingly-worst and contribute to an unintentional masterpiece of B-movie.Through adventure, Film-Noir and comedy, "Beat the Devil" plays with the Hustonian's usual themes: generally about losers trying to satisfy their greed only to become blinded by their own principles or weaknesses (sometimes both are the same) and this translates in "Beat the Devil" with the language of comedy. Whether it's through our criminal quartet, Jones who pretends her husband is a rich landowner, Bogart who gets sucked in the middle of a scheme, ignoring the pay-off, it's like a nihilistic escape whose only purpose is to create funny situations in the kind of exotic and international settings cherished by Huston.Billy Wilder mastered comic writing so much, he couldn't have left something purposeless to the story while John Huston took a novel, adapted it on a day-to-day basis with a 28-year old Truman Capote, and the result, as it seems, is a succession of situations where the character's reliability is constantly put in equation and where every secondary character has something funny to say, whether the imbibed boat captain who wants no trouble in his boat or Bogart's chauffeur who demands reparation after an accident, that Bogart gave him the car being "beside the point".As if the story embraced its own adventurous and risky spirit, the result is a film that doesn't take itself seriously, which is not just ahead of its time, but of our own era of timid, star-studded and money-driven filmmaking. "Beat the Devil" was a gutsy movie, but 60 years later, it's regarded as a classic. I guess time did justice to it, proof that it isn't such a crook, after all.

Billy Dannreuther and his wife Maria are in Italy, planning to take a steamer to Africa, with four conniving criminals. They plan to buy land in Africa rich with uranium to exploit, and get rich off of it. When Billy wakes up one day, he finds that a man who had helped them with the plan was mysteriously killed in London. Going downstairs, he meets future fellow passengers, the Chelms; Gwendolen and Harry. Harry seems to be a stuffy Englishman, but his smart, attractive, blond wife is taken with Billy, and he invites them to dinner.They arrive at the restaurant a confused sort. Gwendolen is smitten with Billy, while Harry doesn't care much for him. On the other hand, Harry is smitten by Billy's seductive wife, Maria. Their steamer is delayed constantly, by a malfunctioning oil tank and a drunk captain. When Billy and one of his four acquaintances watch their car fall over a cliff, they are presumed dead, and one of the criminals lets Harry in on the secret, and Gwendolen confesses her love for Billy.When Billy and his acquaintance arrive back, everyone is confused, and then they get the call to board the steamer. It only gets more confusing, so I'll save you the trouble.When I finished Wise Blood, another Huston film, I was terribly perplexed. On one hand it was a very interesting film, on the other it left me cold, and confused. I didn't know how to review it, properly at least. I promised myself that if I ever came across a similarly perplexing film, I would think for a while before I wrote a review. When I first heard of this film, I immediately thought I would come across a similar situation. I mean, come on, have you heard the plot! Critically, it is also divisive.Roger Ebert placed it upon his Great Movies list, a list of the best films of all time, yet it has a 6.6 on IMDb. I was worried I would be overly confused by the plot and turned off by its craziness. What a surprise I found when I finished watching the film, and had a review already planned in my head.This film has been called a satire, but a satire of what? I cannot classify this as a satire, so what is it? The answer is very simple, it is an adventure film. I found myself laughing at many points, although it is not a comedy. It is certainly an odd film, yet it is entertaining to say the least and the tricky twists and turns of the plot are actually quite easy to follow.It seems like the whole cast is having a ball, with Bogart turning in the kind of cynical performance he is the master of. Jennifer Jones is blonde, and loving it. I haven't seen many films with her, so I can't quite judge her quality as an actress, but she is excellent as the devious Gwendolen Chelm. The typical English exterior is betrayed, as she reveals herself to be a scheming little devil with a voracious appetite, for love out side of her marriage.Peter Lorre, Robert Morely and Edward Underdown are all also excellent. The odd man, or should I say woman, out is Gina Lollobrigida. Her role as Bogart's young, sensuous Italian wife is certainly fine, but she seems to be in the wrong film. This may not be her fault, as it seems as if no one on this movie knew what they were going for. Her performance is a bit one note, which is never good, even in a adventurous romp like this film. To be fair she is never really given any stand out scenes.The screenplay seems incredibly muddled, yet it works in a very strange way. It seems that even working nights wasn't enough to stop Truman Capote from putting his own spin on the proceedings, and the dialog is one of the films strengths. Capote and Huston manage to keep the screenplay tight and lean, but some scenes could have been cut, and some are just unnecessary.This film can be found in the Public Domain, so the transfer isn't of the best quality. The cinematography is fair, but nothing truly stands out. The same can be said of the score, it works, but you don't find yourself humming it later on. The locations are beautiful and they work well for this type of story.Huston's direction reflects the tone of the story, relaxed, smooth and in control. It flows naturally, showing that Huston wasn't afraid to take it easy, while still remaining in command of his film.Overall, is it amazing? No, not really. Is it entertaining enough to serve as an enjoyable experience for 90 minutes? Yes, of course. It isn't thought-provoking. It isn't deeply psychological. It is entertaining, fast paced and likable. So yes, it's not bad.Beat the Devil, 1953, Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones and Robert Morely. Directed by John Huston, 7.5/10 (B+)(This is part of an ongoing project to watch and review every John Huston movie. You can view this and other reviews at http://everyjohnhustonmovie.blogspot.ca/)