Review of Beat the Devil (1953) by Real G — 16 Dec 2004

The 50's are a real selective time. I mean you look one way and you got these films all bright and vivid in color and then you got those 3-D ones and the Supervision, Panavision, Technovision, etc. ones and then there's the classic looking black and white ones. And I'm using classic as in legendary but as in old-style, pioneer, Edison with his galloping horse kind of old.

Anyway, Beat the Devil is supposedly an action film but you could have fooled me. And did. It's more drama than anything else. And it plays out like most any 50's whodunit goes. I mean, it's a bad sign when the main character's last name is Dannreuther (pronounced Dan Rather) and you're sitting there thinking about the retiring CBS news anchor instead of paying attention to the film.

Plus, Peter Lorre is at his bug-eyed, nasally voiced best. That voice is just classic. And fun to impersonate. All tolled, and factoring in that this IS a John Huston film, Beat the Devil works as light fluffy entertainment.