Review of Beat the Devil (1953) by Marvin D — 29 Feb 2012

A group of international crooks are stuck in Italy while their steamer is being repaired. They are on their way to Africa to buy a piece of property which supposedly is loaded with uranium but Billy (Humphrey Bogart) meets a girl leading to lots of doubt and suspicion among the group of crooks.

This film is full of great actors (Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, etc.), yet it's pretty terrible. Humphrey Bogart seems to be sleepwalking through this role, delivering some of the better lines with his typical suaveness.

The problem is that the film really has no idea what it wants to be, so it just ends up being pretty boring and uninteresting. It wants to be a comedy, yet its not very funny, with a few lines being the exception.

The film doesn't know if it wants to be as it could have been a good Heist movie or con film, but it's just a satire that overall isn't very funny. It kinda feels like it wanted to be a parody but it just feels like a bad one.

The romance that forms between Billy and Gwen feels quite forced and just doesn't work at all for me either. I believe it's a commentary on imperialism, but it's not particularly sharp or interesting.

..Lots of wasted talent here.