Review of Beat the Devil (1953) by Andy C — 19 May 2009

Beat The Devil (1953).

This movie was directed by John Huston, from a script by Truman Capote, from a novel by James Helvick (Claude Cockburn). The movie is mostly in Italy and has a very Italian film look about it. It's a movie where all of the characters aren't what they seem.

Billy (Humphrey Bogart) and his wife Maria (Gina Lollabrigida) Dannreuther are hired on by four unsavory characters (Edward Morley, Ivor Barnard, Marco Tulli, and Peter Lorre) to grab some East African land that has Uranium on it.

While waiting for the boat to take them to Africa, Billy and Maria meet up with a British couple Harry (Edward Underdown) and Gwendolen Chelms (Jennifer Jones). Gwendolen immediately takes after Billy while Maria is attracted to Harry. There are all kinds of misadventures and unusual characters in this movie. Mostly it's about people trying to scam each other.

The movie is not serious enough to be a drama, and not funny enough to be a comedy, and no action at all. The writing is pretty good, but despite the big names involved with it, the movie is really kind of a dud. There is no chemistry between Bogart and Lollabrigida to believe that they're really married, and Bogart and Jones aren't much better. It's worth checking out, but to belong to your library; I don't think so.

I found this DVD in the bargain bin at a Goodwill Industries store and snatched it up. I've been told that Bogart's movie company let the copyright on this movie slip and it went into the public domain. There have been some really bad printed DVDs of this movie on the market, like the one I have. So, be careful out there.