Beat the Devil is a 1950s production that has become a legend, a genuine cult item. Although a bust when new, it figures strongly in the hipster fame of Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and the eccentric Truman Capote, who reportedly wrote the screenplay on the fly, while the film was in production. Acting as his own producer, with help and cash from Jack Clayton and Humphrey Bogart, Huston clearly wanted something wild and very un-Hollywood. As Pauline Kael reported, the actors didn’t know the story in advance, therefore giving each day’s shoot an off-balance aspect. Filming on Italy’s glorious Almalfi Coast must have been a major motivation for the very unique cast: Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida in the same show, vying for Bogie’s attention?
John Huston was likely the only director who could throw a wedge between Jennifer Jones and her husband/micromanager David O. Selznick; perhaps Capote, who had just worked on Selznick’s disastrous recut and rewrite of De Sica’s Stazione Termini, contributed some good suggestions for convincing David to buzz off. Even in her odd blonde hairdo, Ms. Jones shows qualities not seen in her other, ‘serious’ pictures.
This crime thriller about a group of international uranium swindlers could easily have been played straight, with the usual schemes and double-crosses. It instead comes of as a comically absurd extension of those scenes in Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, where ‘colorful’ co-conspirators sit around hatching plans, spinning lies and deceiving nobody. Thanks to Capote’s timelessly witty throwaway dialogue, the show just gets funnier. This lunkhead pack of frauds and cheaters think they’re pulling off a crooked coup, but they can’t even fool a hotel manager or a ship’s steward.
One of the original posters, used as the cover art for Twilight Time’s release, ought to let SOMEBODY know that the film is at least 95% tongue in cheek. The exploits pictured look like a James Bond movie, only better.
A suspicious quartet of ‘businessmen’ arrive in Ravello, waiting for passage to North Africa, where a shady deal in uranium awaits. Corpulent Englishman Peterson (Robert Morley), nervous Irishman Julius O’Hara (Peter Lorre), creepy Italian Ravello (Marco Tulli) and brooding thug Major Jack Ross (Ivor Barnard) suspect each other and their new partner Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart), an American with the connection to seal the Uranium deal. The problem is that the paranoid schemers become convinced that Billy and his not-particularly-adoring wife Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) have their own double-cross going. Billy begins a fairly amorous flirtation with the flighty, reality-challenged Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones), the husband of the penniless but stuffy titled Englishman Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown). Adding to the nervousness is Billy’s observation that Major Ross has likely murdered a man in London as part of the scheme. With the transparently untrustworthy Peterson leading the group, any bellhop or waiter would know that a sleazy crime was being hatched. The group finally boards a broken-down ship, where too many screwy personalities in close confinement all but guarantee to louse up everything.
Capote and Huston’s show has been called a Black Comedy, but it really doesn’t have any mordant social message to impart — it’s just quirky for quirkiness’s sake. Huston said that he wanted everyone in it to be slightly absurd, yet poor Bogart doesn’t seem to be in on the joke. Although most everybody gets good lines, not all stars are created equal. Ms. Lollobrigida makes a fine impression as a cookie fully capable of her own greedy calculations. She proves that she’s not just another Italo starlet, but it’s Jennifer Jones who shines, as an atypical funny ditz who amuses herself by constantly making up stories. When meeting her fellow travelers, Gwendolen tells them that she thinks they’re mad scientists heading for the jungle to commit horrible medical crimes. Dannreuther’s shifty associates barely pay attention to her from that point forward. Ms. Jones adopts the film’s carefree manner of storytelling, surrendering herself to the absurd vibe that Huston’s after. Compared to the pictures that her husband Selznick produced and/or meddled with, Devil comes off as a healthy stretch for the actress.
The ‘minor’ parts are gems. The baleful Ivor Barnard is a marvelous bulldog of a cutthroat, perpetually scowling. Marco Tulli’s deceptive simpleton act makes us laugh every time we see his cloying smile. Truman Capote gives the ship’s wisecracking purser (Mario Perrone) some of the wittiest throwaway lines — he’s consistently more in control than these ‘brilliant’ crooks. Only Edward Underdown’s insufferable snob seems a bit shallow… at first. When Bernard Lee’s policeman drifts through at the finish, it’s as if the breeze brought some reality back to the proceedings.
The marvelous Peter Lorre, surprisingly, doesn’t delight us as much as we expect — he underplays, skipping the scene stealing eccentricity that lifted scores of so-so thrillers assigned him by Warners. Lorre’s somewhat depressive Irishman makes a Welles/Cuckoo Clock speech about the tyranny of time, touching on existential malaise, but there’s not a lot of thrill in his words. He looks defeated all through the picture.
Coming out WAY on top is Robert Morley, the acting favorite who exercised his unique voice in a number of classics, like Huston’s own The African Queen and Carol Reed’s seldom-screened masterpiece Outcast of the Islands. Morley makes a full meal of the patented ‘fat man’ conspirator Peterson. Bumbling about and verbalizing his crooked thoughts for all to hear, Peterson foolishly thinks he can intimidate people. In the only plot complication that resembles a normal crime adventure intrigue, the entire company is marooned on North African soil and immediately arrested. Morley’s grinning puss is the most hilarious of the gallery of ridiculously guilty-looking faces — he tries to communicate with the arresting official with ridiculous baby talk. It’s possibly the funniest lineup of suspects in movie history:.
Is this the first movie in which the heroes are saved by a sarcastic Hollywood in-joke? Bogart’s Dannreuther invokes the magic name Rita Hayworth, much the way Peter Cook and Dudley Moore would summon the magic of Julie Andrews in a much later comedy. The finish upends all the givens of shady international crime intrigues — there are no nighttime chases, reveals of hidden identities, or theatrical confrontations wherein everybody suddenly has a gun in his/her hand. We instead are given what’s come to be known as a pretty standard John Huston finale. The lofty plans of mice and men crumble to nothing, leaving the survivors laughing at their own folly.
The stories of a confused and disorganized shoot for Beat the Devil are not reflected in the polished production. The Amalfi coast looks marvelous. Huston’s direction of dialogue scenes in hotels, on the street and aboard ship are fluid and focused — he simply concentrates on the amusing performances. A set piece scene where a car rolls away from Morley and Bogart on a steep cliff road is very neatly sketched — no cheats or fake cutaways. The only visual hiccups I noticed are a few scenes that seem to fade out rather abruptly, as if Huston and his editor decided to chop the show down at the last minute.
Two ‘legendary’ stories about Beat the Devil have been repeated ad infinitum. I believe it is Pauline Kael who said that Sam Spiegel, who invested some money in the movie, was shipping a large crane back from a distant location. He had it dropped off to the Devil company in Ravello for a single day, with the instruction that Huston use it for added production value. Huston dutifully dropped in two superfluous swooping crane shots, as if adhering to Hollywood law. Then, it is said that Peter Sellers, then a radio comic, was hired to mimic Humphrey Bogart’s voice for some dubbed lines, perhaps because the actor had hurt himself in a car accident. Although this certainly sounds more than possible, ‘One can’t tell when Sellers’ voice takes over’ sounds an awful lot like code for ‘ Mr. Sellers’ agent secured a nice publicity blurb for his client.’
