Beat the Devil (1953)

Humphrey Bogart leads an all starcast in Beat the Devil. A motley group of fortune seekers is on their way to Africa to make their fortune. Everyone on board has a story and a dream or at least a scheme to make a fortune. First the ship breaks down; they stop to get it fixed only to have it flood and sink. Somehow the adventurers make it to shore where they are taken hostage by a band of renegade Arab gunrunners.Format: BLU-RAY DISC Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS UPC: 658899503098 Manufacturer No: 309 Product Description

Time is a crook

You'd think that "Beat the Devil" would be far better known than it is, since it was one of the last movies that Humphrey Bogart did before his untimely death.

Maybe it's because Bacall wasn't in it, or maybe it was just too quirky for the masses. But taken for its own merits, this movie is a delicious little gem -- a funny, wry noir-satire, with a gang of rather inept criminals. Bogart does a fair amount of scenery-chewing, but a number of big stars of the time -- including Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollabrigida -- get plenty of good time.

Billy Dannreuther (Bogart) is part of a motley group planning to go to Africa, where a friend can help them illegally claim uranium, enabling them to become insanely rich forever. But trouble arrives: stuffy Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown) and his very imaginative, compulsively-lying wife Gwen (Jennifer Jones) arrive, and soon they're flirting with Billy and his sensual wife Maria (Gina Lollabrigida).

Even worse, Gwen's "exaggeration" habit is making the gang distrust Billy, thinking that he's withholding information from them and cheating them out of a fair share. He isn't, of course. But all the personal plots and distrust come to a boil when everyone boards the ship, and Harry reveals that he knows everything about their uranium plot. Now Billy has to save himself and his friends, without Harry being bumped off...

"Beat the Devil" is an all-around satire -- it mocks grabby criminals, pathological liars, stodgy Brits, romance movies, crime capers, noir films, and even second-rate boats in less advanced corners of the world ("Of course, the captain is drunk!"). In fact, there's very little about this movie that doesn't poke fun at itself, or at the movies of the time.

And since it was adapted by John Huston and Truman Capote, you know that it's being witty as it makes fun. It languidly builds up in a sunny, dusty, ruined city where people plot and flirt, and then starts to boil when they get on board the crummy little boat. But even engine failures manage to be entertaining when Harry wrecks the oil pump while trying to fix it, and preening about his English know-how.

The cast is skilled in that under-the-radar way, where nobody hogs the spotlight. Humphrey Bogart plays a slightly more offbeat version of his noir characters. He's a lot smarter than anyone would immediately suspect, a lot nicer than you'd think, and he handles most of the awkward situations with mildly tolerant grace.

Other well-known actors of the time make deliciously offbeat appearances -- Jones is hilarious as the ditzy, chattery English girl, Lollabrigida is suitably slinky and grasping, and Peter Lorre plays an uncharacteristically hapless conman. Robert Morley are also quite good as Bogie's bombastic pal, and Underdown plays the insensitive, straight-arrow dunce perfectly. You'll constantly want to smack him.

Though not as respected as it deserves, "Beat the Devil" is a little gem of a Bogart movie, with witty, satirical writing, deliciously offbeat acting and lots of wild twists. Definitely a keeper. June 12, 2008

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