Beat the Devil (1953)

John Huston’s Beat the Devil (1953) is either a 90-minute joke or a work of pure genius, and just maybe both. When I finished watching it on DVD, I wasn’t sure whether I should place it in a safe deposit box or fling it out over some vast abyss. I’m still not sure. 

Although Roger Ebert boldly places Beat the Devil in his Great Movies collection, I’m not convinced it’s worthy to do more than hang out in the lobby of Ebert’s film pantheon for a few minutes before a more worthy film approaches it and asks “What do you think you’re doing here?” 

The film is loosely based on a novel by British journalist Claud Cockburn (writing under the name James Helvick), but the script was written by Huston and Truman Capote, by all accounts literally making it up as they went along. The plot (if you want to call it that) is largely immaterial, but involves a group of oddballs attempting to weasel their way into acquiring a plot of land in Kenya which promises to yield rich deposits of uranium. 

On the surface, the cast seems nothing short of spectacular: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and Edward Underdown. Yet most of them play against type: Bogart, normally carrying himself with a confident swagger, plays Billy Dannreuther, who seems to mainly react to all the madness around him with a plan that’s half-baked at best. Dannreuther’s wife Maria (Lollobrigida) saunters around (yet looking spectacular in doing so) speaking English as if she’d learned it on the set. Brit Harry Chelm (Underdown) and his wife Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones, with blonde hair) meet the Dannreuthers and all sorts of shenanigans ensue. Enter a crook named Peterson (Morley) and his tag-along associates, including a German named O’Hara (Lorre), and it’s like combining a train wreck with a circus act - simply delightful. 

Most of the film takes place in an Italian seaport hotel as the characters are waiting for a boat to take them to Africa. (Actually, they’re waiting for the boat’s captain to sober up long enough to pull up anchor, which may take awhile.) Once aboard the ship, the film’s hijinks reach Marx Brothers proportions. 

Is the film simply a parody of Huston’s own classic The Maltese Falcon? You could certainly look at it that way. Everyone (Well, most everyone...) in The Maltese Falcon is smart, calculating and, of course, self-serving. You can’t say that for the characters in Beat the Devil; self-serving, yes, but miscalculating is probably more accurate. And smart? Well... not so much.

Yet Beat the Devil is full of charm, wit and often side-splitting laughs. If you enjoy somewhat absurdist satirical films such as the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading or even the Ocean’s Eleven movies, you’ll probably enjoy Beat the Devil. 

4/5