- Beat the Devil (1953 film)
Infobox Film
name = Beat the Devil
caption =
imdb_id = 0046414
producer = John Huston
director =John Huston
writer =James Helvick (novel)
John HustonTruman Capote
starring =Humphrey Bogart
Jennifer JonesGina Lollobrigida Peter Lorre Robert Morley Edward Underdown Ivor Barnard Marco Tulli Bernard Lee Saro Urzì
music =Franco Mannino
cinematography =Oswald Morris
editing =
distributor =Romulus Films
released =November 24 ,1953
runtime = 89 min.
country = UK
amg_id = 1:4481
language = English|"Beat the Devil" is a 1953 film directed by
John Huston and starringHumphrey Bogart . It was co-authored by Huston andTruman Capote , and loosely based upon a novel of the same name by British criticClaud Cockburn , writing under the pseudonym James Helvick. It was intended by Huston as a tongue-in-cheek spoof of his earlier masterpiece, "The Maltese Falcon", and of films of its genre.Plot
The script, which was written on a day-to-day basis as the film was being shot, concerns the adventures of a motley crew of swindlers and ne'er-do-wells trying to lay claim to land rich in
uranium deposits inKenya as they wait in a small Italian port of travel aboard an ill-fated tramp steamer en route toMombasa . The all-star cast includesHumphrey Bogart , Jennifer Jones,Gina Lollobrigida ,Robert Morley (playing the role thatSydney Greenstreet would have played had he still been acting),Peter Lorre andBernard Lee (who was to gain widespread recognition with his appearances as "M" in theJames Bond movies).This Huston opus does not easily fit into the standard set of film categories; it has variously been classified as a "thriller," a "comedy," a "drama," a "crime" and a "romance" movie. It is above all else a parody of the Film Noir style that Huston himself had pioneered and as such has developed cult status in the ensuing years.
Reception
The movie was not well received critically (although it was to become a
National Board of Review winner) and was to mark the closure of the "quest movies" period in Huston’s career.Humphrey Bogart never liked the movie, perhaps because he lost a good deal of his own money bankrolling it, and said of "Beat the Devil", "Only phonies like it."
Roger Ebert notes that the film has been characterized as the first camp movie. In the biographical film dramas "Infamous" (2006) and "Capote" (2005), Truman Capote, portrayed byToby Jones andPhilip Seymour Hoffman , reminisces about life during the filming of "Beat the Devil"."Beat the Devil" is in the
public domain because of unrenewed copyright, and is widely freely available and distributed over the internet as seen below.External links
*imdb title|id=0046414|title=Beat the Devil
* [http://www.archive.org/details/beat_the_devil Download or stream "Beat the Devil"]
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