Review: Beat the Devil

Bogey is a soldier of fortune in Italy, in league with a motley crew of untrustworthy-types (fat Robert Morley, gaunt Marco Tulli, Hitler-loving rat-like Ivor Barnard, and shifty Peter Lorre, as a German-accented, possibly Chilean man, named O’Hara!) who get mixed up with a daffy British couple (priggish Edward Underdown and his seriously loopy wife, compulsive liar Jennifer Jones) whilst waiting for a ship to East Africa (to prospect for Uranium). Gina Lollobrigida is Bogey’s wife who hooks up with Underdown whilst Jones falls for Bogey. Needless to say, no one is trustworthy, and no one is who they say they are at just about every moment in the film. Future Bond co-star Bernard Lee (that’s M to you and me) turns up memorably at the end in a small but pivotal role.

 

Interesting but overrated 1954 John Huston (“The Misfits”, “The Asphalt Jungle”) film is a semi-spoof, not-so much of “The Maltese Falcon” and film noir specifically, as I was expecting, but the general outline of characters Bogey made famous and perhaps intercontinental-set films like “Casablanca” and “Sirocco” rather than the shadowy noir stuff. Well, sort of. I was expecting a more obvious noir spoof, especially when Morley is clearly intended to be parodying Sidney Greenstreet and “Maltese Falcon” co-star Lorre is essentially sending himself up (something he seemed increasingly happy to do in the latter stages of his career).

 

But it’s also not really that funny, more of a light-hearted romp than an outright comedy. On that level, it mostly works- Bogey is fine, Morley is superlative (when wasn’t he?), and Barnard and Lorre steal their every scene (which sadly aren’t as many as one would like). But Lollobrigida is given little to do except be herself (I could take or leave her), and Jones...is just odd. And not in a good way. She’s completely incapable of making her strange role work, even when dyed blonde. Meanwhile, the usually reliable cinematographer Oswald Morris (“Lolita”, “The Hill”, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold”) shoots it all in a stark B&W that is completely against the style of 40s noir...so I really don’t see this as a noir parody at all.

 

Still, it’s all entirely watchable, even if I prefer noir films to the likes of “Casablanca” or “Sirocco”. See it for Morley in particular, and enjoy Lorre and Barnard when they’re given a moment or two to shine (Lorre gets the best speech in the film, lamenting about the concept of ‘time’). The screenplay is by Huston and the one and only Truman Capote (“In Cold Blood”), from a James Helvick novel. Helvick, AKA Claud Cockburn apparently wrote most of the screenplay himself, however before leaving the project).

 

This one flopped originally, and even Bogey was suspicious of its admirers, but nonetheless it has become a cult favourite. I was ultimately a bit disappointed, but perhaps I just don’t get it and came into it in the wrong frame of mind. I was expecting lots of shadowy American interiors, and hilarious digs at Phillip Marlowe etc., and I got lots of scenic Italian exteriors and a loopy Jennifer Jones instead.

 

Rating: B-