Beat the DevilRating:
Release Date: 01 April, 1999 Retail Price: $9.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
Beat the Devil Reviews
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 that's because Bacall wasn't in it, or maybe it was just too quirky for the masses -- a funny, wry noir-satire, with a gang of rather inept criminals.
Billy Dannreuther (Bogart) is part of a motley group planning to go to Africa, where a friend can help them illegally claim uranium. But trouble arrives: stuffy Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown) and his very imaginative 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. 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, and even second-rate boats ("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, ruined city where people plot and flirt, and then starts to boil when they get on board the boat. But even engine failures manage to be entertaining when Harry wrecks the oil pump while trying to fix it.
The cast is skilled in that under-the-radar way: Bogart plays a slightly more offbeat version of his noir characters, and Jennifer Jones is hilarious as the ditzy, chattery English girl. Peter Lorre and Robert Morley are also quite good as Bogie's pals, and Underdown plays the insensitive, straight-arrow dunce perfectly. You'll constantly want to smack him.
As for editions, pretty much none of them are "good" per se. They havne't been cleaned up or restored. But the best one I've seen is Diamond Entertainment's, which has a steady picture and soundtrack, and no splices, crackling, or so on. It's slightly fuzzy as for details, but not so that it isn't watchable or enjoyable.
Though not as respected as it deserves, "Beat the Devil" is a little gem of a Bogart movie, with a witty, satirical script and lots of wild twists. Definitely a keeper.
It smokes, it drinks, it philisophizes...
What happened in this film? I couldn't tell you. One of the major downfalls of this film was the lack of quality that was used to transfer this film to DVD. I felt at times that I was watching a very old VHS version of this film. There is even a moment where you get squiggle lines at the top of the screen as if you are watching this film on a rackety VHS player. The fade in's and fade out's were horribly miscalculated. I am always a believer that you should let your character finish his/her line or action before you go to a fade, that way you don't have audience members straining to hear or to catch a final glimpse of what is happening.
I am trying really hard to watch some of these older films. They are the backbone to modern cinema ... but can't they be any better. I am still waiting for me to discover that gem. I think that is my mission now. I want to see an older film that is virtually unheard of, but is movie making at its best.
So, what was wrong with Beat the Devil you may ask? The fades were one aspect I had trouble getting over. Another was what the director was trying to do with Bogart. Trying to enjoy the spoof that the director, John Houston, was planting in the film was hard. What Houston was trying to do was spoof all of Bogart's prior films. This movie was like all of Bogart's films meshed together so to speak. While you don't normally see this in many movies (the only one that comes to mind is True Lies with Arnie), in this film it was done so badly that the humor was lost to confusion. This was one of those films that you have to watch, and your initial reaction is going to be the true feeling that you have for this film. I thought about re-watching this film to see if it got any better for me, but as I thought about it, I had to pass.
My initial reaction was not good, and I had this feeling deep in me that it wasn't going to get much better with a second viewing. Maybe I was expecting better, I mean Truman Capote wrote the film ... that should mean something ... right?
Finally, and perhaps I just need to see more of them, but I have trouble watching a satire without any jokes. Growing up in the era of Mel Brooks, I wanted scenes and words that I would just fall over with laughter about. This film carried none of this. There was only one scene that made me smile a bit (and perhaps it was because my throat was dry), and that was when Bogart's buggy went down the cliff and into the ocean. The only reason for me laughing at that was because it reminded me of Hawaii and our trip up a huge mountain!! Blach! Watch out for this one ... it's a doozie!!
Grade: ** out of *****
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