Beat the Devil

1953

Action / Adventure / Comedy / Crime / Drama / Romance

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 68% · 19 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 53% · 2.5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.4/10 10 10319 10.3K

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Plot summary

A group of con artists stake their claim on a bogus uranium mine.


Uploaded by: FREEMAN
March 12, 2016 at 08:48 AM

Director

Top cast

Peter Lorre as Julius O'Hara
Humphrey Bogart as Billy Dannreuther
Peter Sellers as Billy Dannreuther
Bernard Lee as Insp. Jack Clayton
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
636.62 MB
968*720
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 29 min
Seeds 3
1.34 GB
1440*1072
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 29 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by blanche-2 6 / 10

Odd...I call it odd

The above is a line from "Black Widow" that I've always liked. I guess it was called to mind because "Beat the Devil" is a black comedy. Well, it's an odd comedy anyway.

The 1953 film had absolutely everything going for it, including Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollabrigida, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley, directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Truman Capote. What more could you ask for? I don't know, but something.

The story concerns crooks stuck in Italy while they wait for a steamer to be repaired that is to take them to Africa. There, they will buy land that has uranium on it, though no one knows that. They're allegedly selling vacuum cleaners. Also traveling on this steamer are a British woman (Jones) and her husband. He supposedly is landed gentry in England, but is he? The crooks wonder what he's up to, and the wife keeps changing her story.

There is a lot of humor to be had in this film - the situation is funny, the denouement is wonderful, there is some witty dialogue and there are clever situations that go on during the film that are amusing. The problem is that nobody cares.

The film, which looks like it cost about a dollar to make, is too disjointed, and there are long sections where nothing interesting happens.

One of the posters, who really liked the film, commented that people don't like it because the actors aren't going for laughs. Well, I'm not one of those people. Acting 101 says you don't go for laughs - you play the situation and the characters for real and the laughs happen. That doesn't mean, however, that you pace it like it's Long Days Journey. Bogart had wonderful timing no matter what, and it's evident here, particularly in the car scene on the way to the restaurant, where the character's glibness is apparent. The problem isn't in any person, it's in the direction. I don't believe Huston had a sense of comedy. He could be brilliant, but this was not his thing.

Still, "Beat the Devil" is worth seeing, but it's hard to keep your attention on it.

Reviewed by mark.waltz 4 / 10

An abundance of intelligence, nonsense and black comedy rolled out into a misguided metaphor.

Having much of the same talent as 1951's masterpiece "The African Queen", this film comes off as a total contradiction in its entirety, giving a dark view of humanity at its most amoral and laughing at it at the same time. A group of strangers are crowded together on a steamer and something shady is afoot. At first, you really can't figure out what's going on, because every time that the writers drop an important plot point, a distraction occurs which moves it into a different direction. The film is alternately wise and confusing, one moment with leading man Humphrey Bogart standing out with me where he is informed that Hitler and Mussolini like leaders will soon destroy the world. Bogart simply states that he would like another year or two to continue to be miserable. That statement applies to how many people seem to feel today, a cynical society in an ever increasing dangerous world where unhappiness seems to be a better option than total oblivion.

Replacing Sydney Greenstreet as the villainous fat man, Robert Morley is a total contrast to his fearful missionary in "The African Queen". He's so instantly smarmy, you're surprised anybody even wants to be around him. Add in Peter Lorre (sadly a very undefined character) and two leading ladies (Jennifer Jones, highly resembling Vivien Leigh in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the luscious Gina Lollobrigida, obviously somebody's "kept woman" here), and you have a dream cast. The remainder of the cast are cynical men who seem intent on creating more unhappiness, and while there are some surprising plot twists and sudden turns (people are believed to be dead, incorrectly it turns out) and everybody is in danger at all times. A ship's steward politely tells Bogart that the ship is sinking as if announcing dinner. It is obvious that John Huston had his tongue so far into his cheek he could taste last week's dinner, yet the inside joke wasn't let out on an unsuspecting public who, according to reviews, just didn't get it. I did, but it may not have been the filmmaker's ideas that I got, just my own visions of what the film said, at least to me.

Along with another independently made Bogart film ("The Barefoot Contessa"), this is a film that doesn't necessarily work but with its star performances and a few dropped intelligent witticisms, can inspire some great thought. Otherwise, however, it is a pretentious bore.

Reviewed by SnoopyStyle 6 / 10

Rambling with a few fun moments

Various crooks, smugglers, con men and adventurers are trying to go to Africa to buy a new valuable material called Uranium. Peterson (Robert Morley), Julius O'Hara (Peter Lorre), the Dannreuthers (Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida) and others are stuck in Italy as they wait for their ship to be repaired. Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones) is fascinated with the group as she travels with her husband.

Truman Capote is injecting this with lots of snappy rapid-fire dialog. John Huston is trying to shoot the idyllic location with lots of camera work. However this movie just lack a cohesive drive. The characters are all eccentric. There is a rambling quality to this. The story of this ragtag group wasting time at this Mediterranean port isn't that compelling or exciting. The movie feels like on hold for far too long. It feels like a lot of A-list talents playing around without much of a goal.

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