"Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook."

By the year 1953 things were winding down for Humphrey Bogart. He had won his only Academy Award. It had been over a decade since he played Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942). It would be time for him to end his film partnerships with John Huston and Peter Lorre.

The successful cast and crew of The Maltese Falcon (1941) would join once again for 1953’s Beat the Devil. At least, that was the idea. Beat the Devil is more of a parody of the classic film noirs in which Bogie, Lorre and Huston made. It would be the final time for the three to work together. Sydney Greenstreet, the normal rotund bad guy, had retired from acting. He is replaced in this movie by Robert Morley, who had appeared in The African Queen (1951) with Bogie as Katherine Hepburn’s missionary brother.

Here the cast is in Italy. The story is odd and all over the place. This is probably because the script was being written day by day. Truman Capote worked with Huston on the script. For the most part, the movie is just about Bogie, Morely and Lorre having a good time together. Huston focuses much more on this than an actual story. The three seem to enjoy each others company and Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida seem to go along for the ride. Lollobrigida was making her American film debut.

Basically, Bogie is a con man. He happens to team up with a group of four men, led by Lorre and Morely, who are after uranium deposits in Kenya. Actually, “team up” isn’t the right phrase. Apparently Bogie isn’t the suave gentleman he acts like while interacting with wife Gina Lollobrigida. He happens to be a low-life who doesn’t have any money. He owes the four men some money. He placates them by saying they can go to Kenya with him to claim the uranium. Of course the four agree and the majority of the movie is spent waiting for a steamer to take the group to Kenya.

Once on board, high jinks ensue and when they arrive in Kenya, it is not what they expect. Here is The Maltese Falcon reference. It is not about the jeweled bird, or the uranium in this case, but about the quest for something unattainable and what human beings will do to get it. It is a common theme throughout Huston’s work. It is at its most comical here. The group is arrested by natives, but Bogie happens to sweet talk the chief and the group escapes. They end up back in Italy and the movie comes to a close.

When it was released, Beat the Devil did not do well at the box office. In later years, the movie became appreciated for the people who appeared and worked on it. It never made money for Bogie and he was disappointed in that. He himself never liked the film. In fact, it did so poorly, the copyright was not renewed and the movie is currently in the public domain. This might be one of the reasons why the prints of the movie are not of high quality, even on DVD.

This seems to be a movie that you are either a fan of, or you can’t stand. Personally, I think it has some strong points, but the talent associated with it deserved better. Not a great final picture for the trio of Lorre, Bogie and Huston.