BEAT THE DEVIL (1953) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: John Huston
Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida,
Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Bernard Lee
A real offbeat comedy with a considerable cult reputation, about a gang of crooks trying to get to Africa to score some uranium. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what the hell's going on in this, but the actors appear to be having fun playing characters who can't stop double-crossing each other for any longer than the time it takes to order a drink or light a cigarette. With a script cooked up on the fly by Huston and Truman Capote, it looks like a movie made on a lark, and it probably was, though Bogart personally didn't like it. Lorre does an especially funny bit as the gang's resident philosopher, a sardonic, chain-smoking German named O'Hara.
Jennifer Jones
(1919-2009)
