Posted 3:09 pm Friday, November 18, 2011
John Huston Pokes Fun At His Own Cinematic Legacy With ‘Beat The Devil'
It's always fun to watch an artist take aim at their own work, especially when it's an artist such as John Huston.
Huston was undeniably a force of nature in the world of cinema, insisting on shooting in exotic, foreign locations, often working from his own scripts and barely ever employing the use of an editor. He also significantly shaped the noir genre in American film with his early films, "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Asphalt Jungle." So to see him take aim at that very genre with his 1953 film "Beat the Devil" is a nice bit of fun.
The story centers around Billy Danneruther (Humphrey Bogart), an American socialite living in Italy. After meeting a wealthy British couple, Harry and Gwendolen Chelm, Billy gets mixed up in a plot to con the couple out of land in Africa that is supposedly rich with Uranium deposits. Along the way, a love triangle forms as Billy and Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones) fall in love, while Harry secret falls for Billy's wife, Maria (Gina Lollobrigida). Although I suppose that makes it something of a love square, but I digress.
Where "Beat the Devil" begins to take aim at its noir forbearers is in how the plot and its players are handled. It's not just the four criminals, Peterson (Robert Morley), O'Hara (Peter Lorre), Ross (Ivor Barnard) and Ravello (Marco Tulli) who are lying and manipulative. Gwen and her husband clearly aren't precisely who they say they are. For once, the players are also being played. Usually in a noir film, the plot to defraud, murder, rip off, etc. is concocted in absolute secrecy. Here, even the villainous miscreants seem nonchalant regarding their plot to defraud these folks.
Of course, when you look as stereotypically dastardly as these men, perhaps, that cannot be helped. There is no need for us to be shown or told they are the bad guys, we know this simply because there is no chance of them being anything but. The film at times acts as a celebration of character actors, giving each of these slimy characters a chance to shine as they attempt to manipulate Billy and weasel their way into the alleged wealth at Harry and Gwen's disposal. This is where the most fun of the movie is to be had, but it's a shame the quartet isn't used as well as it could have been. Lorre is one of the all-time great character actors, but he's used rather sparingly here.
The movie as a whole, though, is merely decent. The plot is rather uninteresting and while Bogey doesn't give a bad performance, he doesn't seem as invested in this as he does in all of Huston's other films. It simply lacks that spark that drives so much of Huston's work. It's not a poor film, nor is it something that stands out among his best material. It's worth a look, though, if you enjoy watching some slimy villains be slimy and have a ball doing so.
This wraps up my series on Huston and it's been an enlightening ride. His commitment to making films on his own terms has been fascinating to behold. For this reason, I've chosen Werner Herzog as the focus of the next series. Herzog is infamous for shooting everything on-location and often in the most precarious conditions possible (he actually had a steamship sail down a river and over a waterfall in a Peruvian jungle). I'll begin next week with a review of "Aguirre: The Wrath of God," followed by "Heart of Glass," "Fitzcarraldo," "Grizzly Man" and "My Best Friend: Klaus Kinski."
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Editor for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpaper.com.
