Beat The Devil

When good reviewers die a winged usherette leads them to The Great Projection Room in the sky where, for eternity, they watch pictures like Beat the Devil. For this is one of those scarce films that will hold to a regular re-run schedule, and be just as fresh and sparkling the sixth time around as it was the first.

Unfortunately, a few people may be disappointed if they go to the picture expecting warmed-over Casablanca. There is only the connection of a common excellence. Most of the roaring successes--many of them also starring Humphrey Bogart, depended on tight-knit plots that, while fine alone, were garnished by unusual characters and brilliant lines. Beat the Devil rambles through the bare vestige of a plot delighting the audience with clever dialogue and swamping the screen with fantastic characters. Humphrey Bogart, for the most part, plays the same role he has perfected over the years. If he was called Rick, Sam or Harry before, and Billy now, the role hasn't changed; nor should it, since it is what he does best. But authors John Huston and Truman Capote have surrounded Bogart with an entirely new stock of characters, and taken from him the chore of hitting or shooting people--he is, after all getting on.

But the same deftness of line and surprise of situation that both Huston and Bogart have become known for is in Beat the Devil. The secret, of course, lies in conceiving enough flamboyantly wicked characters to off-set Bogart's flashy heroism. In this case, Huston and Capote have hit a peak. From a tiny British Major who worships the memories of Mussolini and Hitler, to a German from Chile called O'Hara, the people of Beat the Devil are geniuses of evil and eccentricity.

The dialogue, stressing unexpected humor, the incongruous wise-crack, is almost as heroic in spots as the palmists bits of derring-do in earlier Bogart pieces. Jennifer Jones, with blonde hair and a sometimes British accent, accounts for much of the dialogue in situations. As a woman who, while not exactly a liar, "relies more on her imagination than on her memory," she keeps the verbal stew bubbling with a series of fantastic stories. But the authors are kind to all the actors, and everyone has his share of marvelous lines.

With all its amusement, the film is not strictly a comedy, being the best sort of adventure, spiced with wit, but whose long suit is still action. The fact that the action goes nowhere, is never really resolved, and that the only discernable moral of the film is that continuity, clear story line and pointed action are not indispensable--these do not obstruct one's enjoyment of the picture. The only necessities are wonderful script, imaginative director and the kind of super-talented cast that is in Beat the Devil.