Beat the Devil (film)
Beat the Devil is a 1953 adventure comedy film directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, and Gina Lollobrigida, in her American debut, and featuring Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee. Huston and Truman Capote wrote the screenplay, loosely based upon the 1951 novel of the same name by British journalist Claud Cockburn writing under the pseudonym James Helvick. Huston made the film as a sort of loose parody of the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon, which Huston directed and in which Bogart and Lorre appeared. Capote said, "John [Huston] and I decided to kid the story, to treat it as a parody. Instead of another Maltese Falcon, we turned it into a... [spoof] on this type of film."
| Beat the Devil | |
|---|---|
1953 film poster | |
| Directed by | John Huston |
| Screenplay by | John Huston Truman Capote |
| Based on | Beat the Devil by James Helvick |
| Produced by | John Huston |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
| Music by | Franco Mannino |
Production companies | Romulus Films Santana Pictures Corporation |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films (United Kingdom) United Artists (United States) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Countries |
|
| Language | English |
| Box office | £115,926 (UK) $1.1 million |
The script, written on a day-to-day basis as the film was shot, concerns the adventures of a motley crew of swindlers and ne'er-do-wells trying to claim land rich in uranium deposits in Kenya as they wait in a small Italian port to travel aboard a tramp steamer en route to Mombasa.