Beat the Devil (film)

Beat the Devil is a 1953 film directed by John Huston. The screenplay was by Huston and Truman Capote, loosely based upon a novel of the same name by British journalist Claud Cockburn, writing under the pseudonym James Helvick. It is a parody of Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) and films of the same genre.

The script, which was written on a day-to-day basis as the film was being shot, concerns the adventures of a motley crew of swindlers and ne'er-do-wells trying to lay claim to land rich in uranium deposits in Kenya as they wait in a small Italian port to travel aboard an ill-fated tramp steamer en route to Mombasa. The cast includes Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, and Bernard Lee.

Plot

Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) is a formerly-wealthy American who has fallen on hard times. He is reluctantly working with four crooks: Peterson (Robert Morley), ex-Nazi Julius O'Hara (Peter Lorre), Major Jack Ross (Ivor Barnard) and Ravello, who are trying to acquire uranium-rich land in British East Africa. Billy suspects that Major Ross has murdered a British Colonial officer who had threatened to expose their plan. While waiting in Italy for passage to Africa, Billy and his wife Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) make the acquaintance of a British couple: Harry (Edward Underdown) and Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones), who are planning to travel on the same ship. Harry is a very proper and traditional Englishman, while Gwendolen is flighty and fanciful and a compulsive liar. Billy and Gwendolen have an affair, while Maria flirts with Harry. Peterson becomes suspicious that the Chelms may be attempting to acquire the uranium themselves. His suspicians are unfounded, but they seem to him to be confirmed by Gwendolen, who lies about her husband and exaggerates his importance.