Beat The Devil - John Huston

Seen for the first time in Octover 2012.

This is a surprisingly run-of-the-mill movie, considering the names involved: John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Truman Capote worked on the script. Bogart plays Bogart here, which should be good, but if his oeuvre were filled with films like this, he never would have become a star. In a strange way his character is the weak part of this film. Better than the British broad, but together, she and Bogart’s rote romantic gestures taste like milk a couple days past its expiration.

Lorre and the guy from “The African Queen” and the British bounder and even Lollobrigida all put in great secondary performances. Really, all of the secondary performances are pretty great. They should have been put to use in a great movie. But Bogart is kind of stale in this. This is a stale Bogart performance in a stale Bogart movie, and while the rest of the cast is great, you can’t make a great dish with freezer burnt meat. The romance with the British woman, especially, was distinctly lacking in chemistry.

You could point to a line or two and argue that Bogart pulls his weight here. But that’s rather missing the point. Overall, the whole Bogart thing just feels tired in this movie, and all these years later there’s no particular reason for that to be the case. Hollywood and the star system were just really attracted to formulas in those days I suppose. Sometimes it worked better than others. This one not so much. Movie does get stronger as it goes, and I liked the ending. Grade C+.

The Asphalt Jungle - John Huston

Seen for the first time in August 2012.

A nice criminal heist film. The hooligan was a memorable character. Intense and intimidating yet proven to have a human side. Enjoyable film. It’s maybe dated in a hokey way with some of the police stuff, but it does not fail to glamourize criminality. This sort of thing makes the code requirement of crime failing to recompense a sort of blessing.

The criminals with which we identify meeting their doom gives these films a tragic power. Today the movies give the audiences what they want, and the glamorized charismatic criminals always get away with it. Grade A-.