Classic ‘Falcon’ spoof restored
In a sense, John Huston’s 1953 chaotic noir satire “Beat the Devil” has been a lost film, even though it’s never really been out of circulation (you can stream it now on YouTube if you can stand the substandard picture quality).
But you’ve never seen the film the way it was meant to be seen — uncut, with a restored image based on the original camera negative. Now you can.
With a freewheeling tale scripted by Truman Capote about a group of international hustlers, con men and nefarious adventurers plotting a scheme to score some uranium, Huston was spoofing his own “The Maltese Falcon,” the 1941 noir that made Humphrey Bogart a star. Bogart loved the idea so much he not only signed on as lead rogue in “Beat the Devil,” but also helped bankroll the film through his production company, Santana Productions. Along for the fun ride is Bogart’s “Falcon” co-star Peter Lorre, as well as Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley and Gina Lollobrigida, the Italian actress and future Hollywood starlet in her first English-language film.
This merry band of filmmakers may have had fun making the picture, but confused executives at United Artists didn’t get it and forced changes. Huston cut four minutes and restructured it as a flashback, with Bogart as narrator. It didn’t help. Audiences hated it. The film was a box office bomb, and the rights fell into public domain, which explains why the film could only be seen in countless unwatchable washed-out prints that formed the basis of so many bad DVD releases.
But it became a cult classic anyway, and now Sony Pictures, in conjunction with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, has restored the original cut of the film, without the narration and with the missing four minutes. It’s a wholly different cinematic experience, and it screens twice at the Castro Theatre on Sunday, April 30, on a double bill with, yes, “The Maltese Falcon.”
The picturesque movie was shot in the seaside port of Ravallo, Italy, where the crooks kill time while awaiting repairs on their rusty boat, their ticket across the Mediterranean to North Africa, where uranium fields await. Bogart and Lollobrigida are a married couple, Billy and Maria Dannreuther, who are down on their luck and under the thumb of sleazy grifter Peterson (Robert Morley, fulfilling essentially the Sydney Greenstreet role from “Falcon”).
Peterson’s crew includes Julius O’Hara (Lorre), who has an Irish name, a German accent and claims to be from Chile. Gwendolyn and Harry Chelm ( Jones and Edward Underdown) are a seemingly normal British couple waiting for a ride on the boat, but Billy suspects them of horning in on their scheme.
If the film seems like it was made up on the spot, it essentially was. Huston liked the project but hated the original script and invited Capote, then 28 years old, to join the production in Ravallo and write from scratch — some pages of dialogue filmed hours or even minutes after being written.
Capote, through the mouth of Lorre: “Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.”
Pauline Kael once wrote, “It may be the funniest mess of all time.” Some call it the first-ever film to embrace camp.
The movie reminds me of “A Fish Called Wanda,” Charles Crichton’s 1987 more broadly
comic heist film (indeed, Huston might have drawn some inspiration from Crichton’s 1951 comic heist masterpiece, “The Lavender Hill Mob”).
Perhaps this exchange between the Chelms best captures the irresistible film’s spirit:
“Harry, we must beware of these men,” Gwendolyn says. “They are desperate characters.”
Harry: “What makes you say that?”
Gwendolyn: “Not one of them looked at my legs!”
“Beat the Devil” screens at 5:05 p.m. and 8:55 p.m. Sunday, April 30. “The Maltese Falcon” screens at 7 p.m. $12. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., S.F. (415) 621-6120. www. castrotheatre.com.
G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ajohnson@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BRfilmsAllen