The one movie Humphrey Bogart wanted everyone to hate: “Only phonies think it’s funny”
Actors blasting their own movies is hardly a new phenomenon, with the old studio system guaranteeing that every single one of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood’s biggest stars tended to have at least one picture they grew to despise. In the case of Humphrey Bogart, he was so unhappy with one of them that he actively wanted audiences to hate the finished film.
It wasn’t the first time he’d loathed one of his credits, after he admitted that 1939’s The Return of Doctor X was a shoddy paycheque gig that miscast him so horrendously he felt like marching into the office of the Warner Bros top brass to demand they pay him more money for putting him in such drivel.
After the one-two punch of Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon launched him to superstardom two years later, though, ‘Bogie’ was rarely pressured into starring in anything he didn’t want to make. Unfortunately, things went south when he got more invested than usual in one of his leading roles.
Huston quickly became Bogart’s go-to director, and the pair would reunite on Across the Pacific, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, and The African Queen. They’re still remembered as one of the industry’s most potent actor/director partnerships, but their sixth pairing on 1953’s Beat the Devil would be their last.
Bogart led the cast as Billy Dannreuther, a happily married man who becomes stranded in Italy alongside a number of other travellers when making their way to Africa. However, ulterior motives are soon revealed once it becomes clear the strandees are playing a long game and have their eyes on a uranium-rich deposit in Kenya.
Conceived as a semi-spoof of The Maltese Falcon, light-hearted comedy was hardly regarded as Bogart’s strongest suit. Still, he was confident enough in Beat the Devil to loan Huston $10,000 to acquire the rights to Francis Cockburn’s novel of the same name after the director optioned the book without actually having the money.
After Cockburn failed to satisfactorily adapt his own prose and Peter Viertel and Anthony Veiller both tried and failed to whip the story into shape, the script was credited to Huston and an up-and-comer named Truman Capote. Bogart’s investment gave him increased sway over the production, and once Beat the Devil reached the editing room, he was shocked by what he discovered.
He brought in his own editors and was aghast when he found out Huston had overdubbed sections of his dialogue, which the director claimed was necessary following Bogart’s involvement in a car crash that required dental intervention. When the film was finally released, the leading man didn’t have a kind word to say.
“Only phonies think it’s funny,” he said. “It’s a mess.” It was supposed to be a breezy caper that toyed with Bogart’s image and his previous pictures with Huston, but he was so disgruntled by the final cut that he insisted anybody who found it funny was either delusional or a liar. With that in mind, it can’t be a coincidence that he and his most famous filmmaking collaborator never made another movie together.
