BEAT THE DEVIL

Directed by John Huston
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida and Peter Lorre

(1953) “They’re desperate characters. Not one of them looked at my legs.” Suave Humphrey Bogart (“Fat Gut’s my best friend, and I will not betray him cheaply”) and tea-and-crumpet-loving wife Gina Lollobrigida (“Emotionally, I am English”), en route to a “uranium deal” in East Africa – with “business associates” including Robert Morley and Peter Lorre – meet up with a congenital liar, blonde Jennifer Jones (her hair dying irked on-set hubby David O. Selznick) – and then after there’s this shipwreck, an Arab official demands details about his beloved... Rita Hayworth. Supposedly scripted by Truman Capote as they went along, Devil so baffled its preview audiences that it was instantly cut (by four minutes, including some censorship excisions) and re-edited, with an added Bogart narration turning the whole thing into a flashback – which made it all the more baffling. Seen for decades only in that mangled version – and in dismal bootleg copies yet – this new restoration went back to the original 35mm camera negative and other sources to re-create the unseen longer version. Based on the novel by James Helvick (pen name of Claud Cockburn). DCP restoration. Approx. 93 mins.

A comparison of the new restoration with the cut and censored version will follow each screening.

 “A DELIRIOUS CULT CLASSIC! HIGHLY ENTERTAINING!”
– The Guardian

“A camp version of some lovely, foolish memory of the golden age.”
– David Thomson

 “It may be the funniest mess of all time.”
– Pauline Kael

“[HUSTON] AT HIS BEST. A movie that always knows exactly what the joke is.”
– Matt Zoller Seitz, RoberEbert.com

“Careens from scene to scene with barely contained, wholly invigorating chaos. The disorder is made even more delectable by a game cast, each performer, without exception and regardless of celebrity status, embracing and in synch with the movie’s shambolic energy.”
– Melissa Anderson, The Village Voice

 “If Beat the Devil puzzled audiences on its first release, it has charmed them since… The movie has above all effortless charm.”
– Roger Ebert

“It’s a marvelous joke. Whenever there’s a revival, I go to see it and have a fine time.”
– Truman Capote

“The formula is that everyone is slightly absurd.”
– John Huston

THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner and Edmond O’Brien

(1954) Movie stardom by flashback from a rain-splashed funeral, as Mankiewicz mouthpiece Humphrey Bogart philosophizes (“Life louses up the script”) about the meteoric life of star Ava Gardner. With Edmond O’Brien’s Oscar-winning phone tirade as the publicity man. 35mm. Approx. 128 min. 

“This is not a film to be picked apart; either one rejects it or accepts it whole. I myself accept and value it for its freshness, intelligence, and beauty.”
– Francois Truffaut 

“So ornate and so garrulous about telling the dirty truth that it’s a camp classic: a Cinderella story in which the prince turns out to be impotent.”
– Pauline Kael