Humphrey Bogart in a cast list at the trailer's end. Robinson's role is evocative of Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936), a Bogart leading man breakthrough the studio had originally earmarked for Robinson. The enormous success of "Casablanca" redefined Bogart's career. For the first time, Bogart could be cast successfully as both a tough, strong man and vulnerable love interest. Despite his elevated standing, he did not yet have a contractual right of script refusal. When he got weak scripts he simply dug in his heels and locked horns again with the front office, as he did on the film "Conflict"
Beat the Devil (film) the case. Capote said, "John [Huston] and I decided to kid the story, to treat it as a parody. Instead of another "Maltese Falcon", we turned it into a ... [spoof] on this type of film." The script, written on a day-to-day basis as the film was shot, concerns the adventures of a motley crew of swindlers and ne'er-do-wells trying to claim land rich in uranium deposits in Kenya as they wait in a small Italian port to travel aboard a tramp steamer en route to Mombasa. Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) is a formerly-wealthy American who has fallen on hard