Monday, February 13, 2017

They've restored Beat the Devil

I noticed this morning that there's a story on the sidebar of TCM's schedule page about a restoration of Beat the Devil. For those of you in the New York City area, the Film Forum is going to be screening the film from February 17-23.

Apparently this is the "original" cut from the original negative. Several minutes of it were cut and a flashback framing device was added. I blogged about Beat the Devil two and a half years ago, and as I pointed out then, I didn't particularly care for it. It's trying too hard to be funny, and I think it mostly falls flat on its face. I'm not certain what the restored footage will add to the movie, as the article doesn't really say. And somehow I doubt that the several minutes will solve the problems I find the movie has.

But, as I also mentioned back in 2014, Beat the Devil certainly has its fans, and they'd probably be thrilled to see this restoration.

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