The Book You Have to Read: “Beat the Devil,” by James Helvick

(Editor’s note: This is the 178th installment in The Rap Sheet’s continuing series about great but forgotten books.)

By Steven Nester
Beat the Devil (1951) is the type of book (and movie) around which a sort of legendary status has gathered, but that few people have actually read (or viewed). Written by the highly regarded and much-lived British journalist Claud Cockburn, under the nom de plume James Helvick, Beat the Devil starts out as a post-World War II thriller but quickly evolves into a locked-room melodrama with an ensemble cast. Picture Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (kind of), only here it's more the deaths of a country, tradition, the stiff upper lip—and most of all, the global arrogance that aimed to civilize the non-English speaking world and exploit its natural resources.

A group of adventurers and opportunists is stranded on France’s Cote d’Azur, awaiting a laid-up ship. In flight from a British Empire that’s “on the skids,” they plan to repair to Africa to find, or for some, to remake their riches in a shady uranium deal. Acting on a plan concocted by an international wheeler-dealer in Brussels who’s murdered as the undertaking begins, this one last stab at a payoff is under the leadership of Billy Dannreuther, a mercenary character well-versed in international business of the most predatorial sort. The kind of man who “knows a man who knows a man,” it’s into his hands that this consortium of dreamers and ne’er-do-wells have placed their not-so-complete trust.

While Cockburn’s motley crew members await the repair of the tramp steamer that’s been booked to carry them all off to the Belgian Congo (one of the most brutally operated European colonies on record), those players have the opportunity to become acquainted—and it’s more like a pack of hyenas circling each other. As Dannreuther slowly discloses parts of his curriculum vitae, we learn he’s not so much an international man of mystery as he is a loser attempting to finally make good. Among his charges are the lusty Gwendolen Chelm and her cuckold husband, Harry. She lets it slip that her spouse is a landed gent (and perhaps also a secret agent) on his way to take over a relative’s coffee plantation, which just happens to be situated in uranium country. Gwendolen is about as free with misinformation as she is with her body, much to Dannreuther’s advantage. It turns out that she’s not the only liar here: fellow traveler Wagwood is not a diamond merchant, and Harry Chelm is no country squire at all. Says Gwen, it’s “easier to be a vagabond than a landed gent with no land.” There’s also the murderous Peterson, Mr. Victor Conquest, and Major Jack Ross, among others who backbite and double deal.

Impotence and inertia pervade Beat the Devil’s pages; the only real action is on board ship when several characters lose their lives. The cruise is short-lived, as it makes an unscheduled stop in Spain. And as the authorities become involved, Africa seems to slip further and further away, the cast relying more on fate (rather than Dannreuther) to deliver them their fortunes. Beat the Devil finds Cockburn throwing a shovelful of dirt on the British Empire, something it seems he’d been working towards all his life. A lifelong member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, he fought in the Spanish Civil War (George Orwell called him a stooge of Stalin), and published The Week, his own news round-up. Behind the fact that his novel won Hollywood’s attention are several stories, the most plausible being the one director John Huston attests to in his memoir, An Open Book (1980). While attending a weekend party at a country house in Ireland, Huston recalled finding a copy of Beat the Devil on his nightstand, left there, according to Huston, by none other than Claud Cockburn himself.


(Above) The trailer for the 1953 movie Beat the Devil.

However talent-laden the 1953 movie adaptation was, Huston admitted, “We kind of lost Helvick’s novel along the way. But we had a helluva lot more fun making the new version.” Leading man Humphrey Bogart thought it was going to be another Maltese Falcon. Studio executive David O. Selznick, the then-husband of co-star Jennifer Jones, fretted for her career amid production chaos. Cockburn’s first draft of the script was rewritten by Huston and Truman Capote. Although it now boasts the dubious label of “cult classic,” critic Pauline Kael called Beat the Devil “a mess, but it’s probably the funniest mess—the screwball classic of all time.”

Readers whose curiosity is piqued by the legacy of Claud Cockburn will be glad to learn that his many works survive. The memoir I, Claud is a good place to start (it seems he knew everyone), and he left behind a coterie of noteworthy children, among them detective story writer Sarah Caudwell, and three journalist sons, Alexander (longtime columnist for The Nation), Andrew (onetime editor of Harper’s Magazine), and Patrick (Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and The Independent). A Cockburn heir who found more success in Hollywood is actress granddaughter Olivia Wilde (House). However, one must ask: Is this enough glamorous stardust to keep a work of art alive? Why would anyone read Beat the Devil or view its big-screen version? Is it worth spending the time to see if the bedraggled travelers of Cockburn’s 1951 novel ever make it to Africa? Why not—readers are still waiting for Godot, after all.