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John Huston had a script for a film called Beat the Devil (1953). The film was cast, production was soon to begin, and John Huston realized he hated the script. On a stopover in Rome, at the suggestion of producer David O. Selznick (husband of Beat the Devil co-star Jennifer Jones), he sought out 28 year-old Truman Capote and asked if he would be interested in rewriting the original Peter Viertel and Tony Veiller material. Obviously, he agreed, and the result was a film that was written on-the-fly, one day at a time, without any real concept of where the piece was headed. The film became a box office failure but a cult favorite, finding perfection in its complete lack of logic. TCM writes, “The resulting screenplay is spontaneous, unpredictable and, one could argue, unbothered by the obligation to form a traditional Hollywood narrative. The film was unlike anything being released by the major studios, and even today is a fascinating gem of cinematic chutzpah.”

A film studio would typically lose its mind if it learned it was paying for a movie that didn’t have a script. Here, the secret was being kept by Bogart (who not only starred in the film but financed a large portion of it), director/producer John Huston, and associate producer Jack Clayton. The cover story was that Huston only wanted the actors to read their lines at the last minute, claiming it would be best for the material. Further, Huston would request egregious camera setups or other technical time-consumers when Capote was in need of catching up. Each day’s script would literally be provided just before shooting.

As The Guardian writes, “The decision to hide the fact that there was no film to be filmed set in motion a masquerade that doesn’t sit well with surviving impressions of these venerated movie makers.”

The goofy plot of Beat the Devil is a product of this chaos. Capote was writing so haphazardly that the actual story became irrelevant. Instead, he was able to benefit from knowing exactly who his actors were, writing to their reputations and personas with a luxury most screenplays don’t receive. Instead of a ripping plot or a story that commands any real investment at all, Beat the Devil became a farcical comedy about people acting eccentrically by spoofing a genre that made many of them famous.

The Guardian continues, “Capote’s dialogue had a democratising effect on the cast – a levelling of stars and supporting performers that’s unusual to see in a film of the 1950s. There’s only so much of the finished film that can be attributed to the urgency of Capote’s task, but it took a man with his sense of irreverent humour to seize the opportunity as he did.”

The craziness of the script became one of only a few production mishaps on the film. John Huston fell off a cliff at one point and somehow walked away unscathed. Not so lucky was Bogart, who was in an automobile accident midway through shooting which knocked out some of his teeth. His voice was dubbed by a professional impersonator for many lines—a young and then-unknown Peter Sellers.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) was Huston and Bogart’s first collaboration. Beat the Devil was their last, and thus is often cited as a send-up of the two men’s 12-year, six-film collaboration. The wildness of its production mirrored the variations in audience response, failing to impress audiences upon release but finding cult status shortly thereafter. Now, many decades later, it still holds its seat as one of the most curious entries in cinematic history from some of Hollywood’s most recognizable names.