
Event Details
“It isn’t fair! Here we are, three desperate criminals who will stop at nothing to escape from Devil’s Island, and we have to fall in with nice people!” So laments Jules (Peter Ustinov), one of a trio of convicts stuck on the French-controlled isle on Christmas Eve, 1895, where they fall in with the lovely proprietors of a local supply shop. Crime, romance, and dark comedy collide in an entertaining tale of unexpected guardian angels from director and star of Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz and Humphrey Bogart, with the actor in a rare comedic role. The material was rich enough for director Neil Jordan to revisit in 1989, this time with Oscar-winning stars Robert De Niro and Sean Penn.
Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.
1955 | 105 min. | USA | Technicolor | English | Not Rated | VistaVision
DIRECTED BY: Michael Curtiz
WRITTEN BY: Ranald MacDougall
WITH: Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, Joan Bennett