Erin from Still LIfe, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been posting about Christmas movies, books, and all things Christmas for the month of December. We’ve been sort of doing our own thing – such as watching whatever movies we wanted to watch on our own — but this week we both watched We’re No Angels (1955) so we would blog about it together. (This post is part of our Comfy, Cozy Christmas. Don’t forget to share your Christmas memory posts or any posts related to Christmas on our link up HERE, or at the top of my page.)

Erin suggested this movie and I’m glad she did because I had never heard of it before. It was certainly an out-of-the-box Christmas movie and a lot of fun. The subject matter and some of the lines were actually jaw-dropping to me and weren’t something I would have expected in a movie made in 1955.

The movie stars Humphrey Bogart (Joseph), Peter Ustinov (Jules), and Alto Ray (Albert).

The men are escaped convicts on an island called Devil’s Island off the coast of France. There are other convicts on the island in prison uniforms but they are on probation or parole, working at local businesses. The fact there are so many convicts wearing the same uniforms makes it easy for the men to blend in.

They make a plan to find a business they can rob and get money from so they can leave the island on a boat. A chance meeting with a doctor on a ship who needs to deliver a message leads them to a clothing store where they meet Felix Ducotel and his family. Felix is managing a store and they offer to repair his roof as a way to get their foot in the door, so to speak, so they can rob him later that night. He accepts and from the roof the three men begin to learn about Felix’s family – including his wife, Amelie and daughter, Isabelle.

Soon they are wrapped up in the family’s drama. They learn the business, owned by Felix’s cousin, is failing. Isabelle is in love with a man named Paul. Her mother wants to know why she isn’t married and giving them grandchildren already (umm…because she’s only 18. Hello??!) and the couple is stressed because the business is failing.

I will not spoil the movie but I will say that the men end up deciding to cook Christmas dinner for the family and steal most of what they need to do so. They keep offering to help the family, partially because they would like some of that dinner too, and partially to build trust to they can kill and rob them.

Things are crazy enough with their plan but get even crazier when Felix’s cousin (portrayed by Basil Rathbone, who was in the Sherlock Holmes movies of the 40s) arrives with Paul. Yes, that Paul. The Paul that Isabelle is in love with.

Absolute chaos ensues for the rest of the movie. So much of it was so funny but at times I felt bad for laughing at either how suggestive some of the jokes were or how they made light of horrible crimes. I would definitely say this movie featured a lot of dark humor.

Some particularly memorable quotes from this movie for me:

Isabelle: “I’ve never been attractive to men.”

Albert: “I’m a man.”

Isabelle: “And you find me attractive.”

Albert: “I could go to jail for the way I feel if I wasn’t there already. Now put a pretty smile on your face and don’t hurt your family.”

Isabella expresses surprise that Albert is a convict with the way he talks.

“I wasn’t born in a cell you know,” he tells her.

Isabella says, “You don’t look like a criminal to me.”

He responds. “If crime showed on a man’s face, there wouldn’t be any mirrors.

***

We came here to rob them and that’s what we’re gonna do — beat their heads in, gouge their eyes out, slash their throats. Soon as we wash the dishes.

– Joseph

***

• Albert : I read someplace that when a lady faints, you should loosen her clothing.

Joseph : [Sarcastically]  It’s that kind of reading that got you into trouble.

****

• Joseph : I’m going to buy them their Christmas turkey.

Albert : “Buy”? Do you really mean “buy”?

Joseph : Yes, buy! In the Spirit of Christmas. The hard part’s going to be stealing the money to pay for it.

This movie was based on a play called We Three Angels. When it released as a movie some critics said it wasn’t as good at the Broadway play and that it was a “misguided” film.

The movie grossed only $3 million and was the 34^th highest grossing film.

There was a remake of this movie in 1989 starring Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore.

The film was directed by Michael Curtiz whom Bogart had worked with three times before in the movies Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Casablanca (1942) (Curtiz won a best director Oscar for this), and Marseille (1944).

This film was definitely a departure from their previous films.

To see what Erin thought of the film, hop on over to her blog:https://crackercrumblife.com/

Have you seen the film? What did you think of it?

I hope you will join Erin and me in January when we will be watching movies based on Jane Austen’s books. We’ll be sharing more about that toward the end of this month.