315 - The Devil and Daniel Webster, United States, 1941. Dir. William Dieterle.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

315 - The Devil and Daniel Webster, United States, 1941.  Dir. William Dieterle.

All That Money Can Buy.

Jabez (pronounced "JABE-uz") Stone is a 27-year old farmer in Cross Corners, New Hampshire.  He has been married for two years and lives with his wife and mother.

On Sunday morning they are getting ready to go to church when he hears one of his pigs squeal.  He goes to get it and discovers it has a broken leg.

This is the beginning of a string of what he considers to be bad luck.

Consarn it!

His mother asks him not to use such language on the Sabbath, and then she decides to read to them from the Bible, as they are now going to miss church.

She begins to read from Job.

Thanks, Mom.

Mary, Jabez's wife, asks if she herself can read, and she selects a passage more pleasant and not so close to home.

Jabez and Mary and Mrs. Stone love one another.  They are good people and good-hearted.  But things continue to take a turn for the worse.

Eventually, local mortgage holder Miser Stevens--played by John Qualen, who played criminal Earl Williams in our film from the other day, His Girl Friday--plans to foreclose on the Stone farm, and Jabez in a fit of frustration, exclaims that he would sell his soul to the devil for some good luck.

Suddenly, Mr. Scratch appears.  He can accommodate that request.  He is the Mephistopheles to Jabez's Faust.  And he is all too eager to help.

Scratch suckers Jabez into doing the deal, and he etches the date into a nearby tree, a reminder of the covenant they have just made.

Things begin to go well for Jabez.

But we know it will only be temporary.  After they get better, things will get exceedingly worse.  Just in other ways.

Jabez will find himself the richest man in the region.  And he will hold the mortgages of the other men's farms.  He will become the new Miser.  He moves into a mansion.  He takes up gambling.  He takes others' money and land.  He takes up residence with a woman--or maybe not a woman; maybe a female manifestation from another world--named Belle.  And we know that Belle is bad for Jabez because she is French!  At least the film implies such.

Belle makes Mary feel very plain.

And their son, Daniel, grows up to be a brat.

Jabez will grow tired of all this.  He will miss his life and family, and he will want them back.  Plus, Mr. Scratch is threatening to take him to that other place where he does not want to go.

Who will intervene?

Well, the name of this movie is not The Devil and Jabez Stone.  The name of this movie is The Devil and Daniel Webster.

What does Daniel Webster have to do with anything?

Daniel Webster is a great American.  And he intends to run for President.  He represents everything the citizens desire for truth and goodness in their land.

Mr. Scratch has been talking to him too.  Trying to tempt him.  Trying to get Daniel Webster to sell his soul to him.

But Daniel Webster will not do it.  He will not yield to temptation.  He will not give in.

Maybe he can help Jabez.

Cross Corners, New Hampshire, represents one of those great American communities built on faith, love, hard work, thrift, and honesty.

William Dieterle directs this all-American film in the latent stages of World War II.  He was a prolific studio contract director from the twenties to the fifties.  And he has quite a few successful films and now-known classics under his belt by the time of this film, including ten Academy Award nominations for 1938's The Life of Emile Zola--including a nomination for Best Director and three wins, for Best Writing, Best Actor, and Best Picture--and 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Walter Huston plays Mr. Scratch.  And he looks nothing like Walter Huston as you know him.  Imagine him as the gold prospector skipping with his feet in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).  Directed by his son John Huston.  Now look at him here.  In prosthetic hair and make-up.  And with his adopted posture, facial expressions, accent, and character work.  Nice job, Sir.

It appears that Edward Arnold, as Daniel Webster, is the star of the film, as he gets top billing and plays the character named in the title.

But he is not.  James Craig, who plays Jabez, is the star, and he gets 12th billing!  After all the great character actors--Walter Huston, Jane Darwell, Gene Lockhart, John Qualen, H. B. Warner, Frank Conlan--and even his wife, Anne Shirley!

The film appears obviously made on a sound stage, yet it has that same likeable quality about its production design that a well-built stage set has in a play.  It looks like the representation of a farm rather than a farm, but it looks great.  Put together by a great Art Department.  So that one willingly suspends one's disbelief, accepts the artifice, and enters into the stage farm and goes along with it.  It stands in the tradition of American studio films made at that time.

And it has a clever ending.  Somewhat like The Great Train Robbery (1941).  With something more powerful than a gun.  If you go along with it, it may give you shivers.  Which is the fun of the film.

This film is not theologically accurate.  Nor does it touch the literary power of Goethe or Christopher Marlowe.  But it does not pretend to.  It is a light comedy.  It is based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet.  You may have read him in school.

Stay away, Mr. Scratch!  Stay away!