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The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941 film)
Encyclopedia
The Devil and Daniel Webster is a 1941 fantasy film
, adapted by Stephen Vincent Benét
and Dan Totheroh from Benét's short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster". The film's title was changed to All That Money Can Buy to avoid confusion with another film released by RKO that year, The Devil and Miss Jones
, and later had the title restored on some prints. It has also been released under the titles Mr. Scratch, Daniel and the Devil and Here Is a Man. The film stars Edward Arnold
, Walter Huston
, and James Craig
. It was directed by William Dieterle
.
, poor, downtrodden farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig
) sells his soul to "Mr. Scratch" (Walter Huston
) in return for seven years of luck and prosperity. He begins to change. When only his crops are spared from a hailstorm, he ensnares his desperate neighbors with onerous financial contracts and alienates his loving wife Mary (Anne Shirley) and his mother (Jane Darwell). The beautiful Belle (Simone Simon
) is sent by Mr. Scratch to replace a household servant. She soon entrances Jabez. Jabez's young son Daniel falls under her influence as well, turning into a spoiled, disobedient boy.
With his time almost up, Stone begs famed orator and fellow New Hampshirite Daniel Webster
(Edward Arnold
) to find some way out of his bargain with the Devil
. Webster agrees to take his case. Mr. Scratch offers an extension in exchange for Jabez's son, but Jabez turns him down. He then begs Webster to leave before it is too late, but Webster refuses to go, boasting that he has never left a jug or a case half finished.
When Mr. Scratch shows up to claim his due, Webster has to risk his own soul before his fiendish opponent will agree to a trial by jury. Mr. Scratch chooses the jury members from among the most notoriously evil men of American history, with John Hathorne
(one of the magistrates of the Salem witch trials
) as the judge. When Webster protests, Mr. Scratch points out that they were "Americans all".
With his own soul at risk, Daniel Webster proceeds to defend Jabez Stone who is accused of breaching contract. He begins by stating that he envies the jury because as Americans they were present at the birth of a nation, part of a heritage born to share. Unfortunately they were fooled like Jabez Stone, trapped in their desire to rebel against their fate, but what would they give to be given another chance?
Webster explains that it is the eternal right of everyone including the jury to raise their fist against their fate but when that happens, one finds themselves at a crossroads. They took the wrong turn as Stone did but he found out in time, and this night, he is there to save his soul. Daniel asks the jury to give Stone another chance to walk upon the earth, for what would they give to to see those things they remember. They were all men once, breathing clean American air which was free and blew across the earth they loved.
Daniel starts to orate on all of simple and good things-"the freshness of a fine morning...the taste of food when you're hungry...the new day that's every day when you're a child"-and how without the soul, those things are sickened. He reminds the jury that Mr. Scratch said your soul meant nothing, they believed him, and they lost their freedom.
Now Webster orates on freedom as not just a big word, "it is the morning, the bread, and the risen sun", it was the reason for making the voyage to come to America. Mistakes were made but out of things wrong and right a new thing has come: a free man with a freedom which includes his own soul. Yet how can the jury be on the side of the oppressor when Stone is a brother, a fellow American?
Webster then implores the jury to let Stone keep his soul which after all, doesn't belong to him alone, but to his family and country. "Don't' let the country go to the devil", thunders Daniel Webster, "free Stone."
With his defense, Webster is able to talk the jury into releasing Stone from his deal. Webster then kicks Mr. Scratch out, but the fiend promises that Webster will never fulfill his ambition to become President of the United States
.
In the original story, Webster regrets Benedict Arnold's absence, but in the film, he is present and Webster objects, citing him as a traitor and therefore not a true American. His objection is dismissed by the judge.
release.
won the Academy Award
for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
and Walter Huston was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor
.
In addition to his original music score, Herrmann also incorporated several traditional folk tunes including,
"Devil's Dream," "Springfield Mountain," and a diabolical version of "Pop Goes The Weasel" played on the fiddle by Mr. Scratch.
The film was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Fantasy Films list.
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
, adapted by Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
and Dan Totheroh from Benét's short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster". The film's title was changed to All That Money Can Buy to avoid confusion with another film released by RKO that year, The Devil and Miss Jones
The Devil and Miss Jones
The Devil and Miss Jones is a 1941 comedy film starring Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn. Directed by Sam Wood and scripted by Norman Krasna, the film was the product of an independent collaboration between Krasna and producer Frank Ross...
, and later had the title restored on some prints. It has also been released under the titles Mr. Scratch, Daniel and the Devil and Here Is a Man. The film stars Edward Arnold
Edward Arnold (actor)
Edward Arnold was an American actor. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, the son of German immigrants Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse.-Acting career:...
, Walter Huston
Walter Huston
Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
, and James Craig
James Craig (actor)
James Craig was an American actor.After graduating from the Rice Institute, Craig began appearing in films in 1937, most often in B-movies and serials...
. It was directed by William Dieterle
William Dieterle
William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
.
Plot
In 1840 New HampshireNew Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, poor, downtrodden farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig
James Craig (actor)
James Craig was an American actor.After graduating from the Rice Institute, Craig began appearing in films in 1937, most often in B-movies and serials...
) sells his soul to "Mr. Scratch" (Walter Huston
Walter Huston
Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
) in return for seven years of luck and prosperity. He begins to change. When only his crops are spared from a hailstorm, he ensnares his desperate neighbors with onerous financial contracts and alienates his loving wife Mary (Anne Shirley) and his mother (Jane Darwell). The beautiful Belle (Simone Simon
Simone Simon
Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
) is sent by Mr. Scratch to replace a household servant. She soon entrances Jabez. Jabez's young son Daniel falls under her influence as well, turning into a spoiled, disobedient boy.
With his time almost up, Stone begs famed orator and fellow New Hampshirite Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
(Edward Arnold
Edward Arnold (actor)
Edward Arnold was an American actor. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, the son of German immigrants Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse.-Acting career:...
) to find some way out of his bargain with the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
. Webster agrees to take his case. Mr. Scratch offers an extension in exchange for Jabez's son, but Jabez turns him down. He then begs Webster to leave before it is too late, but Webster refuses to go, boasting that he has never left a jug or a case half finished.
When Mr. Scratch shows up to claim his due, Webster has to risk his own soul before his fiendish opponent will agree to a trial by jury. Mr. Scratch chooses the jury members from among the most notoriously evil men of American history, with John Hathorne
John Hathorne
John Hathorne was an executor in the Salem witch trials, and the only one who never repented of his actions. He was also a merchant in Salem, Massachusetts....
(one of the magistrates of the Salem witch trials
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
) as the judge. When Webster protests, Mr. Scratch points out that they were "Americans all".
With his own soul at risk, Daniel Webster proceeds to defend Jabez Stone who is accused of breaching contract. He begins by stating that he envies the jury because as Americans they were present at the birth of a nation, part of a heritage born to share. Unfortunately they were fooled like Jabez Stone, trapped in their desire to rebel against their fate, but what would they give to be given another chance?
Webster explains that it is the eternal right of everyone including the jury to raise their fist against their fate but when that happens, one finds themselves at a crossroads. They took the wrong turn as Stone did but he found out in time, and this night, he is there to save his soul. Daniel asks the jury to give Stone another chance to walk upon the earth, for what would they give to to see those things they remember. They were all men once, breathing clean American air which was free and blew across the earth they loved.
Daniel starts to orate on all of simple and good things-"the freshness of a fine morning...the taste of food when you're hungry...the new day that's every day when you're a child"-and how without the soul, those things are sickened. He reminds the jury that Mr. Scratch said your soul meant nothing, they believed him, and they lost their freedom.
Now Webster orates on freedom as not just a big word, "it is the morning, the bread, and the risen sun", it was the reason for making the voyage to come to America. Mistakes were made but out of things wrong and right a new thing has come: a free man with a freedom which includes his own soul. Yet how can the jury be on the side of the oppressor when Stone is a brother, a fellow American?
Webster then implores the jury to let Stone keep his soul which after all, doesn't belong to him alone, but to his family and country. "Don't' let the country go to the devil", thunders Daniel Webster, "free Stone."
With his defense, Webster is able to talk the jury into releasing Stone from his deal. Webster then kicks Mr. Scratch out, but the fiend promises that Webster will never fulfill his ambition to become President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
Cast
- Edward ArnoldEdward Arnold (actor)Edward Arnold was an American actor. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, the son of German immigrants Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse.-Acting career:...
as Daniel Webster. When filming began, Thomas MitchellThomas Mitchell (actor)Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...
played Webster, but had to be replaced when he broke his leg. Mitchell can still be seen in some scenes. - Walter HustonWalter HustonWalter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
as Mr. Scratch - James CraigJames Craig (actor)James Craig was an American actor.After graduating from the Rice Institute, Craig began appearing in films in 1937, most often in B-movies and serials...
as Jabez Stone - Anne Shirley as Mary Stone
- Jane Darwell as Ma Stone
- Simone SimonSimone SimonSimone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
as Belle - Gene LockhartGene LockhartEugene "Gene" Lockhart was a Canadian character actor, singer, and playwright. He also wrote the lyrics to a number of popular songs.-Early life:...
as Squire Slossum - John QualenJohn QualenJohn Qualen was a Canadian-American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles....
as Miser Stevens, the local loan sharkLoan sharkA loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
before Jabez - H. B. WarnerH. B. WarnerH. B. Warner was a British actor.-Early life:He was born Henry Byron Charles Stewart Warner-Lickford in St John's Wood, London, England in 1875...
as Justice John Hathorne - Robert Pittard as Store Clerk
Adaptation
The jury of the damned in the film is slightly altered from the original, as revealed in the following dialogue:- Scratch: Captain Kidd, he killed men for gold. Simon GirtySimon GirtySimon Girty was an American colonial of Scots-Irish ancestry who served as a liaison between the British and their Native American allies during the American Revolution...
, the renegade; he burned men for gold. Governor DaleThomas DaleSir Thomas Dale was an English naval commander and deputy-governor of the Virginia Colony in 1611 and from 1614 to 1616. Governor Dale is best remembered for the energy and the extreme rigour of his administration in Virginia, which established order and in various ways seems to have benefited the...
, he broke men on the wheel. Asa, the Black Monk, he choked them to death. Floyd Ireson and Stede BonnetStede BonnetStede Bonnet was an early 18th-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called "the gentleman pirate" because he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his...
, the fiendish butchers. Walter ButlerWalter Butler (Loyalist)Walter Butler was a British Loyalist officer during the American Revolution. He was born near Johns town, New York, the son of John Butler, a wealthy Indian agent who worked for Sir William Johnson...
, the king of the massacre. Big and Little HarpHarpe BrothersMicajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe , pronounced and , were murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates, who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi in the late 18th century...
, robbers and murderers. TeachBlackbeardEdward Teach , better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies....
, the cutthroat. Morton, the vicious lawyer. And General Benedict ArnoldBenedict ArnoldBenedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
, you remember him, no doubt. - Webster: A jury of the damned.
- Scratch: Dastards, liars, traitors, knaves.
- Webster: This is monstrous.
- Scratch: You asked for a jury trial, Mr Webster. Your suggestion - the quick or the dead.
- Webster: I asked for a fair trial.
- Scratch: Americans all.
In the original story, Webster regrets Benedict Arnold's absence, but in the film, he is present and Webster objects, citing him as a traitor and therefore not a true American. His objection is dismissed by the judge.
Alternative versions
The original release was 107 minutes long. It was a critical, but not a box-office success, and was subsequently re-released under the title The Devil and Daniel Webster with nearly half an hour cut, reducing the film to 85 minutes. The cuts were crudely done. The film was restored to its full length in the 1990s and has been issued in that form on home video. However, the title has remained The Devil and Daniel Webster. The restored portions on the video had been taken from inferior prints of the movie, but the quality has been notably improved on the DVD release. A preview print titled Here Is a Man was found in the estate of the director and served as the basis for the film's restoration and DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release.
Awards
Bernard HerrmannBernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
won the Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
and Walter Huston was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
.
In addition to his original music score, Herrmann also incorporated several traditional folk tunes including,
"Devil's Dream," "Springfield Mountain," and a diabolical version of "Pop Goes The Weasel" played on the fiddle by Mr. Scratch.
The film was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Fantasy Films list.