Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 17-May-09
Spoiler Rating: High

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

(aka All That Money Can Buy)

The Devil and Daniel Webster is a strange movie that I suspect of propagandizing. It takes place in New Hampshire in the 1840s and relates what happens when a farmer named Jabez Stone (James Craig) calls upon Satan after a string of bad luck. Wily Old Scratch (Walter Huston) offers to give him seven years of prosperity in return for his soul. The deal is sealed with blood, after which Jabez unearths a treasure in his barn, finds his fields immune to bad weather, becomes a loan shark to his neighbors, and winds up the richest man in the county. Not surprisingly, he is corrupted by the process, which disappoints his wise mother (Jane Darwell) and devoted wife (Anne Shirley), and wants out of the deal when the seven years are up.

In addition to some atmospheric if low-tech special effects, the film's high points are the not-too-campy performance of Huston and the commanding presence of Edward Arnold as famous real-life orator Daniel Webster. This luminary meets Jabez and his wife on a visit to their town, where he is regarded as an exceptional man of the people and the next President of the United States. When Jabez's corruption reaches an advanced stage, both his neighbors and his wife turn to Webster to intervene. This is the movie's chief problem.

One might expect repentance or the intervention of God to enable Jabez to break free of the Devil. Instead, a patriotic concept of America saves the poor bastard, and that does not make much sense. When the Devil comes to collect his due, Webster steps forward to argue Jabez's right to break the contract. Addressing an undead jury which includes Benedict Arnold, he states that in America men are free and should not be thralls to Satan. Yet if a Yankee farmer deserves to be treated as a free man, that means he has the right to dispose of his soul as he sees fit. If he foolishly grabs for life, liberty, and happiness by making a deal with the Devil, tough noogies for him. Webster's argument has no relevance to anything that happens in the movie and makes no reference to Jabez or his choices.

The Devil and Daniel Webster came out shortly before the U.S. entered World War II, and it is tempting to consider that its patriotism was injected despite being incongruous. The supernatural seductress who appears in order to lure Jabez into adultery claims to be from everywhere but sounds suspiciously German. (Sex was not in the deal, so why did the Devil throw it in?) Is the movie contrasting the American glory represented by Webster with the diabolical nature of her enemies? Maybe, maybe not. Taken at face value, the story can most favorably be described as a tall tale.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.