2002 Talk About Movies
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Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER

Director: William Dieterle. Starring: Walter Huston, Edward Arnold, James Craig. 1941, 107 minutes, B&W, USA, English. Available at Hollywood Video, Hillcrest.


Ernie: An interesting use of the idea of the rugged American rejecting his fate and doing something about it as a figure for the spiritual combat. Matthew: Webster's appeal to the jury of the damned relies on their being sympathetic -- that they will the good for someone other than themselves. Ernie: Kind of like the rich man in Scripture wanting to go back and warn his brothers. Matthew: But Webster sidesteps the devil's claim that he had a legal contract. Ernie: You can't make a contract with the devil. Where there's life there's hope. What makes the devil's pact so strong is not that it's a legal contract, but that it almost bears the surety of a legal contract because what the devil can deliver in this life can be so powerful that a man is not likely break free from it. Matthew: The miser knew he was doomed, but he didn't have the strength to break away.

* * *

Matthew: When his son left, Jabez saw himself being taken away from him. Even though he had spoiled his son, he loved him, and that natural virtue helped him regain his desire for supernatural salvation. Ernie: When the devil proposed the second bargain, offering to take his son, he refused.