Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Leofwine_draca
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER is a fun, light-hearted slice of comic fantasy that must have helped to assuage some inherent anxieties about the state of the world when it was released in 1941. It's an adaptation of the famous storyline about a poor farmer who sells his soul to the devil in return for seven years of prosperity. However, when the devil comes calling, the farmer enlists the help of a lawyer to help him break the deal.In the case of a film like this, everything is so professionally achieved that it becomes difficult not to just sit back and be swept along by the story. Walter Huston is a delight as the sinister antagonist, "Mr. Scratch", and Edward Arnold more than proves his worth as his adversary. Simone Simon is lovelier than she was in CAT PEOPLE. The cinematography is efficient, there are a few amusing effects scenes which still work today, and finally Bernard Herrmann provides a perfectly ominous, mystical, and dramatic soundtrack. What's not to like?
Alex da Silva
Jabez (James Craig) makes a deal with the devil who takes the form of Mr Scratch (Walter Huston). Jabez will have success and wealth for 7 years in return for his soul. After 7 years has passed, Mr Scratch offers another deal - Jabez can save himself if he sacrifices his young son. Well........Jabez doesn't like this deal and Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) steps up to the plate on his behalf and goes head to head with the devil.The story sounds good but it is mostly boring. Nothing happens for an hour. Things only get interesting with the introduction of Belle (Simone Simon). There are only a few good scenes and nearly all of these involve Belle - from the moment we first see her sitting in front of the fireplace where we just know that she is a wicked abomination conjured up by the devil, to the moment at the party where she fills the room with guests that aren't really there, to her end appearance as she rides away to somewhere over the mountains. She has an unworldly aura and her world is the world of the dead. She is all that is good about the film.James Craig is unconvincing and impossible to care about in the lead role. Most of the rest of the cast are also uninspiring. Especially annoying is the boy Lindy Wade. I would definitely have sacrificed the brat in order to have 7 more years of success and wealth.Whilst the story has a good idea, the ending is pretty crass with a court case between Daniel Webster and the Devil. It's a chance to spout crap about living a good life and it will either make you puke or completely bore you. A more effective ending would have seen Jabez let off at the expense of the brat whose life is taken by the devil. Despite a final cheeky frame with Walter Huston, this film could have been much better.
funkyfry
A severely down-on-his-luck New England farmer (Lindy Wade) strikes a deal with "Scratch" (Walter Huston as the devil) to bring himself 8 years of good fortune and finds himself without conscience and ultimately almost without wife as he slides down that proverbial "slippery slope." Luckily he has earlier on earned the good-will of a plutocratic lawyer/politician named Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) who is willing to argue before the most diabolical American court ever assembled to save Daniel Stone's soul.Overall it's a mildly pleasing and mildly disturbing film, too worried about its faux-provincialism to truly become interesting or to really present a morally complex story. While Walter Huston is delightful as the manipulative Scratch, with a very physical performance, his work isn't really matched by Arnold and the work from Wade and the actress playing his wife (Anne Shirley) is so poor that it undermines the film. Not only are their performances hollow, without any real emotional urgency or immediacy, but the roles are poorly written so that you doubt any actor could have done much with it. The wife character is looks and talks like she stepped out of a D.W. Griffith movie from 1912 moreso than some rural 19th Century atmosphere. As if to correct or compensate for the weird rigidity of the wife they've given Stone a mother who is so broadly written and performed that she barely seems feminine by any definition. These are some terrible duo, no doubt, and if written in a more sarcastic way I would imagine they would suffice to explain Danny Stone's flight from the paths of the righteous.Although Simone Simon is creepily beautiful we still cannot understand his total abandonment of his wife and all decent behavior. Apparently it's a heck of a lot of fun to ride in a sleigh with Simone Simon. I don't want to be too hard on the movie -- there's a lot of fun thanks mostly to Simon and Huston. But the movie's moral dichotomy is so rigid, the line between good and evil so definite, that I literally felt it had nothing to do with the real world. And sadly, even with such a rigid separation between bad and good behavior the writers weren't able to give Daniel Webster a final speech that would really absolve Danny Stone of his guilt or that would make us believe he had convinced a jury of traitors that Stone should go free just because they might empathize with his desire for a second chance at life. Simply put, we could understand Stone's desire for a second chance if his original mistakes and evil deeds made any sense in and of themselves.Wish I could have enjoyed it more -- there are many interesting expressionist scenes and some real intimation of the uncanny. Unfortunately all of this is attached to a story that is self-congratulatory and patriotic in a showy way. A few more real dark edges, with everything not being so clearly explained, would have made for a more powerful film.
moonspinner55
New Hampshire husband and farmer in 1840, deeply in debt and stressed to the breaking point, absentmindedly calls out to the Devil in his humble frustration; he's quickly visited by elfin-like codger Mr. Scratch, to whom he sells his soul in exchange for seven years of good luck. Walter Huston's Oscar-nominated performance as the exaggeratedly good-natured Beelzebub is the centerpiece of this wry fantasy-drama (one with spry moments and tongue occasionally in cheek). Adapted from Stephen Vincent Benet's story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (the film's reissue title), our hero naturally becomes selfish and greedy with his money, spoiling his young son instead of teaching him, and consorting with a devilish mistress in front of his wife. These latter scenes can practically be checked off a list, what with the farmer building an ostentatious mansion on the hill, alienating his friends and neighbors and mocking the church bells! Luckily, things pick up with a final supernatural trial in with Mr. Scratch plays prosecutor and battles hard-drinking, but lovingly honest, salt-of-the-earth defense lawyer Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold, in a sensational turn). Supporting cast including Jane Darwell, Simone Simon, George Cleveland, and H.B. Warner is first-rate as well...the only character who doesn't come off is the farmer, played by James Craig. Craig, handsome and fitfully animated, is well-enough an actor to handle this role, but all the best lines have been given to the other performers, leaving Craig's Jabez Stone a sketch, a writer's afterthought, without any dimensions or pathos. Bernard Herrmann won the Oscar for his superlative music score, which is matched by sumptuous cinematography and art direction. **1/2 from ****
