I hated Craig’s voice, and his frequent utterances of ‘Consarn it!’ were so laughably bad that the movie would’ve been better had he not bothered to use ‘foul’ language at all.
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Dear John:
Ever since you told me that you have shown the 1941 film "The Devil and Daniel Webster" in your film class for years, I was excited about seeing the movie. After all, film legend Walter Huston plays Mr. Scratch (a.k.a Beelzebub himself) and was nominated for an Oscar for his efforts, and composer Bernard Herrmann ("Citizen Kane", a lot of Hitchcock´s efforts) won an Oscar for the film´s music score. Also, the story seemed promising, pitting a famed American orator (Daniel Webster) against the smoothest talker in the Christian world.
Alas, I have to wonder about the fuss that you make over it. The main character, Jabez Stone, is played by James Craig without much effectiveness. I hated Craig´s voice, and his frequent utterances of "Consarn it!" were so laughably bad that the movie would´ve been better had he not bothered to use "foul" language at all. Since he´s onscreen for most of the movie, I had to watch the movie in two sittings in order to finish it.
The film´s title is "The Devil and Daniel Webster", but even though the two characters seem to have met several times during Webster´s life, the movie stubbornly keeps them separate until the very end. They don´t even really debate each other for Jabez Stone´s soul--rather, Mr. Scratch talks about legal obligations and contracts, and Webster makes a speech about American patriotism and American hope. All this takes place in front of a "jury" (rigged by the Devil, of course), and what the characters say to the "jury" makes little sense of Jabez Stone´s situation. Given the way that the film plays, Jabez Stone doesn´t deserve the second chance that Webster says that he does, especially since Jabez doesn´t even agonize over whether or not he should sell his soul to the Devil for money.
Despite my problems with the primary details of the movie, I´m still going to recommend it to DVD Town´s readers. After all, everything else about the movie is actually pretty good. Bernard Herrmann´s music is quite beautiful, and Walter Huston (when he´s onscreen for the brief amount of time allotted to his character) makes for a delightful Devil (always filled with more glee than the good guys). The black-and-white cinematography by Joseph August is very handsome. I also liked Anne Shirley´s performance as Mary Stone (Jabez´s wife) and Simone Simon´s turn as Belle, a "French" girl sent by the Devil to be the Stones´ nanny/servant.
Video:
The cinematography is indeed impressive, but Criterion did not have much luck finding a print in great condition. From what I understand, the movie underwent cuts throughout the years, so the best-looking parts of the movie are from the watered-down version on 35mm while the not-so-good-looking parts are from a 16mm print of the longer version. There are times when the image has faded, and sometimes, the print looks incredibly dark. During most of the movie, you can see vertical lines that reveal over-use in projectors. A couple of frames jumped because either the print had warped or there were problems with the sprocket holes on the sides of the film negative
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