Read the short story, then watch this version

There have two or three film versions made. They other two star Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, respectively. This one is the most acclaimed, celebrated version, for many different reasons. It's a wonderful tribute to early American folklore, a wicked dark comedy, and a peculiar horror story all at once. Both Edward Arnold as Daniel Webster and Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch/The Stranger are great, with Huston more memorable for his bracingly wicked performance. Arnold captures the intriguing folklore surrounding his quite remarkably historical character, Daniel Webster. While frontiersman like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Daniel Boone were folk heroes for braving adventures in the wilderness and fighting in epic battles, Webster became almost as admired a folk hero for his fiery progressive stances that favored the common working folk and his magestic rhetoric and stirring oratory. He folklore status shines most brightly in New Hampshire. It is a concept stirred by the godfather of American folklorism: Washington Irving, from a short story he wrote called The Devil and Tom Walker, but ultimately both are derived from the older, Germanic folklore of Faust. This short story was actually written in the 1930s, and it is interesting that the writer still thought so highly of Daniel Webster and acknowledge his heroic folk status enough to make him the troubleshooter hero who pits the greatest amount of his oratory might against the most vicious troublemaker and trickster of them all, the supreme leader of darkness.

I like the idea that the Stranger never has to make a really big entrance, because he is more an embodiment of the darkness that naturally inhabits the souls of us all, nevertheless he is still quite a personified character. No one is greatly taken aback by his entrances. Oh his entrance in Jabez' barn is remarkably designed and photographed, with the animals neighing their heads-off, but Jabez accepts who he is and why he is there quite naturally. It's not like in Needful Things, when it takes almost half the movie for the protagonist to actually establish and define for his own belief that Leland Ghant is the Wicked one. No, Huston's version of El Diablo is a pretty genuinely understoof manifestation. He may be formidable as the movie goes on and definately antagonistic, but the way they all naturally accept his enterances does bare proof to what he tells Daniel Webster at the climactic trial, that his name is older in this country than Daniel Webster's. He's just always around, somewhere.

Also, there does seem to be some note of satire pointed at Webster or rather his status as a folk hero. While Webster fends off temptations from Scratch firmlier than Jabez and Miser Stevens, he is still harassed. This is understandable he himself is of course mortal and all mortals have been so harassed, whether they've taken the bait. And when a person enters politics, how can that not encourage more-strenuous harassments? Almost all politicians have had something to sweep under the rug by the time election day rolls around, the difference is the degree or amount of what's been hidden and how much people really care about that kind-of "dirt". And while Webster was a progressive, thoughtful, intelligent politician, he was still a politician. I am reminded of the exchange between Polonius and Hamlet when Hamlet instructs the former to take care of the newly-arrived Players and attend to their accomodations. Polonius says something to the effect that he will treat them as well as they deserve. Hamlet retorts with a point, paraphrasing, that treat every man as they deserve and none shall see salvation or blessings. Point: all humans are tainted to some degree.

Nevertheless, despite the nawing germs of truth coming from the Stranger's mouth, Arnold does make Webster into a truly charismatic hero. Webster's otherwise celebrated career ended on a note of controversy and contempt from those who championed him. While he was a stern critic of slavery, he was instrumental in bringing about the Compromise of 1850, which resulted in the Bleeding Kansas travesty. Webster reluctantly saw it as a half-victory and a way to extenuated peace and avoid civil war. It cost him his chance to become president, but never really dismantled his respectable credentials and place in history as an effective progressive in antebellum American politics.

"Faith can move a mountain, but it can't beat a faster draw."
--Nels McCloud (Eldorado)