The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

Directed by: William Dieterle

Starring: Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, Jane Darwell

Now that I’m just watching random movies off of my computer, I’m going to have to get used to the fact that there’s going to be some weird stuff I got because I was probably drunk and thought it was a funny name or something at the time. This is a perfect example of this sort of movie… Why did I get this?

The Devil and Daniel Webster is about a poor farmer with bad luck who makes a deal with the devil for seven years of good luck in exchange for his soul. Seems pretty reasonable. The first thing he does is find buried treasure, which jump-starts his greed. He eventually becomes a huge financial presence in the area, almost completely ignoring his wife and child in favor of money (and some hot chick the devil conjured up, of course). At the end of the seven years, the ex-farmer realizes that he should do something about this whole “selling his soul” thing, so he gets a senator, Daniel Webster, to help him negotiate out of his contract. Then the movie ends with the devil eating an entire pie while sitting on a fencepost, which is the sole reason why this movie got bumped up to two stars.

Really, it’s a pretty standard Faust sort of story, which is how most deals with the devil go… except for the happy ending part, that doesn’t usually happen. And the devil eating a pie. That was fucking hilarious.