The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

Original title

All That Money Can Buy

Directed by

William Dieterle

Genre

drama film, fantasy film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 45m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 97 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A farmer makes a deal with the devil for good luck and prosperity. As the deadline approaches, he grows desperate. He asks the famous lawyer Daniel Webster to help break the pact.

tensedarkatmosphericmoodymoralsuspensefulfolkloricfateful

What happens

The Devil and Daniel Webster (originally released as All That Money Can Buy) is a 1941 American supernatural horror film directed by William Dieterle and starring Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, James Craig, and Simone Simon. Based on the 1938 play adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's 1936 short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster", the film deals with the theme of the deal with the Devil: A farmer sells his soul for good luck and prosperity, but becomes desperate when the time of his pact is about to end. He asks the lawyer Daniel Webster to help him find a way out of the pact's terms. The play by Benét was in turn based on the libretto created by Benét for an opera adaptation of his short story with composer Douglas Moore, a project he began writing in 1937. Benét and Dan Totheroh adapted the play into the film's screenplay. Filmed in early 1941, The Devil and Daniel Webster was theatrically released by RKO Radio Pictures on October 16, 1941, under the title All That Money Can Buy, which the studio mandated in order to avoid confusion with another one of their films, The Devil and Miss Jones, released the same year. It was later released as The Devil and Daniel Webster in 1942, and appeared in a truncated version bearing the title Daniel and the Devil in 1952. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• Flight from Destiny (1941)
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