The Devil and Daniel Webster

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The Devil and Daniel Webster

1941,

1h 47m,

Fantasy

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Watchlist

100%

23 Reviews

Tomatometer

84%

1,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

100%

Tomatometer

23 Reviews

84%

Popcornmeter

1,000+ Ratings

Farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig), about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil (Walter Huston), known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold). When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.

Derek Smith

Slant Magazine

Mar 19, 2024

William Dieterle’s All That Money Can Buy is a peculiar and fascinating blend of the populist agitprop of the 1930s and the patriotic hokum that defined much of the war years.

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Anton Bitel

Little White Lies

Feb 27, 2009

Juxtapose the name of a true-life nineteenth-century orator, attorney and senator with the Biblical personification of evil, and you capture something of the strange mix here of social realism and moralising mythology

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James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

Apr 25, 2024

4/4

if I were to pick the devil’s greatest screen incarnation, it would have to be Walter Huston’s leering, egotistical Mr. Scratch, whose snake-oil charm and seedy menace are conveyed with a wide, toothy grin, a Popeye squint, and vigorous cigar chomping

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Aaron Neuwirth

Why So Blu

Apr 11, 2024

8/10

I was entirely on board with what this story had to offer, the greatness of these performances by Huston and Arnold, and the handling of its creepiness given the specific nature of the film. After all, the devil is in the details.

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Michael J. Casey

Michael J. Cinema

Mar 26, 2024

4/5

"All That Money Can Buy" is a movie so audacious, so stylish, so outré it ought to be better known. Filmmakers in the 1940s had many rules and guardrails to watch out for. And they found just as many ways around them.

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Jeff Beck

The Blu Spot

Mar 13, 2024

3.5/5

All That Money Can Buy may follow a rather predictable trajectory, but it's easily able to rise above above it thanks to its wonderful cast and several memorable, marvelously-fashioned sequences that perfectly encapsulate the film's dark themes.

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Jan 31, 2019

The best fantasy movie ever made! With the best movie score ever composed!

Hagrid R

Oct 22, 2017

Sorry, but I have to dissent. I could not even get as far as the courtroom scene (and as a lawyer, I was looking forward to it). The wife was saintly and unflawed, the mother pious and self-righteous, Jabez wooden and the movie only came alive when Scratch was on the screen.

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Albus W

May 4, 2017

This was a good movie. I thought it was top quality.

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William Dieterle

Director

Edward Arnold

Daniel Webster

Walter Huston

Mr. Scratch

James Craig

Jabez Stone

Jane Darwell

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Synopsis

Farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig), about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil (Walter Huston), known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold). When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.

Director: William Dieterle
Producer: William Dieterle
Screenwriter: Stephen Vincent Benet, Dan Totheroh
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Production Co: William Dieterle Productions
Genre: Fantasy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 29, 1941, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 29, 2011
Runtime: 1h 47m

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