Devil and Daniel Webster
• Nostalgie de la boue
Hoping to become a slender leading man, Arnold found that his fortune lay in character parts, and accordingly beefed up his body: “The bigger I got, the better character roles I received,” he’d observe later.
Edward Arnold is an old character actor of whom I’m very fond.
Usually he played the Titan of Industry, often wicked and corrupt, sometimes indifferent or benign. He did so wish such ιlan and was so wholly suited to the part that he found steady employment in those roles for decades.
When I discovered he’d played Daniel Webster in The Devil and Daniel Webster I sent for it. Not only am I an Edward Arnold fan I love anything with Satan in it.
Sadly it was an excruciating bore.
It has been so long since I’d seen this species of pedestrian American cinema I’d forgotten it existed. A series of patriotic homiletics that could please only Oliver Wendell Douglas. It felt like something made for school children to watch in school not for people to pay to see in theaters.
At least Walter Houston made an entertaining prince of darkness.