(A Superhero Named) Tony

It’s hard not to get political when considering the implications of 1941’s The Devil & Daniel Webster (a.k.a All That Money Can Buy) in the context of current events. The film has a mind of real populist politics, the archaic kind only known now in history books, when farmers formed granges to work together and (gasp!) share the wealth. Indeed, a platform like that’d be campaign suicide in our post-HUAC, post-September 11, post-capitalist country.

The story of The Devil & Daniel Webster centers on Jabez Stone (James Craig), a salt-of-the-earth New Hampshire farmer who one year bargains with a smooth-spoken and businesslike stranger, Mr. Scratch (Walter Huston), for perfect crops and financial success for seven consecutive years. The cost? Merely Jabez’s soul. And eventually his colleagues, friends, family and any hopes for happiness. Just business as usual. Fortunately, Jabez has befriended Senator Daniel Webster, the great populist orator who turns spiritual counsel when Jabez attempts a breach of contract.

The liner notes for The Criterion Collection’s DVD of The Devil & Daniel Webster feature essays by Benét, who wrote the short story on which the film was based, and writer Tom Piazza. A quote from Benét appears above. Piazza’s essay includes this:

So the question of personal choice is a question of community health as well, and one cannot secede from the social contract without doing immense damage to all the other souls around.

So, grange is good; selfishness is bad. Good ol’ American personal choice is still an unalienable right, but a hefty responsibility comes with it. The social contract might then be, “Every dollar earned by one person is a dollar taken away from another — and don’t you forget it.” (Piazza’s choice of the word “secede” is nice, too, as the real Webster was a steadfast Unionist. But the Union vs. Confederacy debate was dead in 1941, and should be even more so now. Unless you want to change it to Left vs. Right, Blue vs. Red, Democrat vs. Republican, or David Cross vs. Larry the Cable Guy. But that’s so played out, isn’t it?)

The film is not so much a religious morality play as it is a social cautionary tale — always with the interests of “America” in mind. In the case of Devil v. Jabez Stone, Daniel Webster’s closing argument to a jury of the damned (including luminaries like Benedict Arnold) includes the line, “Don’t let this country go to the Devil!” This is not a fundamentalist plea or a laughable Bushism. It’s a call for our promise of liberty to not tempt us toward self-interest. Never at the expense of the grange, or the community, or the country.

Current events are rife with very public corporate and political scandal — Enron, Tyco, all the oil companies, Duke Cunningham, and Tom DeLay, to name a mere few — and the stakes of The Devil & Daniel Webster could not be more apropos. But, as a former supervisor of mine so often opines, “Where’s the outrage?” Politicians and CEOs alike take for themselves at the expense of their constituents and customers. It’s laid out before us daily, but the public takes it sitting down — and by doing so unwittingly supports it. Either we’re a tough lot, us Americans, or continuous beatings and inflation have numbed us into submission. Any new New Deal, sharing any wealth, or rights for (God forbid) immigrants is superseded by Mr. Scratch’s mantra: “I gots to get mines.”

This is not a soapbox, this website. But the film does spark some contemporary concerns. Will the real Daniel Webster please stand up?