Direkt zum Hauptbereich

The Devil and Daniel Webster (Dieterle, 1941) - #DTC 1027

A poor farmer sells his soul to the devil in a moment of despair and within a few years becomes the richest man in New Hampshire.

This was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a beautiful modern fairy tale, where the morale has been supplanted with a liberal political message: The good will triumph, even in court (which reads strangely ironic). The urge to deliver simple, inspiring truths during the wartime probably helped this picture along, but it still stands beautifully now. The structure of the movie was straightforward as far as I could tell - I'm sure they went by the book, from the point of dramaturgy.

What I found exciting was the devil portrayed by Walter Huston. This creature is effervescent with good humor and when he's listening to the farmer he's absolutely honest about his empathy.  He was a delight to follow on the screen. More of his work!

The final jury scene is a classic and at least famous enough to be copied by the Simpsons.

Kommentare

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Time of the Gypsies / Dom Za Vesanje (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

A supernaturally gifted boy from a Gypsy community is forced to survive in the world of crime. The intriguing qualities of Kusturica's films I've seen is his relentless depiction of basically crazy communities. Not just agreeably potty, they're usually outright interstellar-nuts. Here, he follows the fate of the rather harmless boy Perhan, that leaves for Italy in hope of a better future for him and his loved ones. There are some enormously interesting images in the film that kept ringing long after. The ritual in the river and the last scene in the church ruin (with a horse standing somewhere far back in the image...). After sketchily mapping out the scenes it is surprising how rigorously three-acty the screenplay is constructed. The first act seems quite long in terms of time and number of scenes, but there is also a lot of imagery spent on depicting life in this crazy universe, which makes the second part in Italy much more believable. And there is a certa

Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013)

I haven't seen many of Villeneuve's movies, but I really like everything so far. When thinking about Prisoners after a few days, there was a particular scene that somehow kept returning to my memory: When Gyllenhal's character is introduced, sitting alone in Chinese restaurant, not-flirting with the waitress. For some reason this scene struck me as "different". That gave me the idea to examine all the first appearances of the characters in the movie. ( SPOILERS )   KELLER DOVER (Hugh Jackman) - we don't actually see him, we start with a very static shot into the forest. The man is looking into the forest, it is his POV (which we find out quickly). But we can hear him praying, while a deer walks into the frame. When the camera pulls back, a rifle points at the animal. And just after "Amen", a shot is fired. Now, here's a little surprise: Keller, who was doing the praying has his son RALPH (Dylan Minette) shooting the rifle. It's a fat

007 Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965)

Bad guy steals atom bombs and hides them close to a seaside resort. James Bond saves the day and every woman from virginity. This shot was used a couple of times. After not having watched this in a long time I was amazed at how strange the 60's Bond comes across. For my taste, the Bonnery character is just a bit too plump verbally in his predatory attacks on just any woman he encounters. Many of the quips that must have been hilarious during the day come across as quite dumb now - even when looking at it as a period piece.... but who knows what the socially accepted standards were 1965 for the mating dance in England? Still it is an enjoyable movie - the villain is straightforward evil, the girls are beautiful, smart and opportunistic and the men are sex- and power-hungry (and quite stupid). The world of James Bond. The final battle scene under-water is still jaw-dropping to watch. Just to set up the scene the director had to solve a load of problems: Orientation and light