In the movie and the short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, written by
Stephen Vincent Benet, there is illustrated the battle between the forces of
good and evil. Although the story allows the reader to mentally picture the
scenes and the movie does the depicting for the viewer, there are several
similarities in each script. Some of these similarities are the way the
characters are depicted and the final scene. There are several incongruous
scenes between the short story and the way the movie unfolds. The differences
are the amount of time that is spent on the character development, also there
are some scenes added into the movie such as the harvest dance and the reminder
of the contract. There are three main characters in this short story/movie. They
are Scratch, Daniel Webster, and Jabez Stone. The actors picked for the roles
fit almost perfectly to the descriptions of the characters in the short story.
Scratch is described as a “ soft-spoken, dark-dressed stranger…white
teeth...were filed to a point”. As shown in the movie the actor was also a
very darkly clad man. He also had a very soft, hypnotic voice and whenever he
smiled his teeth were very shiny and pointy. The man described as “the biggest
man in the country…when he stood up to speak, stars and stripes came right out
of the sky…and when he argued a case, he could turn on the harps of the
blessed and the shaking of the earth underground” was Daniel Webster. In the
movie the actor who filed his role was a very big man with a powerful voice. The
last character, Jabez Stone, wasn’t given a very active role in the short
story, but he was described as “ an unlucky man…he had a good wife and
children, but the more he had the less there was to feed them.” In the movie
Jabez is seen more throughout the unfolding of the tale and his family life was
a little different. He had only one child and that was after the contract with
the devil was made. The ending to the short story took place in Jabez’s barn
and consisted of a jury filled with the ruthless dead. This was also how the
movie was played out. Even the closing speech that Daniel made wasn’t told
word for word in the short story, but the way it was spoken in the movie seemed
to sum up the way it was supposed to be in the short story. It had the same
affect because it made “ the glitter [be] gone from the eyes of the judge and
jury, and, for the moment, they were men again, and knew they were men.” The
only difference in the movie that I didn’t like as much was that the Devil
didn’t seem as intimidated by Daniel Webster as he did in the short story. He
just laughed at Daniel and told him he’d get him in the presidency race. There
are even more differences between the scripts then there are similarities. The
first of these is the way the characters are depicted. I already pointed out
that Jabez had a bigger role in the movie and that he only had one child. His
wife, her mother, the neighboring farmers and the housekeeper were also given
more substantial roles in the movie. His wife, Mary, was there to dote on him
and also to show her support for him after all the farmers had turned on him.
Her mother and the farmers, who weren’t even mentioned in the short story,
were there to act as Jabez’s conscious. The mother always seemed to appear
after something bad happened. The farmer’s were there at first to get him to
join the Populist movement and the Farmer’s Guild. When he refused that and
took the devil’s offer all he would do was gloat. They eventually turned on
him, this is different in the short story because in it they were very fond of
him and even wanted him to run for state senate. The housekeeper was also around
a lot and for some reason after the baby is born she changes into Belle, a very
seductive, young women. This is one thing about the movie that I didn’t like
because it distracted from the whole idea of the contract he made. In the movie
Jabez moves into a new home where he hosts a harvest dance. During this scene he
pushes his wife away and Daniel comes to take her and their son. Also in this
scene Mr. Stevens’ contract is up and Scratch turns him into a moth and places
him in the box. I liked how the interaction between the Devil and Jabez
occurred, but I thought the scene with Mr. Stevens swirling around and finally
collapsing was a little too much. He should have just been struck dead. That is
why I do like the one scene where the Devil after Making the contract with Jabez
writes the termination date in the trunk of the tree so as to remind Jabez every
day. Also the scene with Jabez trying to cut down the tree as to break the
contract was very effective. Overall the way the director decided to interpret
the short story was not the same as I did while I was reading it. For the most
part he tried to stick with the script, but with the scenes he tried to change
they didn’t seem as effective. However the scenes he decided to add and the
characters he expanded on were a great choice and brought the story alive.