Closely Watched Films: The Devil And Daniel Webster

Just because a man sells his soul to Old Scratch doesn't mean he can't learn what it means to be American! Especially when his teacher is the Great Orator Daniel Webster, boozing and speechifying his way through rural America. It's a bizarre but surprisingly powerful mix of cornpone, patriotism, laughs and chills held together by Walter Huston's Oscar-nominated performance as the wily backwoods pie-stealing devil and Bernard Herrmann's Oscar-winning score. Is this politically progressive filmmaking at its finest? And is its eerie relevance to the current state of the nation mythic storytelling, or proof that history is cyclical?

Host Elliott Kalan (writer, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart") will discuss The Devil and Daniel Webster's vision of American values and whitewashing of Daniel Webster, as well as the question that has plagued philosophers for centuries: in what genre does this movie belong, anyway?