2.The story, and the screenplay, are by Steven Vincent Benet, who is one off my favourite writers--also a sadly neglected figure nowadays. Benet was hugely popular during his lifetime, but his work doesn't fit in with that of most of his modernist contemporaries, and so he (like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley) gets dropped from introduction to literature classes. Mustn't confuse the kids!!! You hear a lot of talk about modernism, and modernism(s), but not much about what I call "popular modernism". To be fair, this is an oversight that is in the process of being corrected--witness the recent critical attention to the works of Dashiell Hammett,and crime novels in general... Anyway, it's a good story, the kind of skeptical Americana that should never go out of style...

3.Daniel Webster, obviously, plays a prominent role, and he's one of the most interesting political figures of the 19th century. I've read a lot about him and written a great deal of essays on the political context in which he operated--from the Hartford Convention, 1814 (in which New England almost seceded from the Union. There were a lot of reasons, but the issue of slavery loomed ominously in the background--i.e. New Englanders were becoming more and more disgusted by the thought of sharing citizenship with the decadent slave-holding South) to the "Seventh of March" (1850) Speech, in which Webster implored Northerners to go support a heinous thing (The Fugitive Slave Act), in order to preserve the Union... It's a fascinating rise and fall, I'm tellin' ya!

4.The movie features two of my favourite actresses: Anne Shirley--whose real name was Dawn Paris; she changed it after playing the title role, yes, Anne Shirley!, in Anne of Green Gables (1934)--and Simone Simon, a french actres who is amazing here as the evilly tantalizing Bel, "from over the mountain". (her finest hour is in the original Cat People). Admittedly, neither woman gets much screen time, but they're here, and that mere fact is appreciated...

5.As previously mentioned, Walter Huston is outstanding as Mr. Scratch, conjuring up devil's gold, rubbing his goatee obscenely, and wielding his bunch of carrots in the most insulting manner imaginable. And Edward Arnold is just as good in the less flamboyant, but just as crucial, role of Webster. He exudes integrity here, but also glitters with fun and vanity (which, of course, is what led to his political downfall--he wanted to be president so badly!!)

6.I'm just a sucker for anything set in New England, and the rural types played by James Craig, Jane Darwell, John Qualen, etc...

It's a great movie. You really ought to see it.