The Devil's Disciple

Hollywood didn't make too many Revolutionary War movies, so every year on July 4 TCM trots out a lot of the same ones. One that I hadn't gotten around to blogging about was actually made in the UK: The Devil's Disciple. So I rewatched it on Monday to do a post on here.

It's the middle of the Revolutionary War in New Hampshire, and the British have been putting down rebels including with arbitrary hangings. One of those hangings was a Mr. Dudgeon, father of Richard (Kirk Douglas). At night after the hanging, Richard takes the body down from the gallows and brings it back to Dad's hometown, where Rev. Anderson (Burt Lancaster) is the local minister. Anderson believed in doing the Christian thing, which was to try to convince the British to let him have the body buried, but the British wanted to leave it hanging, pour encourager les autres as they'd say. In any case, with Richard having done the deed and Anderson having buried the body, they're both running afoul of the British.

Dudgeon is a bit of an iconoclast. When he gets home to the old family home to hear the reading of the will, we learn that he's the black sheep of the family, but that Dad left most of the estate to him and not Mom (Eva Le Gallienne). But not is he the black sheep of the family, he's also a non-believer, so you'd think Rev. Anderson wouldn't much care for him. But then Anderson seems to be a man of the cloth who practices what he preaches, as much as being nice to a sinner like Richard might bother Mrs. Anderson (Janette Scott).

Some time later, Rev. Anderson invites Dudgeon over again. But Ma Dudgeon gets sick, and the good reverend is called to attend to her. (Remember, Richard, being the bad son, isn't about to get invited over.) Richard stays behind with Mrs. Anderson, at which point British troops show up. They've got a warrant for the Rev. Anderson.

Even though Rev. Anderson isn't there, Dudgeon claims that he's Anderson, since if he had been honest they'd both be hanged anyway. Probably the first nice thing he's done for anybody, too. But he has to pretend to be Rev. Anderson, which means having a loving wife. Mrs. Anderson begins to get the mistaken belief that perhaps Richard might be in love with her.

General Burgoyne (Laurence Olivier) is set to hear the trial of Anderson, not knowing this is actually Dudgeon, together with his second in command Maj. Swindon (Harry Andrews). The real Rev. Anderson, finding the extent to which people will stick their necks out to save him, decides to throw his lot in with the rebels, and take on the British troops in his home town.

The Devil's Disciple is based on a play by George Bernard Shaw, which means that for some people it might be a bit of a tough go, even though the movie only runs about 82 minutes. I think, for example I blogged about Caesar and Cleopatra before, which I didn't care for, many years back. The Devil's Disciple, however, is much better. All three of the leads are quite good, and director Guy Hamilton very deftly opens the stage play out, including an action sequence in which Anderson tries to sabotge a cache of British gunpowder.

While Pygmalion is probably Shaw's best known play, The Devil's Disciple is more than worth a watch.