The film is actually about the farmer Jabez Stone who, after being in debt and having hardship with the farm, says that he would sell his soul to the devil for two cents to make everything better.
Suddenly the character Mr Scratch appears, who is obviously a human looking version of Satan himself!
He suddenly makes money appear from basically nowhere in the stables! Infinite money. Jabez accepts this offer!
The film then shows the gradual way that money can corrupt people, and in this case Jabez, who turns into a selfish egotist who builds power, whilst at the same time pushing away his wife.
There is a clause that the offer Mr Scratch makes is for a limited time, and Jabez tries at the end of this time to renege on this deal, to which Mr Scratch says that it was a contract signed in blood.
Jabez asks the politician Daniel Webster to stand as counsel in a trial on this matter, which the politician agrees to...
Now, I liked the film to a point, but I found it to take a long time to get where it was going, and the whole reasoning that Daniel Webster uses in the trial is incredibly irritating to me - "no American should be victim to such a contract," as if the fact that he's an American makes him more important than anyone else. There needed to be more to it than this! In fact, if I remember rightly, it was even said how he was more worthy than a common slave, which I found incredibly unsettling!
I'd have liked the argument to be more along the lines of "no one, no matter who, should be held to a contract such as this." But it needed to be more than that even. It was another case of a big build up leading to a damp squib ending!
Lengthwise, I thought the film would have made a fabulous Twilight Zone episode, but in this case it sort of drags, but that might just be me, and I was tired whilst watching it, and fighting dropping off!
Decent film, but I'll just give it three and a half out of five!
Photographs taken whilst watching the film...
