The movie follows the plot and contains much dialogue of George Bernard Shaw's 1897 play, his first great success, while opening it up with enough action set pieces that it almost becomes a kind of swashbuckler. Mackendrick and Lancaster and probably Douglas clashed over this, Mackendrick wanting to stick closer to the original source. Douglas similarly fired Anthony Mann the following year from Spartacus, replacing him with Stanley Kubrick. That film's villain, played by Laurence Olivier, essays a similar role here as real-life British General John "Gentlemanly John" Burgoyne.

Mackendrick needn't have fussed, for the resulting film is quite charming, though Douglas overdoes his part, ne'er-do-well Dick Dudgeon. Olivier, as he would in Spartacus, seems to be playing a coded homosexual; he's nearly as fey as Cyril Ritchard in Peter Pan, but is excellent in his scenes with the two stars, as well as with featured player Harry Andrews. Lancaster, typically underrated, is superb.

In the early days of the Revolutionary War, small town minister Rev. Anthony Anderson (Lancaster) learns that a local man, an accused rebel, is about to be hanged in an adjacent village. Believing the man innocent, Anderson races there with the convicted man's frantic son (Neil McCallum, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors) only to arrive too late. He protests the ruling by Major Swindon (Harry Andrews) and his superior officer, Gen. Burgoyne (Olivier), that the dead man's body be left to rot on the gallows (as a warning to others), and Anderson is nearly arrested himself.

Later, however, older son Dick Dudgeon steals his father's corpse, bringing it to Anderson's church graveyard, less out of compassion than to gleefully annoy the British. To everyone's surprise Dudgeon, long ago ostracized from his family, inherits the bulk of his father's estate. Meanwhile, the stolen body is traced to the church, where Anderson defiantly has given it a Christian burial.

The British come to arrest the reverend but finding his pious wife, Judith (Janette Scott), alone with Dudgeon, assume the rascal to be Anderson and, on a whim, he does not correct their mistake. Judith, appalled by Dudgeon's past "wickedness," is emotionally overwhelmed by his impulsive act of selflessness. Upon learning of Dudgeon's capture, Anderson becomes determined to free him.

Olivier's character is a typical Shavian realist, Douglas's impetuous, crude, and emphatically American yet intelligent and articulate, while Lancaster occupies the pivotal role in the story, and is completely transformed by the end. Kirk Douglas is a bit broad and too contemporary to be entirely believed relative to the other performances, but undeniably he makes an interesting contrast to the demure Scott, the reserved Lancaster, and the cerebral Olivier. His cross-examination scene with Olivier is especially delightful and witty. Lancaster's part would seem almost tailor-made, making great use of his low-key, internal approach to many of his best film characters while also tapping into his acrobatic physicality near the end (in scenes reminiscent of his earlier, more broadly satirical The Crimson Pirate).

The movie version of the play criticizes the colonialists who kowtow to their British occupiers, recalling Benjamin Franklin's famous (but usually misinterpreted) quote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Meanwhile, the British are depicted as no better, bunglers symbolized by Harry Andrews's by-the-book major, failing to adapt to the unconventional but resourceful revolutionaries. To underscore this, the film cleverly uses stop-motion toy soldiers and a map of the area in a prologue, and which return again later in the story.

Video & Audio

Filmed in black-and-white and presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, The Devil's Disciple exhibits some minor warping and unsteadiness (the latter especially during the opening titles) but generally looks great, razor-sharp with good blacks and contrast. The 2.0 (mono) DTS-HD Master Audio is adequate. No subtitles or alternate audio options and the disc is Region A encoded. The lone Extra Feature is a trailer.

Parting Thoughts

Amiable in length (just 83 minutes) and at $1.5 million handsomely made but not overproduced like so many ‘50s historical films, The Devil's Disciple is very satisfying and Highly Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His new documentary and latest audio commentary, for the British Film Institute's Blu-ray of Rashomon, is now available while his commentary track for Arrow Video's Battles without Honor and Humanity will be released this month.