Blast from the Past:
Burt Lancaster Retrospective
The bite of George Bernard Shaw’s noted lampoon of American Revolutionary events, as well as Englishmen involved in losing a valuable colony, is missing from Guy Hamilton’s screen version of The Devil’s Disciple, which falls fat, lacking the playwright’s penchant for wit and irony in his social satires.
Grade: C: *1/2* out of *****)
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The ineffective hybrid of an Anglo-American production could not benefit from its all-star cast, headed by Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, and Eva Le Galienne; both Lancaster and Douglas were miscast.
An apostate and outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire, Richard “Dick” Dudgeon (Kirk Douglas) is understandbly bitter and scornful.
After the death of his father, mistakenly hanged by British as rebel in Springtown, Dick rescues his body from the gallows, where it had been left as example to others. He leaves it for burial in Websterbridge parish graveyard.
Much to his family’s dismay, Dick then returns to his childhood home to hear his father’s will, His mother (Eva Le Gallienne) is unhappy to see him for deploring his misbehavior.
Meanwhile, Local minister Rev. Anthony Anderson (Burt Lancaster), almost arrested for trying to talk the British into taking the body down, treats Dick with courtesy, despite Dick’s apostasy. Dick’s “wickedness,” however, appalls Anderson’s wife, Judith (Janette Scott).
Surprisingly, Dick’s father left the bulk of his estate to Dick, his eldest son. His mother, claiming that her husband’s only wealth is what she brought to the marriage in dowry, then curses and refuses to stay with him.
Unfazed, Dick proclaims himself a rebel against the British, scorning his cowardly family for appeasing the British.
In the meantime, Anderson warns Dick that the British may arrest him for retrieving the body. He takes Dick home, but leaves when called to care for Dick’s sick mother.
British soldiers enter Anderson’s home and arrest Dick, mistaking him for Anderson, whom they believe had illegally retrieved the body. Dick allows them to take him away without revealing his actual identity. He swears Judith to secrecy lest her husband be arrested for Dick’s crime.
Anderson tells Judith to have Dick keep quiet in order to give him “more start,” then rides away. Judith is unaware that Anderson has gone to seek help from Lawyer Hawkins (Basil Sydney), the leader of the local rebels.
Judith believes her husband to be a coward and now sees the previously despised Dick as a hero.
During military tribunal, observed by General Burgoyne (Laurence Olivier), Dick is skeptical about British justice. He pretends of being Anderson until Judith tries to save him by revealing the truth. Regardless of the mistaken identity, Dick’s insulting to the British condemns him (“When you make up your mind to hang a man you put yourself at a disadvantage with him. I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”).
Burgoyne now sarcastically observes to the prosecutor, Swindon: “Despite your deplorable error and the prisoner’s undoubted innocence, you managed to provoke him into guilt by the end of them, a forensic triumph.”
Anderson abandons his ministry and turns rebel. Fighting off British soldiers, he sets explosive fire to the British ammunition dump. Reaching the village where Dick is about to be hanged, he presents a safe conduct from General Phillips, who the rebels have captured. Terms are the withdrawal of British troops and the immediate release of Richard Dudgeon.
Since General Howe is in New York, Burgoyne accedes to the demands, and in the end, Anderson’s wife’s chooses to remain with him rather than Dick.
What You Need to Know
Film rights to Shaw’s play were initially purchased in 1938 by Gabriel Pascal (who helmed successfully the author’s Pygmalion), but in 1955, the production company of Burt Lancaster and Harold Hecht acquired the rights.
The original director, Alexander Mackendrick, who made the superb 1957 film noir, Sweet Smell of Success, also starring Lancaster, was replaced by Guy Hamilton, later better known of helming some James Bond pictures.
A prevalent team onscreen, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas made several films together over four decades, including I Walk Alone (1948), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Seven Days in May (1964) and Tough Guys (1986).
Cast
Burt Lancaster – Reverend Anthony Anderson
Kirk Douglas – Richard “Dick” Dudgeon
Laurence Olivier – General John Burgoyne
Janette Scott – Judith Anderson
Eva Le Gallienne – Mrs. Dudgeon
Harry Andrews – Major Swindon
Basil Sydney – Lawyer Hawkins
George Rose – British sergeant
Neil McCallum – Christopher (Christie) Dudgeon
Mervyn Johns – Reverend Maindeck Parshotter
David Horne – Uncle William
Erik Chitty – Uncle Titus
Allan Cuthbertson – British captain
Credits:
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Screenplay by John Dighton, Roland Kibbee, based on The Devil’s Disciple
1897 play by George Bernard Shaw
Produced by Harold Hecht
Narrated by Peter Leeds
Cinematography Jack Hildyard
Edited by Alan Osbiston
Music by Richard Rodney Bennett
Production: Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Films, Brynaprod
Distributed by United Artists
Release date: August 20, 1959
Running time: 83 minutes
Budget $1.5 million
Box office $1.8 million
