The Devil and Daniel Webster

Greetings from Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen.

The last time Ginger Rogers starred in the Lux Radio Theater, she went directly from this stage to the preview of her picture, Kitty Foyle.

We all wished her good luck, but by that time, luck had nothing to do with the case.

Simple justice gave her the applause of critics and public.

And finally, the Motion Picture Academy Award for the finest performance by any screen actress during the year.

And tonight, as Ginger Rogers plays her greatest role for the first time on the air, she has the same two leading men you saw in the picture, Dennis Morgan and James Craig.

Christopher Morley called his novel the natural history of a woman, and the RKO picture was exactly that.

Few stories can take an audience so close to the inner secrets of a woman's heart, and certainly no woman ever had a more sympathetic portrayal than Ginger Rogers gives Kitty Foyle.

This is a really interesting choice that I never would've thought of, but I really love and respect you all on Letterboxd for this.

Sort of kicked off by Dr. Rachel Docotor, The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941.

Yeah.

I've never seen-

Kind of like literal OG here.

Yeah.

Oh, it's interesting because this is al- You know, this is the classic short story of the dev- the Devil and Daniel Webster-

Yep

It frightens some people, but to me, it is the kind of a story that has a great moral to it.

It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite supernatural short stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster, remember? Which was made into that classic black and white film, too.

And Dan Webster has to debate the devil to argue to save the soul of one of his constituents.

And here we have the classic concept of a soul coming back.

But upon looking back at it with some hindsight now, to me, somebody earlier called and said this was scary.

I don't really consider this story to be scary at all.

In fact, I think it's got all the quality of the tale, like the devil and Daniel Webster or something of that sort, in which I think it's a nicely...

Morality tale here, a nice tale that shows that if you are in need of prayers, you can go back to your church or whatever place of worship you frequented in life and hopefully get a chance to get those prayers you need to move on and hopefully leave with the good guys in white and not the bad guys in black.

Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising was inspired by a scary movie, believe it or not.

John Fogerty wrote it after seeing The Devil and Daniel Webster, warning of trouble on the horizon.

Fun twist for you, it's one of those songs that sounds sunny and catchy, but the lyrics, pure ominous doom.

I see the bad moon a-rising.