If you're confused by this post's theme, then go to hell -- since that's where all three of these films can be found, at least in the genitive case.
Devil's Partner (1958/1961)
Grade: C-
For a film that opens with an old man sacrificing a goat and selling his soul to Satan, there's something awfully coy about Devil's Partner. For example, why does he draw a hexagon, rather than the usual pentagram? Why is the term of the agreement two years?
And why does the Devil apparently sign under the name "Jezzer Hora"? Is that his MC name or something?
It's never really clear what either party is getting out of this arrangement. In his new guise as "Nick Richards", Jenson's actions seem haphazard and self-serving, and it's hard to see how managing a gas station in Furnace Flats, NM (pop. 1505) will serve an infernal agenda. He doesn't work to corrupt anyone's soul or cause widespread mayhem; he just wants to win a pretty girl's heart, keep people from sniffing around his origins, and make devilish references to his true nature.
From all appearances, the scriptwriters simply couldn't decide whether the Richards character should be the Devil in Jenson's newly rejuvenated body, or just a mean old man who uses his second lease on life to try to screw his neighbor's daughter. He clearly has some demonic powers, but -- like a cat hoarder's interactions with the outside world -- they mostly seem to revolve around animal control.
At one point he says outright "Well, I'm really the Devil," but none of his other actions corroborate that. And if Jenson/Richards is merely an aide to Asmodeus, this still seems like a pretty terrible business arrangement for the Evil One.
Without a coherent plot, Devil's Partner is left to depend on the charisma of its lead -- which, in truth, is considerable: Ed Nelson has a brooding, smirking intensity that makes it easy to believe he'd both attract and unsettle the residents of Furnace Flats.
But a movie needs more than charisma and a handful of effective set-pieces to succeed, and ultimately Devil's Partner is undone by its reluctance to commit to a clear vision of its own plot. One can only guess that the screenwriters were afraid of alienating Bible Belt audiences by explicitly using Satan as a protagonist, and so hedged their bets, substituting hexagons for pentagrams and "Jezzer Hora" for "Beelzy Bubba".
If you're willing to sacrifice goats in your film, though, why settle for half-measures?
The Devil's Daughter [aka Pocomania] (1939)
Grade: C-
If it's a "SACK" attraction, you know it must be good, right?
But sadly, The Devil's Daughter really isn't a good film. Stiffly acted and scripted, and saddled with a hackneyed plot about love triangles, sibling rivalry, and obeah, it's a movie whose theatrical merits wouldn't pass muster at a regional summer stock production. To give it a free pass for these things, simply because it has an all-black cast, would strike us as condescending at best.
That said, The Devil's Daughter has multiple saving graces -- namely that it's short (clocking in at well under an hour), entertaining, and full of engaging imagery and sounds.
(These things are hardly a given: soon enough in the Umbrellahead Review, we'll see an example of an early African-American film with none of those redeeming qualities.)
It's by no means an unpleasant film to watch, and the corny performances are, if anything, a source of amusement.
The one actor who comes off well here is Hamtree Harrington, an experienced vaudevillian who serves as the film's comic relief. He's broad, but relatively polished, and it's interesting to see how a character of this type is portrayed in a film intended for black audiences.
It also doesn't hurt that his love interest, Elvira (Willa Mae Lane), is kinda foxy -- certainly more so than the two female leads, anyway. (The male leads aren't any great shakes either.)
Ms. Lane also acquits herself well in the acting department, but doesn't appear to have had any other roles; too bad.
The Devil's Daughter is no masterpiece, but it's no Chloe, Love is Calling You either. With appropriately modest expectations, it's worth experiencing both as a time capsule and as 50 minutes of light entertainment. Believe us, it could be much worse -- and it'll help you remember "obeah" during those tight Boggle matches.
The Devil's Messenger (1961)
Grade: D
With Rolodex in hand and smiles aplenty, LCJ's Satan is neither saturnine nor diabolical. Instead, he comes off more like a kindly uncle, or at worst, like the washed-up alcoholic who holds court daily at your local bar, telling tall tales of his past, ever-genial but clearly beyond redemption.
...and hey, that's pretty much what he was. Zing!
Anyway, Chaney's role in The Devil's Messenger is simply to provide a framing story for three episodes of a Swedish TV series, 13 Demon Street, a horror anthology that seems to have basically been Der Tvilight Zøn in all but name. It's a recycle job, in other words, like Alien Zone and other "movies" we've seen through the years.
And the frame is pretty horrific in its stupidity, revolving around a young suicide named "Satanya" (no, we're not kidding) who delivers cursed objects to unsuspecting Earthlings, somehow justifying the set's title. Even by our steadily lowering standards, it's stupid and half-assed.
Fortunately 13 Demon Street seems to have been a serviceable if uninspired affair, and the three featured stories are no worse than a third-rate episode of Rod Serling's brainchild.
The first, involving a brutish photographer with a guilty conscience, is probably the least rewarding of the bunch, since the plot is utterly predictable and the protagonist impossible to care about.
The second segment, telling the tale of a scientist who falls in love with a woman preserved in glacial ice, is actually dumber. But at least we were distracted by trying to figure out who the lead actor reminded us of, beyond a vague hint of Abe Vigoda. (Maybe it was just the Pakistani guy that P. went to college with?)
It was no strain to "place" the protagonist of the next story, though, given his striking resemblance to René Auberjonois (of Benson and Deep Space Nine fame) -- maybe with a dash of Bashar al-Assad thrown in there too.
This third and final tale was by far the best, depicting the inexorable meeting of a man haunted by a recurring dream and a fortuneteller who serenely conveys the will of fate. Predictable, but capably acted and directed, its plot and story arc wouldn't have been at all out of place on TZ, though the last five minutes dragged a bit.
Unfortunately, this segment is also the only one that gets shoehorned back into the framing story, squandering whatever goodwill it had earned. It turns out that our protagonist is also Satanya's ex-boyfriend, and so when he dies...yeah, it's stupid.
Never fear, though, as the Lord of the Files [sic!] comes through with a last-minute turn to the bizarre: Satanya's next mission is to deliver a formula that will allow humanity to build a 500-megaton nuclear weapon! I see we're ramping things up a bit, Mr. Lucifer -- that's 10 times larger than the biggest detonation in history.
Gratuitously super-sized nukes aside, The Devil's Messenger has no real attraction beyond the unexpected competency of its third act. The audio quality of Mill Creek's print is quite horrific, by the way, with the kind of distortion that sounds more like a bad connection than an overmodulated signal.
Oh, and at one point, this happened:
Admittedly, it was only for a split second, but still: way to go, Mill Creek Quality Control! (That's a phrase right up there with "The Lance Armstrong Sportsmanship Award" and "The Buddy Rich School of Diplomacy".)
If you're trapped in ice for thousands of years with nothing else to do, you can watch The Devil's Messenger, I suppose. Just don't blame us if, thanks to propinquity, you end up getting a crush on the glacier girl. And hey, you could do worse: we hear she's a real doll.
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