'THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE' REVIEW.....A DANDY YANKEE DOODLE PLEASURE......

"THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE" (1959)  For too long, our mad, passionate love affair with this movie endured a cruel forced separation similar to that Broadway play and later film "Same Time Next Year."  Because of its aggravating unavailability, we could only visit this bubbly gem once a year....July 4th on Turner Classic Movies. There it resided briefly along with the few other films in the skimpy collection of Revolutionary War movies (including "The Scarlet Coat" an earnest lumpy thing about Benedict Arnold, "The Howards Of Virginia" with an unlikely Cary Grant and of course, the weirdly endearing musical "1776"  in which William Daniels, playing John Adams,  force feeds America to Congress with the same prissy rectitude he later uses to teach Ben Savage on "Boys Meets World")

           Praise the Movie Gods....the film made its way to Blu-Ray, So we can now indulge and immerse ourselves any time we want in "The Devil's Disciple"s 83 zippy minutes.  Briskly directed by Guy Hamilton, a cinematic Brit Field Marshall who later moved on to the James Bonds, 'Disciple' combines the skewering wit of the George Bernard Shaw play it's based on with action, comedy, romance and a lilting, gorgeous Richard Rodney Bennett music score. Add to that a triumvirate of acting Titans...Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier, and you've entered movie Nirvana.

          Douglas and Lancaster made seven films together and dramatic fireworks ensued every time these dynamic, charismatic Type A scenery chewers bumped up against each other. In this film, they're practically superheroes, with each of their patented surface personas hiding an even deeper, stronger personality.  The plot hinges on Douglas's Dick Dudgeon, a smirking, cynical,wisecracking New England rake whose father has just been hanged as a spy by no less than British General 'Gentlemanly' John Burgoyne (Olivier)  Dudgeon proudly proclaims himself as the Devil's disciple of the title,....his go-to-hell zingers outrage the sturdy, stoic Reverend Anthony Anderson (Lancaster) but magnetically attract Anderson's sexually repressed, conflicted young wife.(Janette Scott) Meanwhile, Olivier's Burgoyne, confounded and bemused by the incompetence of the British War Office, unleashes a barrage of pithy Shaw one liners at his befuddled straight man Major Swinden (the always reliably jug-eared, stiff upper lipped Harry Andrews).

           Then an ironic turn of the plot forces both Dudgeon and Anderson to reveal their true selves....Dudgeon, mistaken for Anderson by British troops who've come to arrest the Reverend for defiantly burying Dudgeon's father, takes Anderson's place in custody, insuring himself a guaranteed appointment with Major Swinden's gallows.....turns out the sarcastic Dudgeon has a heroic moral core after all.  But not to worry.....inside the stolid, sanctimonious Rev. Anderson beats the heart of an implacable, fearless patriot, single minded and strong as an ox.  In his efforts to save Dudgeon from the hangman, Anderson takes on an entire Redcoat regiment in a bravura sequence both swashbuckling and satiric at the same time. While Anderson wreaks comic havoc on the British, Dudgeon, brought before the ever quipping Burgoyne and his sputtering, apoplectic minion Swinden, happily trades barbs with Gentlemanly Johnny as the clock ticks down to Dudgeon's execution.

            None of this bears more than slight,passing resemblance to actual history...you'd probably glean more real facts from the warbling Continental Congress in "1776"....but the "The Devil's Disciple" isn't out to teach history....it wants to poke some effervescent fun at those who made history. (The film does, from time to time, provide historical exposition....by way of, we kid you not, stop-motion puppets. You'll have to see that to believe it.)

           The total package and one of our forever all-time treasures....Beached Quill fires off  its muskets for a full 5 stars ***** and declares this a FIND OF FINDS. Dare not miss it.