The Devil's Disciple

A film set during the American War of Independence, adapted from a play by Bernard Shaw. Dick Dudgeon is the man the town dislikes. He does not go to church, mocks the pious and declares himself the devil's disciple. The Reverend Anderson is his opposite: respected, measured, the person everyone trusts. The British army arrives and decides to arrest the minister. But when they enter the house it is Dick who is there, and without explaining anything he accepts that he is the minister. So he is the one to be hanged. That is the play's idea: who is genuinely moral has nothing to do with who looks it. The narrative sustains that inversion to the end and exchanges the positions of both men. The most-cited performance is Laurence Olivier's General Burgoyne, a commander who treats the war as an administrative problem and keeps making jokes. Burt Lancaster plays the minister and Kirk Douglas plays Dick. The director changed during production and Guy Hamilton took over. An enjoyable example for anyone who likes Shaw adaptations and dialogue-driven classics. For a viewer expecting a war film, there is little fighting and the narrative is built entirely on talk.