NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (February 2024): Criterion have transferred William Dieterle's All That Money Can Buy (a.k.a The Devil and Daniel Webster) to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 4K digital restoration". Criterion produced a DVD (under the title The Devil and Daniel Webster) back in 2003 - reviewed HERE. The Masters of Cinema produced a DVD in 2009, reviewed HERE. We've compared frame-matched captures below. The SD transfers appear a shade vertically stretched (thinner faces) where the 1080P is correct. It supports the grain textures and exports nice contrast layering with richer black levels. The overall image is darker, doesn't have the scratches that were on the 2003 Criterion DVD and comes across far more film-like. I really enjoyed this HD presentation - a bona-fide improvement.

This version appears to be a minute longer than the DVDs which appears to be because of the new restoration credits preceding the film.

NOTE: We have added 56 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use an authentic linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. All That Money Can Buy has some aggressive dramaturgy but a vibrant score by the incomparable Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, Blue Denim, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, Cape Fear, Taxi Driver, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Wrong Man, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts, Obsession, Hangover Square, etc. etc.) always impacting and very supportive of All That Money Can Buy's idyllic farm-life, creepy Scratch and the courtroom drama sequences. Herrmann incorporated several traditional folk tunes, including "Devil's Dream", "Springfield Mountain" and a diabolical version of "Pop Goes The Weasel" played on the fiddle by Scratch. Criterion offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' / 'B' Blu-ray.

The Criterion Blu-ray offers almost all of the old extras from their 2003 DVD; including the commentary by Bruce Eder and Steven C. Smith (A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann.) Also duplicated are the 1/2 hour reading of the short story by Stephen Vincent Benét on which the film is based - by actor Alec Baldwin, 7-minutes of comparing of the differences between the July 1941 preview version of the film and the films Here Is a Man, and the film’s 1943 re-release as The Devil and Daniel Webster plus the 1/2 hour Columbia Workshop’s radio adaptations of Benét’s short stories “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and “Daniel Webster and the Sea Serpent,” both featuring music by Herrmann. New is a 1/4 hour episode of the Criterion Channel series Observations on Film Art about the film’s editing where Professor Jeff Smith walks us through the basics of continuity editing and shows how William Dieterle’s Faustian fever dream adheres to that code while testing the limits of its expressive potential. There is also a short, new, restoration demonstration and an All That Money Can Buy trailer. The package has the same liner notes booklet as t he 2003 DVD with an essay by author Tom Piazza (Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America) and a 1941 article by Benét.

William Dieterle's All That Money Can Buy has a proto-noir layer to it with a person in a desperate moment of weakness giving up their soul (and by extension; their morality) for money - plus it coming back to haunt them in a dire way. And, I suppose, Simone Simon's sexy 'Belle' as an enticing femme fatale. The film's title was originally changed to All That Money Can Buy to avoid confusion with Sam Wood's romantic comedy The Devil and Miss Jones with Jean Arthur and Robert Cummings - also released in 1941. Later The Devil and Daniel Webster title was restored on some prints. Dieterle founded his own production company after the success of his 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton and wanted All That Money Can Buy to be the first film he made for RKO Pictures under his new contract. Possibly because Dieterle had appeared, as Valentin, in F. W. Murnau's silent film, 1926's Faust which The Devil and Daniel Webster story is based. It's an exceptional film filled with New England Americana and a sly, but wholesome, supernatural story of defeating fate. We all have a chance. I am very pleased to finally have it on a Criterion Blu-ray after seeing it over 20-years ago on DVD. Our absolute highest recommendation!

Gary Tooze