Author Stephen Vincent Benet worked with composer Douglas Moore to adapt his story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" into a one-act opera in 1938. The two had worked together before on an operetta based on "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" that was broadcast on national radio. The Daniel Webster musical tale was produced by the American Lyric Theater under the direction of John Houseman in 1939.

Radio versions of Benet's first two Daniel Webster stories were produced on the weekly CBS series (1936-1947) Columbia Workshop, a program that used new, relatively unknown young actors and writers (for budgetary reasons) and allowed experimentation with innovative sound techniques, hence the "workshop" of the title. "The Devil and Daniel Webster" was broadcast in August 1938 with a score by Bernard Herrmann. Orson Welles also started at Columbia Workshop, developing some of the sound techniques he would later use in his Mercury Theater radio broadcasts and in his films.

Because it was made at the same studio as Citizen Kane (1941) and used some of the same technicians (composer Bernard Herrmann, editor Robert Wise, special effects expert Vernon L. Walker), some critics and film historians have speculated on how much this movie may have been influenced by Orson Welles's landmark work, which was released five months earlier. Later in his life (when he had become a well-known director), Wise denied any influence, and it is unlikely that William Dieterle, director of The Devil and Daniel Webster, consciously imitated the earlier film. Film historian Bruce Eder, in his audio commentary to the Criterion Collection DVD release of Dieterle's movie, notes that Kane did free filmmakers to use lap dissolves, montage, and other innovative narrative devices. The two movies also share long uninterrupted dialogue passages not all that common to films of the era. In addition, both were produced at RKO under the brief regime of George Schaeffer, who fostered an atmosphere of artistic experimentation at the studio.

When David O. Selznick produced Portrait of Jennie (1948), he specifically hired Dieterle and cinematographer Joseph August because of their work on The Devil and Daniel Webster. Sound man James G. Stewart was also brought on, and Bernard Herrmann, who received a Thank You in the credits, may have also contributed in some way to the score.

In 1942 Bernard Herrmann adapted his score for The Devil and Daniel Webster into a five-movement concert suite. It was first performed on the radio by Herrmann and the CBS Symphony and became a favorite of Leopold Stokowski, who conducted it a number of times in the years after.

Jascha Heifetz was so impressed with Herrmann's creation of the barn dance music using overdubs of the same musician playing "Pop Goes the Weasel," that he was inspired to record the Bach Double Violin Concerto with himself playing both parts.

Aaron Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait" (1942) also quoted the American folk standard "Springfield Mountain," as Herrmann had done in The Devil and Daniel Webster's score a year earlier. When Herrmann heard it, he wrote Copland a scathing letter accusing him of plagiarism.

Faust's tale has been the basis for many literary, artistic, and musical works, such as those by Marlowe, Goethe, Bulgakov, Mann, Berlioz, Liszt, Irving, Gounod, Mahler, Wilde, and Randy Newman.

The story was remade and initially released under the same title in a modern version in which Jabez Stone (Alec Baldwin, who also produced and directed) is a writer who sells his soul to the Devil (Jennifer Love Hewitt) for fame and fortune and turns to his publisher, Daniel Webster, for help in breaking the contract. The script was partially based on Archibald Macleish's 1971 play Scratch, inspired by Benet's story. The movie was filmed in 2001, but it was plagued with financial difficulties and sat unreleased for several years. It is listed as a 2004 release under the original (Benet) title. It was later acquired by another company and re-released in 2007 under the title Shortcut to Happiness. According to Baldwin, the film was re-edited to bear no resemblance to the original story, and he asked to have his name removed from the credits.

Many movies have been made from the Faust legend. One of the most prominent was a 1926 silent version made in Germany by director F.W. Murnau. It featured Emil Jannings as Mephisto (the Devil) and as Valentin, William Dieterle, the future director of The Devil and Daniel Webster.

A Broadway musical and later film version of the Faust legend, Damn Yankees! (1958), told the story of a baseball player who sells his soul to the Devil to help his team win the league pennant.

The Devil and Daniel Webster was parodied in a segment of a Halloween episode of the animated TV series The Simpsons. In "The Devil and Homer Simpson," Homer sells his soul to the Devil (Ned Flanders) for one doughnut. Bumbling attorney Lionel Hutz messes up the trial for Homer's soul, and it's up to Marge Simpson to save her husband. The Jury of the Damned includes Blackbeard, Dillinger, and Richard Nixon.

The story and title were also referenced in an episode of the 1960s television series The Monkees entitled "The Devil and Peter Tork," in which one of the musicians unwittingly signs a contract that sells his soul to the Devil.

A young female mouse sells her soul to become a rock star in the animated TV movie The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978).

A documentary about a cult musician was entitled The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005).

"Faust" (and the adjective "Faustian") has passed into the common language to describe someone whose strong desire for self-fulfillment leads him down a diabolical path or someone whose success can only be explained by a supposed deal with the Devil.

The unholy jury before whom Daniel argues Jabez's case included such notorious figures of American history and legend as Benedict Arnold and Blackbeard the Pirate, presided over by John Hathorne, one of the associate magistrates in the Salem witch trials and the only one who never repented of his actions.

by Rob Nixon