Devil's Partner

Devil's Partner is a 1958 American film starring Ed Nelson, directed by Charles R. Rondeau and produced by Hugh Hooker, an actor and stuntman who had previously made the 1958 film The Littlest Hobo. However the film was not released until 1961 when it was acquired by Roger and Gene Corman's Filmgroup as a double feature with Creature from the Haunted Sea[1] The film was co-written by actor Stanley Clements and Laura Jean Mathews.

Devil's Partner
Directed byCharles R. Rondeau
Produced byHugh Hooker
Written byStanley Clements
Laura Jean Mathews
StarringEd Nelson
Edgar Buchanan
Music byRonald Stein
CinematographyEdward Cronjager
Edited byHoward Epstein
Distributed byFilmgroup
Running time
73 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot summary

The story opens with a hunched old man, Pete Jensen, who lives in a shack in the town of Furnace Flats. He slaughters a goat and daubs its blood within a hexagon drawn on the floor of his shack.

A young man, Nick Richards, comes to town, claiming that the old tramp was his uncle. Alerted to his presence, the town's sheriff informs Nick that his Uncle Pete was found dead of undetermined causes and no one in the town liked Pete. Everyone notices that even though it's incredibly hot, the immaculately dressed Nick doesn't so much as have a drop of sweat on him.

Nick proceeds to run a gas station which he uses as a base to do some petty interfering in the lives of a few locals, driving a wedge between Nell Lucas and David Simpson after Simpson's dog attacks him and mauls his face. Nick Richards seems to be behind all this, and further animal-related incidents occur - for instance, a local drunk is trampled by a horse, a plastic surgeon driving to Furnace Flats to do an operation on Simpson is killed in when a cow lays down in the road in front of his car that causes him to crash and a rattler gets in to attack Simpson in his bedroom. The sheriff goes to the shack and finds a buried goat that is dug up by his terrier.

Ultimately, Nick dies and transforms back into his human shape of Pete Jensen, having had it revealed that he was behind the various animal-inflicted maulings and killings as Pete had sold his soul for a period of two years and the Devil allowed Pete to come back to town to revenge himself on some of the townsfolk in the guise of a young man. At this point, David Simpson's facial wound miraculously disappears and the film ends on a happy note with the townsfolk characters standing over Nick's body in a field.

Cast

Notes
  1. p. 40 Ray, Fred Olen The New Poverty Row: Independent Filmmakers as Distributors McFarland, 1 Jan 1991
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