René Clair's updated version of the Faust legend is made with a twist of irony that finds Michel Simon playing both Faust and Mephistopheles, and both playing with fire in a thoroughly modern way. Clair, an early opponent of atomic weapons, has the devil promising Faust the gift of the Bomb. When Gérard Philipe, as the poor knight Henri (a young incarnation of Faust), has a vision of the horrifying potential of such a use of science, he puts the devil to flight with a popular revolt. This is Clair's bittersweet whimsy, and the droll smile of his earlier works is still present in Beauty and the Devil; but a new earnestness can also be detected. Film historian Georges Sadoul has noted that the theme of atomic war was illusive to the 1949 audience, but Clair himself has stated, “All my contemporaries have the privilege of taking part in the spectacle of humanity which, having sold its soul to science, tries to forestall the damnation of the world towards which its own efforts are leading.”