Poor Devil

"Poor Devil" is one of the strangest TV pilots I've ever seen, with a plot that just seems as if the folks behind it were smoking wacky tobaccy! After all, it was a proposed series about a demon whose job it is to get folks to sell their souls to Satan!! Seriously!

When the story begins, Sammy (Sammy Davis Jr.) is a demon working in the furnaces in Hell as punishment for being so incompetent. However, when he find out about a seemingly easy case, he somehow convinces the Devil (Christopher Lee) to let him go to Earth to sign up this loser, Burnett Emerson. The rest of the show consists of Emerson and Sammy having various adventures as he tries to get this schmuck to sign a document giving his soul to Old Scratch.

Emerson is played by Jack Klugman, as Klugman just finished filming "The Odd Couple" and it would be another year before he began starting in "Quincy". Adam West is his boss...and he's pretty funny as well.

So was it any good? Well, the acting was pretty good...and the story NEVER is dull. I also appreciated how there was no laughtrack...a pitfall too many sitcoms fall into because it's just lazy and traditional. So, while it was reasonably interesting and well made, it also has a serious problem....as I cannot imagine many folks back in the 1970s watching a show about Satan...especially where he and his minions are heroes, of sorts. I can definitely see why the network wasn't keen on this!! But it is never dull and is interesting...so you might want to check YouTube for it (it's currently posted). Just understand that it isn't the greatest print. Plus, oddly, it's actually a variation on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"!! See the film and see how it's similar!

Several times in the past 25 years I have asked myself and others the question, "Didn't I see a movie once where Sammy Davis Jr. played a devil?". No one had ever been able to confirm this to me, and I'd wondered whether I'd imagined the whole thing all these years. (This is a common problem of many from the 70's generation).

Well doesn't it beat all that I'm browsing through the IMDb and I find it! This is, without a doubt, the best database of Movies and TV in existence.

All I can tell you about this movie is that it exists, I saw it, and that it did have a few funny moments.

This was an unsold pilot for a proposed comedy series starring Sammy Davis Jr. as an unlucky devil whose repeated failure to secure souls for his master Lucifer (Christopher Lee) invariably sees him saddled – for a good many century! – with the unenviable job of keeping the furnaces of Hell going. While an amusing enough concept on the surface, it was rather a one-joke idea to begin with – obviously modeled on such popular 1960s comic-fantasy shows as "Bewitched" and "I Dreamed Of Jeannie" and, thus, decidedly outdated and tasteless in an era marked by social (May 1968 and the protests over the Vietnam War) and political upheaval (several assassinations and the Watergate scandal).

Davis seemed unable to find his cinematic feet after the members of The Rat Pack went their separate ways: in fact, perhaps his most notable work thereafter was his "Guest Star" credit in Bob Fosse's SWEET CHARITY (1969) – though he did manage a minor diptych of comedic espionage (made in Britain and co-starring 'old pal' Peter Lawford) with SALT AND PEPPER (1968) and ONE MORE TIME (1970; which, interestingly, features a gag cameo by the aforementioned Lee in his iconic Count Dracula guise!). Lee, on the other hand, was game for virtually anything by this point – so long as he did not have to 'support' Hammer Films by way of yet another forced vampiric outing; the irony is that, while he took umbrage at the company's attempts to bring the bloodsucking myth up-to-date, he presumably was not bothered with the Devil (horribly coiffured, I might add – indeed, the general attitudes on display, which scream 1970s, are lamentable!) receiving the same treatment!! That said, the role really gives him little to do other than scowl at Davis before eventually going soft-hearted and allowing him one last chance in the hope that he comes through as a minion (albeit clad in red).

What the hero has got to do here is find someone who is so inept at performing evil that he would literally need to sell his soul in order to deliver: the patsy he chooses is department store accountant Jack Klugman – so put-on here that he comes across as a predecessor to Paolo Villaggio's Ugo Fantozzi! – who has a gripe with the firm because it has apparently forgotten him (not merely never having been promoted but even missing out on the gift coming to anyone who has been in employment for 25 years!). Though he is intrigued by Davis' offer, he is uneasy about giving away his soul – since this means that in 7 years' time, the devil would come to collect. What drives him over the edge is his misconstruing a situation involving his wife and his supercilious boss (Adam West); to get even, he decides to empty the store of all its contents a mere 2 days before Christmas. To do so, Davis recruits all the souls in Hell emanating from San Francisco (where the tale is set)…but the good-natured Klugman ultimately has a change of heart because in this way he would indiscriminately be putting all of his colleagues out of work (and the troupe has to put everything back before dawn)! West does get his just desserts as, in true Lou Costello fashion, he first witnesses the 'clean up' and, after having labored to bring cops onto the scene, is befuddled to find the store untouched.

The film is a pleasant diversion, to be sure, with some nice ideas (Klugman's initial accident-prone attempt at revenge; Davis' girlfriend suggesting that he update the plan proposed by such hardened criminals as Blackbeard The Pirate and gangster Al Capone to utilize helicopters and Alcatraz for the carrying and stashing of the loot; the way in which Klugman is set free from his contract – Davis sabotaging his own promotion by doing a good deed) but, all in all, it does not exhibit enough style to prove memorable and is simply too lightweight for its own good.

Sammy Davis Jr. mugs outrageously in this tepid TV-made comedy which the producers hoped would evolve into a weekly series. Davis is one of Satan's disciples from "down there" who believes an overlooked accountant in San Francisco is ready to sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for success. The main problem with this Faustian teleplay (poorly-written by Earl Barret and Arne Sultan from a treatment by Barret, Sultan, and Richard Baer) is that eager salesman Sammy is bestowed with no special powers other than the occasional "Bewitched"-like entrances and exits. Since client Jack Klugman has been promised a life of luxury, it's never made clear how Davis will actually provide this for him (they empty out a department store--in a misguided bid for revenge--with help from other clients, who don't appear to gain anything from this exhausting, thankless venture). Christopher Lee is good (and almost unrecognizable) as the Prince of Darkness, Jack Klugman is as smooth as ever, but Sammy Davis is trying too hard. Bereft of an accomplished comedic actor's canny sense of timing, Davis wings it--often relying on painful exaggeration to get through a scene. The star looks out of his element, and is at times distinctly uncomfortable in front of the camera. The production is fine (with a cushy-looking Hades), but the pacing is too slow and the laugh-lines ever infrequent.

It's easy to see why this was not picked up as a series. The best performance is by Adam West, who gleefully plays the villain.

All that's memorable about this pilot is historical. You see outdoor scenes in San Francisco, and the clothing of the time. In this pilot a character is trying to get in touch with the underworld, and starts to phone the Church of Satan downtown. Satan (a youthful-looking Christopher Lee) uses the upside-down pentagram, with horns on it. The 2 fingered sign of Satan with a twist of the wrist, enables a devil to disappear.

Sammy Davis who plays a devil was for a time a member of the Church of Satan. He socialized with the LaVeys and wore his Church of Satan medallion in public.