Poor Devil

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.

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.

Mega-star Sammy Davis Jr., one of the greatest all-round entertainers of the twentieth century, wastes his talents in this dumb story about a low-ranking devil trying to earn a poor soul for damnation (Jack Klugman).

Christopher Lee is perfectly cast but the script is well below his talents. It's not, however, beneath the talents of Adam West ("Batman") against whom Klugman's character wants vengeance.

Though some people do turn in amusing performances (Gino Comforti) the script is so awful, who cares?

Many of the great, big screen comedians could be slow. W. C. Fields springs to mind. But Klugman is not one of the great comedians of the big screen. Where Fields could be brilliantly funny (though he wasn't, invariably) when Klugman is slow he's merely boring.

The whole thing looks like it was written and thrown together over a weekend after a party where it seemed like a good idea at the time.

How such an inept production got greenlighted and aired is a mystery. Perhaps this is the true story behind it.

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.

"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!