This six-part serial was once impossible to find but has recently turned up in the usual places. It has been knocked by some Sexton Blake devotees as being "best forgotten" and "played for laughs," but neither claim is true. "Demon God" is affectionately nostalgic and tongue-in-cheek, but never descends into outright comedy. It's a loving, deliberately overripe tribute to old pulp thrillers. In its full-throated embrace of old pulp, the miniseries is also something of a precursor to Indiana Jones, albeit with less action and a much smaller budget. The script was novelized by John Garforth, but his rather thin book leaves out too many twists and turns and is no replacement for the actual program.
The series was scripted by Simon Raven, best known for his novel series "Alms for Oblivion" and his prolific work adapting literature like "The Pallisers" for TV. He also dabbled in film work and contributed dialogue to "On Her Majesty's Secret service." The dialogue in "Demon God" is in his crisply elegant and dryly humorous style. The content is a bubbling crock-pot of classic Edwardian/Georgian pulp: sinister fez-wearing pashas, crazed foreign cults, human sacrifice, cross-dressing, snake pits, mummies, cursed artifacts, and shrieking damsels in distress.
Set in 1927, the serial pits Sexton Blake (aristocratic-looking Jeremy Clyde) and Tinker (Philip Davis), his working-class Watson, against the learned and lascivious Hubba Pasha (Derek Francis) and his slimy cousin Maremma Bey (Linal Haft). The Egyptian villains have purchased Zigiana (Jacquey Chappell) a lovely Greek girl, to sacrifice to the demon God Chemos. Will Sexton and Tinker save her in time? Will Chemos mark Hubba Pasha as the chosen one to receive his powers? Only one way to find out!
Director Roger Tucker does the best he can with a tight budget and cheap sets, and he gets lively performances from the cast. Raven's script is somewhat leisurely and could have been condensed into five episodes rather than six. And if someone at the time had the bright idea of turning the project into a two hour film with a proper budget and a little more action, the British might have beaten Spielberg and Lucas to the pulp revival film. Alas, the British film industry was at an all-time low in the late 70s.
