If you’re not familiar with the 1973 TV movie pilot, Poor Devil, starring Sammy Davis Jr as a bungling devil, Jack Klugman as his intended victim, and Christopher Lee as Satan, you’re in for a campy, kitschy, somewhat surreal treat. I mean, it’s a cast from Hell, right?
A lighthearted spin on the Faustian bargain, you’d have to assume that this NBC-financed project was inspired by its star’s membership in the Church of Satan—the Candy Man showman was inducted as an honorary warlock at the Circle Star Theater in April 1973.
Poor Devil was clearly cooked up by someone who thought, “What if Bewitched but hell-themed and a little bit Vegas?” The plot is simple enough: Sammy Davis Jr plays a low-level demon named ‘Sammy’ who’s desperate to move up the infernal corporate ladder. Satan is played, of course, with seething, Shakespearean gravitas by Christopher Lee, giving him one chance to earn his horns: corrupt a sad-sack San Francisco accountant (Klugman, terminally schlubby) into murdering his cruel boss. Hijinks, naturally, ensue. The whole thing plays out like a diabolical buddy comedy filtered through a polyester leisure suit.
The devil’s den is a low-rent afterlife bureaucracy, somewhere between a smoky union hall and a downtown IRS office. There are lava lamps. Secretaries wear miniskirts. The “deal” at the heart of the story isn’t so much dark or damning as it is vaguely inconvenient. There’s a strangely detached quality to the whole thing, almost as if everyone involved knew they were in something weird but weren’t entirely sure why.
“I’ll call the Church of Satan downtown, they’ll know how to contact him.”
Sammy Davis Jr – Poor Devil
It can’t be denied that Sammy Davis Jr absolutely commits to this thing, though, which might be the most shocking part. Dressed like a Soul Train lounge act on a Satanic cruise ship, he zips between impish charm and manic energy like he’s still trying to impress Sinatra. You can feel him trying to make the most out of every goofy line, every underwritten gag, every eyebrow raise. He’s got that jazz-cat rhythm in his delivery, even when the material is barely there.
All things considered, though, critics didn’t quite know what to do with Poor Devil. It wasn’t funny enough to be a comedy, scary enough to be horror, or sharp enough to be satire. Most shrugged it off as mid-tier TV fluff with a weird cast, which might be fair. Some were mildly amused, and a few were mildly baffled. But it never really got properly trashed, it just sort of disappeared, like so many half-baked TV pilots of the era. Still, over the years, it’s picked up a strange kind of afterlife. Occult-curious viewers, Davis stans, and kitsch obsessives have kept it circulating.
Looking back, it’s kind of incredible that this even got made. A Faustian sitcom pilot with a Satanist jazz legend, Dracula, and Oscar Madison? On NBC? In 1973? Bizarre. Maybe it was never meant to go to a series. Maybe it was just a glamorised inside joke, a Satanic vaudeville skit that got out of hand. Either way, Poor Devil remains a glorious curiosity.
In any case, it’s pretty amusing if you like this kind of thing. TV’s Batman, Adam West, and familiar-looking character actor Gino Conforti are also featured. This originally aired on Valentine’s Day, 1973, which feels kind…perfect?
