SWERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (3)

By: Adrienne Crew
July 8, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite unfinished masterworks, legendary obscurities and cherished almost-weres.

POOR DEVIL

In 1987, I first I learned about Poor Devil, the 1973 pilot about a hapless devil trying to convince a mortal to sell his soul to Satan.

I was in an entry-level program for aspiring TV programmers at CBS in Los Angeles. Managers called us Pages (we were glorified ushers) and made us wear red polyester uniforms in the hot sun while distributing tickets to the less popular game shows like Card Sharks or Press Your Luck. It was hell.

Killing time, we would trade stories about scripts that would never be produced by a big-league television network. A film student spoke about Poor Devil. After attending some orgies with devotees of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, Sammy Davis Jr. pitched the idea of the world’s first satanic sitcom to NBC in the early ’70s. Surprisingly, the suits bought the idea and made a pilot, starring Davis, in 1972. It aired on Valentine’s Day 1973. After religious groups protested, NBC opted not to make a series out of it.

An urban legend had been born. I had to see this piece of pop cultural madness. I read Sammy Davis Jr.’s memoirs, searching for tidbits about his involvement with Satanism. I collected stories about the pilot from TV veterans. Folks told me stories about Satanic orgies, enjoying illegal substances with Mr. Davis, or crazy coincidences. Did you know that Jay Sebring, future Manson Family victim, had attended Sammy Davis Jr.’s first Church of Satan ritual in Hollywood?

The pilot became my Necronomicon, that book of spells mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft stories. I chased my dream after moving to San Francisco for law school. My search gave me entree to a lot of strange scenes. In Oakland, I partied with Afrofuturists. I listened to Erik Davis speechify about techgnosis in Haight-Ashbury cafes. I joined covens in San Anselmo, attended proto-Burning Man parties on beaches, and worked for dot-coms in order to get that Poor Devil tape. My quest ended when I returned to Los Angeles. By 2015, nearly every hipster publication had related the pilot’s production history on the Internet. A crappy dub of the pilot has been on YouTube for years.

I finally saw the pilot on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it, but it could never live up to my expectations. My occult education has helped me to see the special Luciferian signifiers. I did enjoy the pilot’s witty art direction and costumes. Demons wear red polyester outfits with pendants fashioned to look like devils’ heads out of sigils representing Venus and Mercury. When Sammy the devil finally makes it into Beelzebub’s office, we see Old Nick with a giant inverted pentagram hanging on the wall behind his desk. Flame-shaped sconces light the interior. Minions salute Lucifer, played by reputed Church of Satan member Christopher Lee, with the Devil’s Horns hand signal.

I’m glad that I finally saw Poor Devil. But like most Faustian bargains, the seeking is more interesting than the object of desire.

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SWERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (3)

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