Oh, God! You Devil

The popularity of movies targeted at Christian audiences didn't start with Mel Gibson or Kirk Cameron. Hollywood has always had a penchant for religious pictures and movies that play with the notion of a universal belief in the Judeo-Christian deity, even before they realized that church folks who rarely or never go to the movies would flock to films that seemed made for them. I witnessed this firsthand as a little kid when I found myself in line to see the unforgivable Christiansploitation documentary from Sunn Classic Pictures, In Search of Historic Jesus, in 1979. I was eight, but I'll never forget how entirely different the vibe was on that day when my family joined the crowd of Portuguese widows dressed in black, African-American Baptists in their Sunday Best, and Catholics of all varieties with visible rosery needs who joined me and the other children of Unitarian post-hippies in the massive queue that stretched well into the parking lot of the old Cinema 140 in New Bedford back when it was a giant duplex.

It was this crowd that made the lightweight 1977 comedy Oh, God!, written by Larry Gelbart and directed by Carl Reiner—two of the most famous Jews this side of their pal Mel Brooks (whom they initially thought of to play God) into a smash hit. The picture's high-concept premise was simple: What if God was George Burns? Based on Avery Corman's novel, the story follows a supermarket manager whom God chooses to spread his message despite skepticism from the media, high church authorities, and even his wife. The movie was a huge hit with religious audiences who, even back then, felt persecuted and discriminated against because fewer and fewer Americans were living lives based on the doctrine these folks believed was once universal before liberals removed prayer from schools. A film about an ordinary guy visited by the Lord, who spreads God's word (just the good bits like Love Thy Neighbor), and won't compromise his beliefs even though he's mocked and dismissed for them, was catnip for American Christians.

Burns was wonderful in the film, lending his well-established persona to the idea of God as a rumpled, cigar-chomping, unassuming but sassy octogenarian who always gets a kick out of how surprised mortals are at his appearance whenever he makes himself known to one of them. The movie's universal appeal was also helped by casting the most popular white-bread performer of the 1970s, John Denver, as the everyman God enlists to spread his word. Denver, a pop-country singer-songwriter who was a Southern Democrat and environmentalist with a folksy, awe-shucks demeanor, was beloved by most of mainstream America. I highly doubt that picture would have become the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1977 if it had starred Woody Allen in the Denver role, as was Gelbart's intention when he first wrote the script).

Oh, God! was so successful, grossing over $50M of a $2M budget and scoring a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for Gelbart, it spawned a series that continued to explore Christian themes in a contemporary setting. The sequels, all made by different writers, producers, and directors, were never as big as the original. Oh, God! Book II, produced and directed by Gil Cates (the man responsible for all of the best Academy Awards broadcasts), underperformed. Still, Warner Brothers, determined to make a trilogy, had hired two established screenwriters to pen two separate sequels at the same time. For Book II, writer Josh Greenfield (Harry and Tonto) had simply recycled the first film’s storyline, but this time with God asking a little girl to be his messenger on Earth. When Warners approached Andrew Bergman (the original writer of Blazing Saddles who wrote The In-Laws and Fletch before becoming a director in his own right), he decided to revise a half-written play he'd abandoned about a songwriter who sells his soul to the devil and turn it into his Oh, God! sequel submission.

A follow-up that was more a Faust story than a warmed-over rehash of Oh, God! enabled the third and final installment of the series to have as good a high-concept premise as the first film: What if George Burns was God and the Devil? And Burns clearly has a good time playing the Devil as a red-suited, cigar-smoking, mischievous, though not especially evil, supreme being in the guise of a talent agent named Harry O. Tophet who knows how to make things happen in the music biz. It's also a lot of fun to see Burns as Tophet share the screen with himself in his God persona. There is an extended scene near the end of the two of them playing poker for the main character's soul that has an especially good twinning effect. God and the Devil are sitting next to each other at a poker table in Las Vegas, and the Devil deals cards to God, which God picks up. The shot looks like it's achieved with Burns as God sitting in front of a rear screen projection of himself as the Devil, though how the passing of the cards would be accomplished this way, I don't know.

Unfortunately, Bergman doesn't seem to have done much work on his abandoned play in terms of crafting a decent story out of it for Oh, God! You Devil. The plot revolves around a young wannabe singer/songwriter named Bobby Shelton who can't catch a break. At one particularly low point, Bobby says out loud that he'd sell his soul to the Devil in order to get a hit song. The Devil is more than happy to oblige even though this young man is watched over by God. The rules of this movie state that if someone asks for Satan, Satan can take a crack at him, even if God has been protecting him ever since he was a baby. But that's about the only rule that's made clear in this movie. The contract the Devil offers Bobby doesn't enable him to be a star but to take over the body and life of an established rock star named Billy Wayne, who also sold his soul to the Devil and whose contract is just about up. Bobby is reluctant to sign unless the Devil provides him with a fairly obvious escape clause that seems to take the teeth out of the bargain. So when the almighty and his nemesis go head to head in a fight for Bobby's soul, the stakes feel about as low as the energy of two 80-year-old men getting into a fight.

It's also difficult to place this movie in terms of genre. The VHS box was always in the comedy section, but the tone of this picture isn't really comedic at all. This is basically a drama about a desperate guy peppered with some statements and rejoinders from the Devil that may make you smile but won't cause any audience member to laugh. It doesn't help that Bobby is played by Ted Wass, the sitcom actor who made a valiant attempt to jump to features with Curse of the Pink Panther the prior year and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle earlier in '84. Director Paul Bogart has Wass play Billy's anguish and frustration rather than letting him cut loose with his comedic skills. Wass is a good-looking guy, but he's hardly a leading man, and the winey Bobby isn't a character we care anything about.

This was the only one of the Oh, God movies I saw in the theater, and I really liked it as a kid. Though I only saw the first film once and have never watched Oh, God Book II, I rented this movie a lot as a teenager, so I know it had some appeal to someone. But, as much as I have nostalgia for it, and as much as I like George Burns and think he's even more fun playing the Devil as God, this movie never takes off. It's an amusing premise with a few good actors in terrible need of someone to write a funny script with an engaging story.