The Devil and Max Devlin (1981) - Disney Under the Rug

"What we're looking for is fresh, unsullied innocence."

Director
Steven Hilliard Stern

Cast

Elliott Gould - Max Devlin
Bill Cosby - Barney Satin
Susan Anspach - Penny Hart
Adam Rich - Toby Hart
David Knell - Nerve Nordlinger
Julie Budd - Stella Summers


I wouldn't be surprised if the 1981 flick, "The Devil and Max Devlin" is Disney's darkest movie ever. I've heard that their 1978 made-for-TV movie "Child of Glass" is pretty dark for a Disney production as it's about the ghost a murdered little girl. 

Regardless, dark elements, to some degree or another, have been included into their popular animated movies. General audiences never held that against Disney. 

As I've mentioned in my review of the Disney movie, "Something Wicked this Way Comes," the 1980s were a particularly bleak and dreary time for Disney. It reflects in their flicks. 

The company had quite a financial slump back then, rolling out movies that had a continual habit of underperforming, or just straight up flopping all together. That is, until a certain mermaid pulled them out of it. 

It was also dark as far as the content they were producing. In 1985, Disney produced their darkest of animated movies, "The Black Cauldron." It underperformed with negative reviews. But it's a movie I'm anxious to write about. I have a lot to say about it. That's the movie Disney ought to go live action on!

It's still not as dark as "The Devil and Max Devlin." That's definitely not a movie you'll catch on Disney+. And it certainly wasn't among their selections back in the 1990s when they did their whole Disney Vault marketing campaign in which they would release their classics for a limited time before tossing them back into this "vault" of theirs. 

In this really grim and forgotten movie, Bill Cosby plays a demon. Now, I'll add here that there's obviously a lot of room for jokes about Bill Cosby playing a demon when considering his recent convictions and whatever else he got busted for. 

And all things considered, seeing "The Cos" actually play a devil now after his fall from grace might make some people spit their Jell-O pudding out in hysterics, or maybe disgust. Nevertheless, I'm not even going to go there, although I just kinda did.
Anyways, the movie starts with a disreputable apartment manager, Max Devlin (Elliot Gould), who runs a slummy looking apartment complex somewhere in Los Angeles. 

He tries to go out of his way to avoid his angry tenants who have a lot to complain about. 

After dealing with a small rabble of his angry tenants one afternoon, Max runs off to escape their justified complaints, only to have his life end thanks to an on-coming bus. 

Suddenly, he finds himself plummeting into the eternal abyss of everlasting damnation. He falls along with various other souls all screaming and wailing in fear and despair. Again, this is a Disney movie. 

Elliott Gould and Bill Cosby in "The Devil and Max Devlin."

Hell, as you would expect, is a vast cavern of fire, torture and twisted imagery. Down there, Max finds himself in front of an executive board led by Barney Satin (Bill Cosby) who is the Devil's head of managing souls. 

He threatens Max with placement into the fourth level of Hell. 

Max begs to leave. But the only way Hell will let him out is if he finds three innocent souls to take his spot. 

"What we're looking for is fresh, unsullied innocence," Barney says. Again, this is a family movie... from Disney.

I have to add here that current Disney execs and writers have certainly referred back to this old playbook of theirs with their "not-at-all secret gay agenda" they go out of their way to spew into the minds of their young viewers. Just ask Disney's Executive Director, Latoya Raveneau, who stated in front of God and everyone to be, "wherever [she] could, adding queerness" to Disney content and sexualize young viewers.

The Devil normally works in secret, but I guess not so much anymore. Why should he when he's met with hardly any resistance, if any at all, among the current Disney execs.

Anyways, desperate, Max agrees to the ultimatum and his sent back to his body up on the surface. 

Barney still has possession of Max's soul. So, he's not completely free. 

Max has to keep his end of the agreement. He has a few supernatural powers in order to accomplish his task. He can locate to any place just by focusing in on it and desiring to be there. But time is limited. He has a few months to sign over three innocent souls to the Devil. 

If he succeeds, he'll continue to live, and those souls will continue to live until the natural end of their lives. After that, down they go. 

So, in no time, Max has his sights on three young people. 

The first soul is Stella Summers (Julie Budd), a young girl who dropped out of high school and is aspiring to be a singer. However, she's not very good. But Max is able to use his evil power to somehow make her sing phenomenally. 

The next soul is Nerve Nordlinger (David Knell), a nerdy teenager who wants to be an accomplished motorbike racer. 

The last soul is a little boy named Toby Hart (Adam Rich) who lives with his single mom, Penny (Susan Anspach). Max falls in love with Penny and they begin to date, much to the approval of Toby who wants a dad in his life. 

Barney pops in often to see how Max is doing in leading these poor souls to Hell, all while taunting him. Of course, only Max can see and hear Barney. 

The more Max becomes involved with these three souls, the more he discovers that he actually cares for them.

By the very last day, he manages to fool them all into signing contracts to give over their souls. 

Once they all sign, Barney reveals that he lied. All three are going to die at midnight that same day. He also tells Max that he's free to live out the rest of his natural life. When his natural end shall come, he'll still be damned for eternity. Shame on you, Max, for trusting a demon.  

Since that's the case, Max threatens to destroy the contracts by tossing them into a fire. 

Just as he's about to carry out his threat, Barney transports him back to Hell where he reveals his true evil demonic form and threatens Max with the worst torture Hell can inflict if he destroys the contracts. I mean Cosby's character really hurls the threats on heavily. 
"Burn those contracts and eternal damnation is yours," Barney shouts. "You'll know the unmitigated pain and horror of limbs being torn from their sockets! Your limbs! Your sockets! You'll feel pain you've never imagined in life! Yours, forever! Flesh, you'll smell burning! Your flesh! Rotting! Forever!"
"The Devil and Max Devlin" everyone! A Disney family picture! 

The satanic imagery (namely, the depictions of Hell, and Cosby made-up like a demon) is as darker than any Disney picture I've ever seen or know about. Hell looks like something Bosch painted back in the 1500s. No doubt that's where Disney pulled their inspiration from. 

I really want to know who at the Disney Studios back in 1980 thought that this was definitely the kind of film that would fit within the Disney brand.

Who came up with it, and who gave it the green light?   

I have to mention the ending. After Max destroys the contracts despite Barney's threats. By God's grace, his selfless act releases him from Hell's grasp. And the film ends with Max looking up to Heaven and giving thanks to God. 

In a very general way, the movie has some theological soundness. God can permit us to fall, and maybe fall hard, in order to pick us up and elevate us to a higher level than we were before we fell. And if the Devil is involved in our fall, then God can use the Devil to accomplish His will - namely, our salvation. Max figures that out as he tells Penny, "It's like it's good and bad and-and Heaven and Hell and God and the Devil! Penny, look, all my life, I made wrong choices. I made wrong choices!"

Then he pauses a moment and says, "But this time, I made the right choice and the Devil lost my soul! He lost me!" 

Bill Cosby as Barney Satin, in his true form.

Max attributes his turnaround to God. So, there's that. It does try to end on an uplifting and soft note, which it does technically. But it may fly over a lot of heads after just watching some unforgettable depictions of Hell uncharacteristic of Disney, followed by the main character spending the entire movie trying to drag three innocent souls to Hell. No happy ending can reverse that desensitization.

It was a little uncomfortable to watch. It takes a serious religious element (Hell - eternal separation from God), and one man's desperate attempt to save his own soul while damning three young innocent people, and tries to make it light-hearted. Those two sides of the movie don't mix well. 

Perhaps if the depictions had been toned down, it might be more a palatable family-oriented comedy with a religious twist. 

As a practicing Catholic, I'm certainly not above religious comedy as long as it's in good taste and in good faith. Such content from Hollywood is always a touchy subject, especially considering Hollywood has been known, more often than not, for really slamming religion (Christianity specifically) and completely misrepresenting religion in its depictions. That's especially true when it comes to horror movies. And many of the religious comedies coming out recently are just vulgar and ill-intended. 

The 2017 movie "The Little Hours" about a convent of nuns set in 1347 comes straight to mind. I haven't seen it. I don't need to. I read the synopsis and commentary, and that's all I need to know how malicious and mean-spirited it is. Movies like that don't take cheap shots at faith and religion, and those who practice it faithfully and piously such as a cloister of religious nuns. No, they flat out punch it in the face, spit on it, mock it relentlessly and arrogantly, and then kick it some more with maniacal laughter. 

Hollywood will trip over itself to mock religion.

I think when it comes to religious comedies, Monty Python leads the parade with the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", "The Life of Brian," and "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life." A lot of their humor is more satire than mockery, while trying to push the envelope. But take those movies as you will. 

Some religious comedies are lighthearted and bear no ill-intent. The movies, "Oh, God!," "Oh, God! Book II," and "Oh, God! You Devil!" with George Burns and John Denver come to mind, though I admit I've only watched the first one a long, long time ago. I just remember George Burns in the title role, and John Denver's character. 

"The Devil and Max Devlin" does try to be light-hearted but it doesn't feel-lighthearted. What it doesn't do is take cheap shots at Christianity or religion in general, which I appreciate. I wouldn't even call it blasphemous as I wouldn't attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance. 

There's some rather cheesy devil-themed one-liners and idioms sprinkled throughout such as "speak of the devil" and "soul responsibility."

One of them did score a chuckle out of me. 

Max talks to Nordlinger about his riding and says, "You ride like a bat outta hell!"

Bill Cosby suddenly pops his head into frame from out of nowhere and says, "Have you ever seen one of our bats?"

Hell as depicted in Disney's "The Devil and Max Devlin."

I read somewhere, sometime in the past, that there was some controversy casting a black person as a devil in this movie. I suppose that's the other elephant in the room squeezed alongside the dark theme of this movie. What can I say? Hell is all about equal opportunity!

What I will say is that despite his success as a comedian, I honestly couldn't tell you what Bill Cosby movie is the best. All the ones I've seen are lousy. "Leonard Part 6," "Ghost Dad," "The Meteor Man," "Jack," "Fat Albert" were terrible and forgettable to subpar at best. 

Cosby's famous standup show, "Bill Cosby: Himself" is hilarious, entertaining, memorable, and enjoyable. 

His sitcom "The Cosby Show" is a hilarious and successful sitcom. I used to own the entire series on DVD. And I had the pleasure of seeing Cosby live at Kansas State's McCain Auditorium back around 2011. I was in the second row from the stage, which was amazing!

To be fair, his 1974 action/ crime comedy "Uptown Saturday Night" isn't too bad. I've been on the look-out for it, but haven't yet found a copy to watch. 

As of now, Disney just doesn't like their own catalog of movies. They're almost ashamed of both the live action and animated movies that rocketed them into an unreachable level of global success. They slap trigger warning labels on just about all their classics, and then cower in fear lest some self-righteous entitled idiot yells at them on 'X' or wherever else.

"The Devil and Max Devlin" is uncharacteristic of Disney (at least the Disney I and millions of others around my age are familiar with) as are a bunch of the other live action movies Disney rolled out in the 1980s. 

It has some good intentions, but I've heard the road to Hell paved with those. 

The only clip of "The Devil and Max Devlin" I could find is this one dubbed in Italian. If you watch it, keep reminding yourself that this is a Disney movie. Doing that makes it all the more weird!