OH GOD! YOU DEVIL. Directed by Paul Bogart; written by Andrew Bergman; produced by Robert Sherman for Warner Bros. Starring George Burns and Ted Wass. Rated PG.
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Corn sweetener isn't only a food additive. It also turns up in a lot of movies, like this one. Used excessively, it can turn food or movie into something pretty disgusting. Fortunately, however, Oh God! You Devil usually keeps the corn pretty well in hand. Largely thanks to Burns, of course, the master of dry wit and perfect timing.
This latest Oh God! installment has a new twist: Burns plays a double role. In fact, during most of the story he isn't God at all, but the Devil. And the new role, if anything, is funnier than the one we're used to. It's easy to imagine that the little twinkle in his eyes is a bit satanic. And he handles the scenes when the Devil turns nasty surprisingly well.
Bobby (Wass) is a musician/songwriter who's been trying for years to make it big in L.A., but is still playing weddings. After a particularly humiliating rejection, a comment about selling his soul is picked up by the Devil's sophisticated electronic gadgetry. And before he really knows what's happening, Bobby becomes Billy Wayne, a hugely successful rock singer.
He enjoys his fame for a while, but eventually, and predictably, he decides he really was happier as an ordinary person. Fortunately for him, he's been more or less under divine protection since his father prayed for him to get over scarlet fever, 25 years before. So the stage is set for a cosmic confrontation between the ancient antagonists.
Of course, "cosmic" can hardly be used to describe Burns, who is the most down-to-earth of comedians. But a scene in which he plays straight man to himself—the climax of Oh God! You Devil —is quite a treat nonetheless.
Wass is a good comedian and an appealing leading man. His work in TV's "Soap" is still better than anything he's done on the big screen. But Oh God! You Devil is a definite improvement over Curse of the Pink Panther. As a crazy person trying to appear sane, Wass has practically no equal, and he gets a chance to demonstrate that here. He's also good at slapstick, physical comedy, like falls and such.
If Bobby had been a rock musician who makes it big as an easy listening, Barry Manilow type, instead of the other way around, that angle of the story would have been funnier. As it is, rock music appears to be the Devil's work, which is a rather unoriginal outlook.
But this is a minor quibble. And, in truth, any even halfway decent comedian can play opposite Burns, and the result will still be worth seeing. He looks noticeably older here, as well he might. But his delivery is still sharp as a tack and a marvel to behold. A story that would be uncomfortably corny in another's hands is quite palatable in his.
November 21, 1984