THE CANDY MAN’S TASTE FOR SATANISM

At Feature Well Productions, it’s an article of faith that a truly great story has to be great when told across multiple media. So it was with FWP co-founder Alex Bhattacharji’s article about Sammy Davis Jr.’s Satanic faith: “Sammy Davis Jr.’s Dance With The Devil” ran as a print piece in Rolling Stone, but was conceived from the start as a story to be developed into documentary and scripted projects—which it is, in partnership Rolling Stone Films.

The creative spark is a starting point, but it will burn out quickly without a storytelling strategy. Oscar-nominated documentarian Eddie Schmidt approached Alex with the seed of an idea that was cinematic at its core, and the pair mapped a pathway for this story, starting with a magazine feature that had long-tail potential across various formats.

With the help of Rolling Stone editors Kate Storey and Sean Woods, Alex produced a vivid and engrossing narrative that traces Davis’s flirtation with Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, a scene he first encountered on the Hollywood party circuit in the late ’60s. As Alex’s in-depth reporting revealed, Davis didn’t just dabble. He attended Satanist services and studied its tenets. He leveraged his star power to convince NBC to film a (failed) TV pilot called Poor Devil about life in the service of Lucifer. He was made an honorary warlock by LaVey and forged a deep bond with the Church of Satan’s founder and high priest. He practiced Satanic rituals until his dying days. It wasn’t about devil worship for Davis—it was about rebellion, reinvention, and grabbing hold of a narrative that had long been shaped by others.

In Alex’s hands, the bathos of this wild story is balanced with pathos, as he deftly shows how Davis’s lifelong search for belonging led to his immersion in the occult. Rich with world-building and revelatory details, the resulting story is an exploration of identity, performance, and the masks we wear when we want to be seen

Read the full feature HERE: