His progress through school, like his birth, having been briefly portrayed, he first finds work as an office helper performing menial tasks, or tea boy.

[2] A little later, his first major step toward improving his lot is to marry his boss' daughter Evie after getting her pregnant out of wedlock; now saddled with the responsibilities of a family, he is given a job in his father-in-law's factory.

He allows his growing dissatisfaction with his existence to lead him into the arms of various women in his business travels—Russian official Anya, German domestic Ilse, and American cabaret singer Ginnie—as he searches for something better than he has.

[3] Producer David Merrick, characteristically impressed by the play's evidently representing a low-cost project requiring minimal sets and costumes and a small cast, decided to stage the show in New York City.

A Broadway revival directed by Mel Shapiro opened on August 3, 1978, at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center, where it ran for 30 performances.

Now starring Newley and Rhonda Burchmore, the show obtained a slight update, but it retained the Nazi-ish Fräulein, the Bolshevik Russian girl, and the Judy-Holliday-ditzy American blonde—all much more distant than in 1961 and thus outside the experience of anyone under 40.

Directed by Philip Saville, it featured additional material by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, David Donable, and Al Ham.

"[8] Tom McElfresh of The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote: The 103 minutes of film resulting from this ill-advised project are as boring, depressing and irritating an exercise in how not to make a movie as has ever been exhibited for money.

"Sammy's" sound isn't as good as that you might remember from the earliest Vitaphone short subjects; when you can hear, which is far from all the time, the voices come hollowly from a great distance.

[9] Michael Clark of the Detroit Free Press called it "one of the half-dozen most humiliating and embarrassing times any filmgoer can ever hope to spend in a motion picture theater.

"[10] Robert C. Trussell of The Kansas City Star said that "the Newley-Bricusse work has been stripped of most of its inherent—albeit marginal—interest and has been redesigned to allow Davis to mug shamelessly and milk the audience for cheap laughs with a multitude of low comedy routines.

"[11] Edwin Howard of the Memphis Press Scimitar called it "merely a dumb show with scenes pointlessly juggled and re-jiggered in the editing.

"[12] Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News called it "a vanity film for Davis and his fans,"[13] while Ernest Leogrande of the New York Daily News wrote that "the passage of time painfully emphasizes the show's heavy-handed reliance on national stereotypes and the show, blown up to screen size, is a gassy business.

[15] David Mucci of The Lexington Leader wrote, "To truly enjoy the film, the viewer must be a Sammy Davis Jr. fan and appreciate the type of musical experience he delivers.

"[16] These sentiments were echoed in The Courier-Journal by Owen Hardy, who also called it "a boring, tasteless, offensive display of almost total non-talent.

"[17] Janet Maslin of The New York Times said that "this version of Stop the World features a gaudy set, a few uneasy references to current events, and floppy, ill-fitting costumes on everybody but Mr. Davis, who wears a silky sweater and pants but no jewelry, because he is supposed to start out poor"; she concluded the review by saying that "music, mime and merriment are in abundant supply—all the ingredients of a perfectly nice evening at a dinner theater in a suburb somewhere.