Cast:
Rudy Ray Moore (Dolemite), Lady Reed ("Queen Bee"), Jimmy Lynch (Mr. Motion), Howard Jackson (Himself), Gloria Delaney (Annie "Hurricane Annie"), Jerry Jones (Pete), Sir Lady Java (Herself), J.B. Baron (Sheriff Beatty), Jack Kelly (Captain Ryan), Herb Graham (Cavaletti), Barbara Gerl (Mrs. Cavaletti), James R. Page (Jimmy), and Ernie Hudson (Bo) Directed by Cliff Roquemore.
Review:
"I wasn't saying dirty words just to say them... It was a form of art, sketches in which I developed ghetto characters who cursed. I don't want to be referred to as a dirty old man, rather a ghetto expressionist." - Rudy Ray Moore
I'm sure you remember Dolemite, the 1975 blaxploitation crime comedy directed by D'Urville Martin that saw Rudy Ray Moore as cowriter/star. As the story goes, Moore took the idea for the character from stories he had heard from a man that was around the record store Moore was working at, who did them in rhyme. Moore took the idea and did it himself to the tune of jazz and R&B music for comedy albums, which he distributed from word-of-mouth. The movie that came from it was one that (to put it mildly): kicked ass from all sides of the street. Granted, it was ridiculous in execution to see a hero with sexual prowess and kung-fu fighting skills with profanity galore in a movie that couldn't even keep the boom mic from being seen (at least if one was watching it on a VHS or DVD). Moore would appear in a starring role in four further feature roles after Dolemite: The Human Tornado (1976), The Monkey Hustle (1976), Petey Wheatstraw (1977), and Disco Godfather (1979). Moore has been cited as an influence in rap, as cited by noted icons such as Snoop Dogg, and Moore was the subject of Dolemite Is My Name (2018), which had Eddie Murphy play him in the process of making Dolemite, and the 2009 film Black Dynamite (a parody/homage of the blaxploitation era) even honors the first film with visible boom mic shots. As for the director of the sequel, Cliff Roquemore was behind the director's chair. The Detroit native studied theater at Wayne State University and directed a variety of regional productions before becoming involved in film, for which he was behind the production of a handful of blaxploitation features, with him directing Moore in this film Petey Wheatstraw. Jerry Jones wrote the script for this film just like he did for Moore's last film, albeit without Moore serving as a writer this time.
You know, this may actually be slightly a better-made feature than Dolemite, but that isn't exactly saying much. Saying random highlights might be a disservice when one could see it for themselves, really. The original film was sheer ridiculousness in the level of things it wanted you to go with when it came to general staging. The sequel isn't quite as ridiculous, but there are still various little moments of "of course that happened" here and there, such as trying to pass off the opening as taking place not in California when you can see the Hollywood sign and then find yourself looking at Bronson Cave, the familiar cave of countless B-movies. Hell, Dolemite is shown doing a routine in various clothes, as if they could only film some the funny bits of Moore's act and have to come back on random other days without regard for if the clothes matched or not. The "kung-fu" action is just sped-up regular moving (complete with funny noises), which somehow is sillier than when Dolemite was blowing people away the first time around (since he had a stable of women that were trained in kung-fu). Hell, now you have scenes of Dolemite doing a scene of lovemaking in, uh, a trippy sequence where the "bed" is first seen as building blocks. It even has an "Instant Replay" scene right before the character rolls down a hill (naked, I might add). It is a weird movie that sees Moore talk mostly in rhymes (which seems more noticeable this time around than the previous film). The actors that return from this film aren't any different than before, which sure says something when one deals with a plot involving kidnapping and brief appearances from folks best known for either Maverick or Ghostbusters. The villain this time is just a bunch of weirdo white folks, which is a bare change from the minimally developed villain of the last film (well, at least when you consider that the first film not only had hustlers as adversaries but crooked cops). Hell, the climax is scattershot to the max, considering it ends with our hero having a bullet taken for him only to see him minutes later trick the villain into shooting him in the back due to his convenient bullet-proofed vest (considering all of this started because of adultery, you would think the man would check for more than five seconds about a man he just shot). Calling this a sleazy B-movie is like calling your dumb friend a dumb friend when they do something dumb: what do you expect? These were movies made for audiences that wanted to see Moore and some fun action, which works to the benefit of a viewer who knows what they are going for with Moore: silly weird fun that is clearly of the 1970s. That doesn't mean I endorse the movie as "good", but there isn't anything here that is reprehensible (unless one really expected a "film" rather than a "movie"). A man unlike no other in terms of vibrant ambition, Rudy Ray Moore made a worthwhile second feature after Dolemite that continued the entertainment value found within a persistent and distinctive personality that clearly has a place within black cinema, or cinema in general when it comes to movies that might as well qualify as outsider art.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
Next time: Killer of Sheep.
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