Cast:
Rudy Ray Moore (Petey Wheatstraw; Danny Poinson as Young Petey Wheatstraw and Clifford Roquemore II as Baby Petey Wheatstraw), Jimmy Lynch (Jimmy), Leroy Daniels (Leroy), Ernest Mayhand ("Skillet"), Ebony Wright (Nell / Pet, The Devil's Daughter), Wildman Steve (Steve), G. Tito Shaw (Lucifer / The Devil), and Ted Clemmons (Ted) Directed by Cliff Roquemore (#1974 - The Human Tornado)
Review:
Honestly, I forgot that it has nearly been five years since I stumbled across Dolemite (1975), which starred the one and only Rudy Ray Moore, which was gloriously ridiculous from the top all the way down in terms of filmmaking and general execution in a way that you can't really hope to replicate. But of course, Moore continued to appear in movies, such as 1976's The Human Tornado and The Monkey Hustle (where he basically was doing a cameo) ...which did not go great. But you can't blame Moore for continuing to dip the toe in doing movies when the time seems right to do them. Cliff Roquemore (who, well, directed the Dolomite follow-up) is credited as having written the film as "based on the character created by R. R. Moore", one in which the movie also has a subtitle of "The Devil's Son in Law". Moore would headline one more theatrical film with Disco Godfather (released in 1979 that Roquemore co-wrote) before a string of appearances ranging from bit parts to "direct-to-video" would occur for the rest of his career. Okay, get this: our title character is one who came out of the womb as basically a six-year-old that turns to kung fu and, well, nightclub comedian. In the first twenty minutes, one gets to see our lead have his vehicle nearly robbed before he does a chase on foot to beat them up and make them re-assemble his car, for example. It doesn't take too long for him to do a line pretty similar to Dolemite, what with a line such as, "you no-business, barn rat, soup-eating, son of a- (well you get the idea)". This goes right in hand with, uh, a child getting shot and murdered as part of the thrown-together plot of extortion that yes, does deal with a guy dying and coming back to life with help of the Devil. Actually, I almost forgot, right after the, you know, child murder, the funeral party is *shot at with machine guns in broad daylight*. At least this Devil story has its own twist: the Devil will grant our hero the chance for revenge (which starts by rewinding the whole "murder in broad daylight" thing) ...as long as he marries the Devil's daughter and gets busy.
Did I mention the magic pimp cane? At any rate, the nicest thing I can say about this movie is that it might be the kind of movie one watches for sheer curiosity. Just describing scenes that happen in the movie for a review seems like a futile way to talk about a movie that doesn't exactly take itself seriously in the first place, as if being a piece of schlock is the worst thing imaginable. For the most part, it is committed to just throwing gags to the wall and living by what seems to stick, which is basically hit and miss for its 95-minute runtime, where Moore is amusing here and there. I just wish Shaw was a more interesting figure when it comes to, you know, playing the Devil, because even a moderate foil to go against Moore would be helpful rather than a movie that drifts in commitment from moment to moment. Daniels and Mayhand were actually a comedy duo in their time and even did a bit of television together (hey, ever heard of Sanford and Son?), so the bumbling they do is about on point moment to moment. You get a few silly fights and some tricks with rewinding/fast forwarding to go with one joke about scaring someone right in the pants. The ending is probably about as appropriately half-assed as possible: you get a bit of "fighting" to go along with a fake-out ending, which I suppose works better than the Devil being brought down by a comedian that loves the hell out of a cane. As a whole, the rule of diminishing returns doesn't apply as severely here with Moore because one can at least appreciate the brazen energy displayed on screen while noting that a hit-or-miss comedy is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes you might just get lucky with what you find. I can't say it's "good enough" to win out, but if you can dig what the movie is selling, well, start digging...
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
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