Petey Wheatstraw.

Review #2345. Petey Wheatstraw.

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.

The Human Tornado.

Review #1974: The Human Tornado.

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.