Petey Wheatstraw (1977)

          Calling the supernatural comedy Petey Wheatstraw the best of Rudy Ray Moore’s ’70s films requires more than a few qualifiers. First, all of Moore’s ’70s movies are terrible, suffering from amateurish production, bad acting, excessive crudeness, and general stupidity. Second, Moore’s appeal lives in his over-the-top vulgarity, and Petey Wheatstraw is comparatively tame. Third, the sole reason why Petey Wheatstraw surpasses other Moore pictures is that Petey Wheatstraw tells a somewhat coherent story in a manner that vaguely resembles conventional entertainment. So perhaps it’s more accurate to say that this flick is a good entry point for those unfamiliar with Moore’s singular screen presence. A cult-favorite standup whose routine included boasting, rhyming, smut, trash talk, and pimptastic fashion, Moore was an early architect of elements that later embedded themselves into hiphop culture. That’s why his pictures are considered significant touchstones within the blaxploitation genre. In Petey Wheatstraw, Moore stars as a comedian named Petey, who is murdered by a competitor and then approached in the afterlife by Lucipher (G. Tito Shaw) with a proposition. If Petey agrees to marry Lucipher’s ugly daughter, Petey will be resurrected with special powers so he can avenge himself. Hence the film’s unofficial full title, Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law. After accepting Lucipher’s offer, Petey returns to Earth armed with the devil’s enchanted pimp cane and smites various bad guys. Then he decides to renege on his bargain, leading to a showdown with the Lord of the Underworld.
          Every frame of Petey Wheatstraw is ridiculous. During a prologue depicting Petey’s birth, his mother delivers a watermelon before she delivers the baby, who emerges as a five-year-old boy eager to smack everyone in sight. As a teenager, Petey endures abuse from bullies until he encounters an old man who teaches him kung fu. Lucipher entices Petey by providing a harem full of demon women with horns on their heads, all of whom Petey exhausts with his remarkable stamina. And yet the most absurd scene is probably the one that's meant to be tragic—after a little boy is caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting, much wailing and weeping ensues. What the hell does a cheap ploy for audience sympathy have to do with a rhyming super-stud turning Satan into a chump? As with all of Moore’s atrocious movies, it’s best to just go along for the rambunctious ride and marvel at the sheer idiocy onscreen.

Petey Wheatsraw: LAME

Dolemite (1975) & The Human Tornado (1976)

          Scabrous comedian Rudy Ray Moore made his big-screen debut as the producer, star, and cowriter of the hellaciously bad blaxploitation romp Dolemite. The title character is a pimp/entertainer/vigilante who leads a squad of martial arts-trained prostitutes on a righteous crusade against an underworld opponent. The movie is exactly as insipid as its premise, with the tawdry nature of the project exacerbated by disjointed storytelling and terrible acting. Further, Dolemite awkwardly ricochets between action, comedy, sex, and violence. Despite having the right ingredients for a proper blaxploitation joint, Moore and his collaborators—including director/costar D’Urville Martin—contribute such amateurish work that watching Dolemite is a painful chore. For instance, the movie begins with Dolemite (Moore) getting released from prison in order to function as an undercover operative for law-enforcement authorities. Yet he’s met at the prison gate by a carload of hookers, and moments later, Dolemite grabs a machine gun from his car and cheerfully murders several would-be assailants. Huh?

          To be fair, low-rent blaxploitation pictures were never big on logic, since the fun of such movies stems from kitschy style and lurid thrills. Nonetheless, Dolemite is so stunningly stupid that it’s hard to go along for the ride. Consider these inane lines of dialogue: “Dolemite is my name, and fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game”; “Man, move over and let me pass ’fore they have to be pullin’ these Hush Puppies out your motherfuckin’ ass!” There’s a certain traffic-accident fascination to be had in watching the crude and unfunny Moore, who seems as if he was suffering from a concussion during filming. Still, determining exactly what audiences found charming about the man and his ridiculous onscreen alter ego is challenging.

          When Dolemite returned a year later in The Human Tornado, Moore truly let his freak flag fly. Disjointed, perverse, and surreal, The Human Tornado is a blaxploitation movie on acid. Worse, it seems as if Moore intended for the movie to be a comedy. The plot has something to do with Dolemite fleeing the south after getting caught in bed with a white woman who paid him for sex, because her husband is a crazed redneck sheriff. Dolemite decamps to Los Angeles, where he helps a friend who’s being shaken down by the mob. (Never mind that the friend runs a prostitution ring.)

          In addition to profane dialogue and tragic ’70s fashions (all those jumpsuits!), The Human Tornado features several genuinely bizarre scenes. Half-naked hookers are tortured by a woman wearing grotesque wicked-witch makeup straight out of H.R. Pufnstuf. Dolemite services a woman with such intensity that he literally causes the house around them to disintegrate. (He’s a human tornado, get it?) In another bedroom scene, (offscreen) cunnilingus is intercut with Dolemite eating chicken. Oh, and after Dolemite jumps off a steep cliff, the movie freezes, the text “instant replay” appears on screen, and Moore’s voice intones: “Some of y’all don’t believe I jumped, so watch this good shit!” Then the jump replays. Oy. Need we mention the dream sequence in which naked studs emerge from toy boxes and then ride a slide into a sex-crazed woman’s embrace?

          And since cataloguing the oddities of a Rudy Ray Moore joint wouldn’t be complete without citing at least one choice line of dialogue, consider this sweet remark Dolemite makes to a lover: “All right, let’s get this shit over—I ain’t got all day.” Romance, thy name is Dolemite. In addition to making other projects, Moore periodically returned to the Dolemite character, starring in Shaolin Dolemite (1999) and The Return of Dolemite (2002), before passing away in 2008.

Dolemite: LAME

The Human Tornado: FREAKY

The Monkey Hu$tle (1976)

There’s an interesting and offbeat blaxploitation movie buried somewhere inside The Monkey Hu$tle, but the film’s meritorious elements are suffocated by an incoherent script and half-assed postproduction. For fans of actor Yaphet Kotto, the movie is worth a look because he gives a charming performance as a flim-flam man with funky jargon and a natty wardrobe; Kotto even seems like a credible romantic lead in his too-brief scenes with underused costar Rosalnd Cash. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t primarily about Kotto’s character—instead, The Monkey Hu$tle has about five different characters jockeying for pole position, just like the movie has about five different storylines competing for attention. As a result, the picture is a discombobulated mess, a problem made worse by lazy scoring that features the same enervated funk jams over and over again. Set in Chicago, the movie begins with Daddy Foxx (Kotto), a con man who enlists local youths as accomplices/apprentices. Daddy Foxx’s newest aide is Baby ’D (Kirk Calloway), much to the chagrin of the boy’s older brother, Win (Randy Brooks), a musician who’s had troubles with the law. Each of these three characters has a romantic partner, and the movie also presents Goldie (Rudy Rae Moore), a hustler who’s alternately Daddy Foxx’s friend and rival, plus other subplots including the threat to a black neighborhood posed by impending construction of a freeway. Amid all of this, the single thread that receives the most screen time, inexplicably, relates to Win securing a set of drums. Although The Monkey Hu$tle is so shapeless that it feels like the movie’s still just getting started by the time it’s over, some of the acting is fairly good and the production values are excellent; as a travelogue depicting inner-city Chicago circa the mid-’70s, the movie has value. However, the realism of the settings is undercut whenever the ridiculous Moore comes onscreen, with his atrocious acting and his costumes that seem like leftovers from a Commodores show. Had producer/director Arthur Marks built a solid film around Kotto’s endearing characterization, he might have had something. Instead, The Monkey Hu$tle merely contains glimmers of a legitimate movie.

The Monkey HuStle: LAME

Disco Godfather (1979)

Rudy Ray Moore, a cult-favorite black comic known for his outrageously filthy routines, ascended to B-movie stardom with the pimp saga Dolemite (1975) and its sequel, The Human Tornado (1976), then continued his onslaught of schlocky cinema with The Monkey Hu$tle (1977) and this weird action/drama. In Disco Godfather, Moore stars as Tucker, an ex-cop who grooves on his new career as a discotheque DJ until his favorite nephew, Bucky (Julius Carry), gets mixed up with angel dust. Thereafter, Tucker shifts into ass-kicking mode so he can take down the operation of local dealer Stringer Ray (Hawthorne James). Disco Godfather feels like at least three different movies jammed together. The opening stretch, featuring endless footage of disco dancers doing tricks involving acrobatics and roller skates, is amateurish and confusing but basically lighthearted. Then, once people start having bad angel-dust experiences, the movie kicks into a trippy mode with clunky “hallucination” imagery (generally comprising actors in monster costumes reaching toward the camera). Finally, the picture becomes a full-on blaxploitation action saga, complete with kung fu brawls. In its closing scenes, the movie tries to get heavy because Stringer Ray captures Tucker and pumps our hero full of angel dust, sending him into a crazy series of freakouts and hallucinations. The effect, unfortunately, is far more comic than harrowing. Per the Rudy Ray Moore norm, everything in Disco Godfather is borderline incoherent. Few plot elements make sense, the performances are across-the-board terrible, and the editing is so choppy the movie has a fever-dream quality. Worst of all is the dialogue, which wobbles between formality and hipness. “As you can see, to be a member of the disco squad, you have to be funky and get down.” “I’m personally going to come down on the suckers that’s producing this shit.” “Get the names of all the people who would like to go on a crusade against angel dust.” Especially when considered in the context of Moore’s supersized ego—every single member of the cast and crew is grouped in the credits beneath the heading “Assistants to Mr. Rudy Ray Moore”—the rampant incompetence of Disco Godfather can only be described as astounding.

Disco Godfather: LAME