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Sinister
Soul Cinema month ends with one
helluva bang thanks to the one, and only,
Rudy Ray Moore. About dang time we got
around to reviewing one of his movies,
too, and
I can't think of any reason why it
shouldn't be this one. Ask your average
B-Movie fan about Moore and they'll
automatically think of his Dolemite
movies. Not me. No, Rudy will always be
Petey Wheatstraw to me. Why? Read on...
*
* * *
Our
movie begins in flame (and
I have a feeling it will also end in
flames.)
Considering all the fire, mournful
wailing, and red tinted film, I'm gonna
assume we're in hell. And from behind a
fiery pulpit, Petey Wheatstraw (Rudy
Ray Moore) delivers an even fiery
sermon on how he came to be in this
predicament. It all started on the day he
was born...
...While
a stock-footage hurricane rages outside,
in a run down shanty, Wheatstraw's mother
is in the final stages of labor (and
judging by the size of her load she's
going to have quintuplets.)
When the doctor finally arrives, he joins
in on the expectant couples overblown
hysterics and sticks his head under the
covers to help with the delivery. The
first thing that comes out is a
watermelon. (Fair warning:
watermelon gags will be a re-occurring
theme in our movie.) Tossing it
aside, he goes back under, screams, and
comes back out declaring the unborn baby
bit him! Then, with one final push, the
huge baby comes out diapers and all. (Basically,
she gave birth to an eleven year old.) When
the doctor slaps the baby boy in the butt
to get him breathing, the newborn takes
offense, mouths off (-- it's Moore
alright), and attacks him. After which,
the baby goes after his father for *ahem*
"disturbing" him for the last
nine months. But his mother orders him to
stop this tomfoolery, right now, or she'll
whup him upside the head. And when she
tells him his name will be Petey
Wheatstraw, it sounds more like a curse
then a blessing.
As
the credits roll, and Petey's theme music
is burnt into our brain, we watch an older
Petey Wheatstraw taking some groceries
home. Attacked by three neighborhood
toughs, he puts up a good fight but,
hopelessly outnumbered, the bullies beat
him up and stomp on his groceries -- until
a mysterious stranger runs them off. This stranger
then helps Petey up and introduces himself
as Bantu. When Petey swears that he'll get
revenge on those bullies, even if it takes
him his whole life, Bantu (Brian
Breye) warns that using your whole
life seeking revenge is a terrible waste.
Still, he likes the kid's style, and
offers to teach him how to properly
channel that anger and open a can of
whup-ass. So for the remainder of the
credits, we watch young Petey master the
Martial Arts until the day arrives when
Bantu tells his pupil he can teach him no
more. Surprisingly, after all that effort,
Petey announces that he doesn't want to be
a kung-fu master and his life-long dream
is to be a comedian "to help save the
world from misery." Bantu gives him
his blessings, but if the need ever
arises, to use his powers as weapons
against evil.
We
jump ahead, and now a full grown Petey
Wheatstraw is on stage finishing up his
set (--
and I thought his comedic stylings were
supposed to end misery?)
After he's done, he rounds up his
entourage -- Jimmy (Jimmy Lynch)
and Ted (Ted Clemmons) -- and
catches a plane for the next gig at his
friend Steve's night club in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile,
in L.A., two rival night club owners make
their own deal with a different kind of
devil: Leroy (Leroy Daniels) and Skillet
(Ernest Mayhand) have secured a
large sum of money from a
Mr. White (George Mireless) to renovate
their club in exchange for a share of the profits.
Notorious for busting heads if
one of his investments turns sour, Leroy
swears to Mr. White that their club will be the hottest spot
in town because all the big acts are out
on the road, leaving them with no
competition. Ominously, Mr. White says they'd better hope this is
so.
When
Petey
and his gang arrive in L.A., his first stop
is a radio station to plug his up and
coming gig at Steve's Den. (And I
think the DJ suffers from a lack of soul, which won't make sense unless you've seen Amazon
Women on the Moon.)
Skillet hears the broadcast, and realizes Petey's
shows coincide with their opening weekend!
When the panicked patron tells his
partner, Leroy says they'll try to get
Petey to postpone his engagement. And if
he refuses, they'll just have to get "persuasive."
At
Steve's Den, Steve (Wildman Steve
Gallon -- who
went on to greater blaxploitation infamy
with Super
Soul Brother)
and Petey are arguing over the condition
of the dressing rooms. When Petey says it
resembles an old s**t-house, Steve then
waxes that, somehow, a man's fecal matter
directly correlates with his ability to
make love. (I
ain't even going to touch that one.) Luckily
for the audience,
the conversation shifts gears. Seems Petey's
upset that no promotional posters for his
show have been put out yet. But Ted offers
to take care of it, and his little brother,
Larry (Bryan Roquemore), offers to help
out. Outside, they find the Cosby kids
from the old Fat Albert cartoon in the
process of stripping their limo. With a
busting of rhymes, Petey starts busting
some heads in a scene that is one part Benny
Hill, one part Three Stooges,
and one part Fellini that has to be
seen to be truly believed. To make a long story
short; he runs the
Cosby kids down and attacks them with his
kung-fu (and judging by his skill,
he's forgotten everything Bantu taught
him), and when their kung-fu proves
even worse than his, Petey whips their tails and
makes them put his car back together.
Back
at the rival club, Scarface Willie (Marvin
Jones) returns with a stolen poster for
Petey's show. Showing it to his bosses,
they go ballistic. Figuring Petey
is staying at Nell's place, Leroy wants to
call and negotiate with him until Skillet
wonders if he's still mad at them. At
Nell's house, Nell (Ebony Wright) is about
to be introduced to Petey's *ahem*
friend when the phone interrupts them. It's Leroy,
and, yes, Petey's still mad at them; it
seems they still owe him some money.
However, Leroy
offers to pay it all back if he'll
postpone his show, but Petey refuses and hangs
up. Rebuffed, Leroy tells Scarface Willie to put the squeeze
on Petey, by roughing up his associates,
to help him change his mind. Rounding up
the Jimmy Walker Goon Squad, Willie finds Ted at his mother's house having a
heart to heart with Larry about staying in
school. Ted tells Larry to get in the
house, but he stays and tries to help. A
fight breaks out, a gun is pulled, a shot
is fired, Larry takes one in the chest,
and the young man gives quite a scene as he
dies in his brothers arms. (Seriously!
It's pretty danged good.)
Ted,
Petey, and Jimmy serve as pallbearers at
Larry's funeral. As the funeral procession
moves outside the church, Willie
and the Jimmy Walker Good Squad are waiting to ambush them. Willie
opens up with a machine gun, killing the
soloist, the priest, Ted, Jimmy -- and
Petey!
The dirty deed done, the bad guys leave.
After they're gone, a
lone figure in a big red bowtie comes
upon the scene and surveys the carnage. He
calls to Petey -- who miraculously wakes up
and answers "Who are you?"
Handing him a business card, it reads: Lucifer -- old Satan himself, and he
has a proposition for Petey. But first,
Lucifer (G. Tito Shaw) takes Petey to hell,
pours him a drink (and
might I say, hell is pretty swanky),
and then gets down to business: if Petey will marry his daughter and give
him a son, he will grant Petey the power
to gain revenge on those who killed him.
Using a crystal ball, the Cloven One shows Leroy
and Skillet celebrating the news of his
untimely demise. Being Satan, Petey
realizes there must be a catch. And there
is;
Lucifer shows Petey a picture of his
daughter, and she fell out of the ugly tree
-- and hit every branch on the way down.
With one
look, Petey chooses death and the
flames of hell, but then a mysterious voice from
on high (Bantu?)
tells him to choose more wisely. Hoping to
outwit him later, Petey
accepts Lucifer's terms. They
drink on it, and Lu promises he'll keep in
touch as he unleashes his unholy powers to
reverse the events after the funeral. With
a wave of his hand, the film reverses
itself; blood squibs implode, fallen
bodies rise, and the crowd regroups and is
sucked back into the church. When the film
rights itself, this time, the funeral ends without incident.
Suffering
from a morbid case of deja vu, Jimmy knows something is
seriously wrong. When Petey confesses that
he made a deal with the devil to get revenge on Leroy and
Skillet, Jimmy
doesn't like the terms but agrees they've got a
score to settle. Their
plan begins with Ted luring Scarface
Willie and the Jimmy Walker Goon Squad
down a blind alley, where they fight -- until Petey
shows himself. Since he's supposed to be
dead,
thinking it's a ghost, the Jimmy Walker Goon Squad flees. Petey grabs
the abandoned Willie,
who loudly soils himself, and orders him
to warn his
bosses that one, he's not dead, and two, he's coming
for them.
Leroy
and Skillet can hardly believe this, but
with Willie's soiled pants as proof, they tell him to get cleaned up and
then send the Jimmy Walker Goon Squad over
to Nell's
to finish Petey off once and for all. Over
at Nell's, she is about to be introduced
to Petey's
"friend" -- again, when they're
interrupted by the phone -- again! This
time it's
Lucifer and he has a present for his future son in law: his
cane, and with it, Petey will have all the powers
of the devil at his disposal. Turning his attentions back to Nell,
they're interrupted again by the Jimmy Walker
Good Squad. Petey
makes with his kung-fu -- which consists
mostly of him posturing, and posing, and
going wooga-booga! One of the attackers
has a machete, but he only seems content to just
chopping up Nell's furniture. Then, as the fight
spills out onto the balcony, another
attacker mysteriously turns white
when he's thrown over the side. (No
one will notice, keep rolling!) Beyond
that, I can't even really begin to describe this
fight scene (or
any Rudy Ray Moore fight scene for that
matter)
so let's just say Petey vanquishes the
Jimmy Walker Goon Squad and sends them
scurrying back to Leroy and Skillet.
Rounding up his
own posse, Petey head to the
cemetery to retrieve Lucifer's cane. (And
when
did he tell him where to find it? Never mind.)
While L.A.'s indigenous wolves howl(?)
away at the full moon, Petey drags the
frightened Jimmy into the graveyard. They
hear another, mournful wail -- but discover it's
only a drunken bum who fell into an open
grave.
I
neglected to tell you that we spent a good
five minutes watching the comedic stylings
of this ebony Foster Brooks falling in, but
I decided to spare you.
Finding Lucifer's cane under an old spare
tire, Petey raises it to the sky as stock-footage lightning crashes and
thunder booms -- that sounds like the
same thunder that was always booming after
The Count counted things on Sesame
Street. Back
at Steve's Den, Nell doesn't think
they should mess with the cane and give it
back. Suddenly, the cane comes to life and starts
vibrating wildly. As Petey grabs it, the
cane pulls him into the bathroom, like
a dowsing rod, and points to the trash can
where they find a bomb. Petey grabs the
device, and after a rousing game of
hot-potato, the bomb drops to the floor
and stops ticking. When Petey picks it
back up, the timer starts ticking again.
Screaming "It's alive," Petey
runs outside and tosses it onto a
convenient watermelon
truck where it finally explodes. That's
the last straw. Knowing Leroy and Skillet's grand
opening is set for later that night, Petey promises them
a night they'll never forget.
Later,
as Leroy
and Skillet welcome Mr. White and his wife
to their new club, the loan-shark is pleased with the
turn out. They've reserved him a table
near the stage where a band, clad in the
biggest damn bell bottoms I've ever seen,
have got the funk going in full swing.
When Petey
and his posse arrive, disguised as a bunch
of Jamaicans, they manage to bluff their
way past Scarface Willie and the Jimmy
Walker Goon Squad. (And I use the
word disguise rather loosely -- if just
using a bad Rastafarian accent can be
considered a disguise at all.) We
next find out that Leroy and Skillet are
not only the owners of the club, but
they're one of the headlining acts.
Storming the stage, they tear into their
comedy routine, and
it is genuinely funny, until Petey
raises Lucifer's cane and puts the
hypno-whammy on them. Enthralled, their routine turns
vulgar as Leroy starts taking nasty and degrading potshots at Mr. White's wife.
Skillet tries to shut him up, but is soon
calling the audience foul names, too, and
admitting that they water down all their
drinks. Leroy muffles him, announces the next act, and
retreats off stage. But the
next act fares no better; the song starts
off pretty well, but the singer's beautiful
voice is soon reduced to an ugly croak.
Then Petey zaps her again, causing
her wig to fly off, and then her clothes
quickly follow suit. Not finished, Petey
then uses the cane to whip up a maelstrom that sends everyone
scrambling for the exits. Leaving nothing standing,
Petey exits himself.
Outside, he sees that Mr. White is already
taking care of Leroy and Skillet for him,
and Ted has avenged his brother by taking
out Scarface Willie.
In
hell, Lucifer and his daughter (hidden
behind a black veil) watch all the
carnage through his crystal ball. Since
he's
fulfilled his part of the bargain,
it's now time for Petey to give the Devil his
due.
Lucifer
goes to Steve's Den, but Nell's the only
one there and is told to let Petey know
that he's looking for him. So
where's Petey? He's skipping through the
ghetto using the cane to do good deeds:
solving domestic disputes, saving
children, turning fat-bottomed girls into
slim beauties, and making it rain money.
Again, words fail me. When he returns to
the club, Nell says some
weird dude was looking for him. And inside
his dressing room, Petey finds
Lucifer, there, waiting for him. Petey
swears he didn't forget their bargain and
is looking forward to marrying his
daughter. Placated, Lucifer announces
the wedding will take place tomorrow, and
he'll be by to pick him up at eleven for a
midnight wedding -- in hell. Before he
goes, Lucifer asks for his cane back. But
Petey says
he needs it for just one more day. Lucifer
reluctantly agrees. After he departs, Petey
tells Nell to call Jimmy because he's got
a plan.
Ah
yes, the plan: seems Jimmy is really good at making
things, so Petey asks him to make mask of himself to
disguise a drunken
bum, and send him, instead, to fool the devil.
Also, Petey calls Lucifer (?!) and says that
since he's a guru, he must be in deep meditation
for his wedding and to not wake him up.
His future father-in-law finds it a
strange request but is desperate enough to
accept these terms. Then, rounding up a wino from skid row,
they dope him up, dress him in one of Petey's
finest pimp suits, and Jimmy places the
mask on him -- a perfect match. Nell
worries that the ruse won't last forever,
but Petey assures her that once Lucifer finds
out, they'll be long gone -- and besides,
they have the devil's cane; and that makes Petey
just as strong as he is.
The
next morning, we spy Lucifer, clad in a
red jogging suit, out for a morning run.
He jogs on over to Steve's Den and heads
inside, startling Petey's group who weren't expecting him until later.
Not to worry, Lucifer is there to offer the condemned man a last
wish: a bachelor party -- from hell.
Escorting Petey to a boarded up funeral
home, inside, he finds a swanky, but
empty, bedroom. With a snap of his
fingers, though, Lucifer conjures up eight
beautiful horn-headed (and horny)
succubus, tells his son-in-law to have
fun, and then leaves.
Okay
this next scene is...well...I -- Wow.
That's all I got.
When
Petey
returns to the club with a big smile on
his face, the others want to know where
he's been. It's almost eleven, so they bring
out the disguised wino and wait for
Lucifer's minions. And they don't have to wait
for long as a sudden, evil wind blows through the
club. The real Petey hides as two horned demons
enter looking for him. Turning the fake
Petey over to them, Jimmy and Nell watch
as they
escort him into a waiting limo. Unfortunately,
the wino picks that very moment to wake
up. He sees his horned drivers, panics, pulls off his
mask, and flees into the
darkness. In hell, Lucifer and his
daughter watch the whole thing on the
crystal ball. While she cries, he sends
the Jimmy Walker Demon Squad after Petey
for this treachery. His
minions attack the club, and after a brief
-- yet extremely comical, scuffle, Petey
uses the power of the cane to drive the
demons off. Now good and pissed, Lucifer rounds up a crack platoon of
demons and charges them to go and capture
Petey.
At Nell's house,
Petey and Jimmy quickly pack up her things so they can catch a
plane and skedaddle. But they weren't fast
enough as the crack demon squad
attacks -- in an even more comical fight
scene! As the fight spills outside, the good
guys manage to break away and give the
demons the slip and hide out safely in an alley. Or
so they think. More
demons attack them and Nell is captured
and carried off. Using the cane
to take out the attackers, Petey hears
Lucifer calling to him from the roof of a
nearby building. He has Nell, and if Petey
doesn't surrender, he'll kill her. Before
heading to the roof, Petey quietly tells Jimmy to go and get his car and meet
him out front. Promising to comply with
the original bargain if he'll let Nell go,
when the oddly trustful demon agrees,
Petey reneges and attacks. Pitting the
power of the cane against Lucifer, Petey proves his worth
he gives Lucifer a beat down, picking the devil up, and
tossing him over
the side of the building, the body
bursting
into flames before hitting the ground.
With the
devil vanquished, Petey takes the cane and
break it in half.
He
hits the street and sees Jimmie's car.
When he
gets in, across the street, we see an
identical car pull up. And inside that car, we
see Jimmie and Nell trying to warn him too
late. In
the other car, Petey brags about beating
the devil until a familiar voice congratulates
him and we see Lucifer, alive and well,
and in the front, we see that Leroy and Skillet
(complete
with horns) are the drivers.
There's someone else in the car, too:
Lucifer's daughter, and she's
pleased to finally meet him. Pulling back her black veil, revealing her hideous
face, Petey screams while the others
laugh.
The
end
The
written word just cannot do justice to the
comedic stylings and kung-fu antics of
Rudy Ray Moore movies. I have an even
tougher time explaining to people why I
even like them, let alone champion them or
-- in most cases -- defend them. To each his
own I guess.
Rudy
Ray Moore first translated his stage act
to the big screen with Dolemite;
the story
of the ultimate pimp who comes back to
clean up his neighborhood with his
foul-mouth and fists-o-flurry. (More
on his fighting style in a sec.) Dolemite
isn't a great film -- by any stretch of the
imagination, and from the script, to the acting, to
the technical aspects it's pretty rough on all
fronts -- Petey
Wheatstraw
was the
first Rudy Ray Moore film I've seen where
the boom mike operator didn't make a cameo
appearance. After Dolemite, Moore teamed up with writer and
director Cliff Roquemore for the sequel --
and much better, The Human
Tornado.
Roquemore basically took all the good
parts from Dolemite and ran amok with them
in Tornado,
Wheatstraw and
The Avenging
Disco Godfather.
Inspired by the legend of
Peetie Wheatstraw -- a blues musician with
incredible talents on the guitar and piano,
and was also well endowed in the gift of
gab -- who was widely believed to have sold his
soul to the devil in return for his
amazing talents. Earning himself the nickname
The Devil's Son-in-Law, Wheatstraw met an
untimely death in his early thirties in a
car accident in St. Louis. But the
real Wheatstraw and Moore's Wheatstraw's
amazing gift of talking smack is where the
similarities end, though. Moore's comedy
is very low brow and consists mostly of
dirty rhymes and limericks. And one
such limerick about a bad-ass pimp titled "The Legend of Petey Wheatstraw" appeared on
his album titled The
Cockpit. (And
if you're thinking about an airplane you
haven't been paying attention.) To
see and hear the full dissertation, click
on over to dolemite.com.
Daniels and Mayhand (a/k/a
Leroy
and Skillet)
had several comedy albums out, too, and
were genuinely funny enough that I'd like to hear more. (Although
Daniels bears an uncanny resemblance to
the reverend Al Sharpton -- or Eddie Murphy
in one of his heavy Rick Baker make-ups.)
The
legend of Wheatstraw's musical talents is
matched only by the legend and tales of
Moore's attempts at kung-fu. His fighting
prowess is legendary -- legendarily inept.
Quite possibly the worst
kung-fu choreography ever committed to
film, but, damn, if it isn't hilarious!
Again, a lot of it is just posturing and
head-bobbing and making guttural noises.
In fact, a lot of those noises are looped
in, and, so help me, it sounds like Richard
Kiel's caveman gurgling from Eegah!
This
entry was Moore's third film and they had
smoothed out a lot of the rougher edges. Most
of his co-stars are part of his entourage,
or friends from the comedy club circuit,
and frankly, the acting isn't that bad; it's
just the absurdness of the situation that
makes them look silly. Still, I believe the entire cast realizes this
wasn't Shakespeare and have a ton of fun.
Kudos have to go to
Shaw for his remarkable performance as the
devil -- and to Leroy and Skillet. (Seriously,
you can see where Eddie Murphy based a lot of
his act on these guys.)
The
script is absurd, and though a large
portion of it appears to be adlibbed there are
some real comedic gems buried here and
there. The thing that always gets me about
Moore's films, is that the reels appear to be
out of order because just when you think
it's over, it goes on for another half
hour. But I do like the ending, here,
where the devil finally gets Petey. A
cheesedick ending, sure, a true Hollywood
staple, that was required in all movies
that involved Satan.
When
Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Pam Grier,
Richard Roundtree and Ron O'Neal returned
in the blaxploitation homage Original
Gangstas, I was
more than disappointed that Moore
didn't even rate a cameo appearance. Actually,
I'm surprised that some studio genius
hasn't tried to round up Moore, William
Marshall, Rosie
Greer (along with Ray Milland's
fake noggin) and Bernie Casey (Dr.
Black and Brother Hyde) for a crack at
Original Monstas. Heck, to see this, I'd
even let them throw in Eddie
Monster. Hopefully, someone will read
this and we'll see it on video shelves
very soon.
Well,
that about does it for Sinister Soul
Cinema month. I hope everyone had as much
fun as I did. Until next time, remember:
keep the faith, and don't let the man get
you down.
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