Petey Wheatstraw (1977) // Dir. Cliff Roquemore

Just a series of films that I watched during February.

Hypothetical for you all: You die inside of a horrific drive-by shooting while attending the funeral of a family friend, only to be visited by none other than The Devil himself! He offers to bring you and everybody who died in the drive-by (not the family friend, don't worry about it), as well as grant you a magical staff that'll give you the power to warp reality around you to suit your whims... but in exchange, you have to marry his daughter at the end of the month. This will allow you to become the new [Insert Noble Title of Your Preference Here] of Hell, since he's planning to retire after having the job for so long.

However, when he shows you a picture of his daughter, she is so hideous and repugnant to your senses that merely seeing the image depicting her makes you want to vomit. (And before you ask, no, you cannot use the Staff to alter the Devil or his Daughter, they are immune to its effects).

Do you accept the terms of his deal, or do you allow yourself and everyone else to go to Hell? What do you do with his reality-warping staff now that you're alive again, if you do choose to accept his terms? And, most importantly: do you try to get out of the marriage with his daughter, if so, how, or do you bite the bullet and accept your fate as the Devil's In-Law?

Tl;dr: You and a bunch of friends die and are sent to Hell, and The Devil offers to revive everyone in addition to granting you a magic staff that let's you warp reality at will. However, in return, you have to marry his incredibly repulsive daughter at the end of the month and become the new [Insert Noble Title] of Hell in his place. Do you accept the terms of his deal? What do you do with the staff in the living world? Do you try and cheat the devil out of his end of the deal by not marrying his daughter? If so, how?

Petey Wheatstraw (1977)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

As long as there have been cult movies, there have been delusional filmmakers who’ve thought “Hey, I can do that on purpose!”. It never works. Something incompetently made in all earnestness like Troll 2, The Room, or Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is miles away from a film that deliberately tries to look shoddy. Petey Wheastraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law lives somewhere between the likes of “The VelociPastor” and The Human Tornado. It’s got some genuinely funny moments and some unintentional hilarity. The rest is a lot of untalented people sleepwalking through a film production.

After learning “Kung Fu” from his mentor, Petey Wheastraw (played as a baby by Clifford Roquemore II, as a young boy by Danny Poinson and Rudy Ray Moore as an adult) swore he’d never bow to anyone - living or dead. Now a successful comedian, he's asked by his rivals Leroy and Skiller (Leroy Daniels and Ernest Mayhand) to postpone his show so they can make the money required to pay back their debts. He refuses. Scared the mobsters they owe money to will ice them, they decide to assassinate Petey. In Hell, he's offered a deal by Lucifer (G. Tito Shaw): he can return to Earth to enact his revenge if he agrees to marry the devil’s daughter once he’s done.

Rudy Ray Moore playing a successful comedian who “knows” martial arts", gets with the ladies and speaks almost entirely in rhymes? Are we sure this isn’t another Dolemite movie? It might as well be. The only thing that separates this picture from those is the supernatural element but that wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for The Human Tornado. While Rudy Ray Moore’s filmography isn’t exactly known for its brilliant performances, well-written scripts, convincing stuntwork, production values, or any sort of quality, this represents a new low, primarily because it doesn’t feel like anyone is even trying.

The martial arts fight scenes are pathetic. Wheatstraw’s opponents patiently wait on the sidelines until it’s their turn to pretend like the punches and half-hearted kicks collide so they can fall over and go to sleep. To be fair, it's what you'd expect from Moore's filmography. More disappointing is the relative absence of comedy. In the past, his films have always found a way to crowbar a proxy of his act into the running time. Not today. There’s an all-too-short monologue at the beginning, and that’s it. This means the film’s best joke isn’t delivered by our hero; it’s by the murderous comedic duo who can’t afford to see him succeed.

Actually, Wheatstraw’s status as a hero is debatable. I know the Devil’s the Prince of Darkness and all, but in this movie, at least he’s honest. He offers Petey a simple deal: marry my daughter in exchange for revenge. It isn’t like Petey’s being tricked into the union, it’s what he signed up for. Of course, since she's ugly, Petey wants to worm his way out of the agreement asap. His idea is so dumb it’ll convince everyone watching that this is a bad film.

Faced with the prospect of matrimony with a monster, Petey decides to trick the ultimate trickster. His plan? Grab some random wino on the street, knock him out and pass him off as himself “in a profound state of meditation” with the help of some clothes and a convincing mask (so in movie terms, having Moore play him). By the time the drunkard wakes up, Petey and his friends will be long gone.

Where do we begin? Firstly, damning some poor soul to the wife you agreed to marry doesn’t make you likable. Second, how stupid does he think the Devil is? Third, where is he planning on going? Lucifer is a supernatural being. He’ll find you without much difficulty. Fourthly, how convenient that one of Petey’s close friends happens to be an expert makeup artist. If he didn’t have this skill, we might’ve had to use the magic pimp cane he’s been using to enact his revenge by transforming men into dogs, making objects levitate, manipulating people like a puppet master and more. It’s such bad writing it might be funny elsewhere. Here, it’s the final straw.

Petey Wheatstraw makes the mistake of thinking it knows what made Moore's previous two cinematic entries “successful”. Its attempts to be funny rarely work, which makes it a chore to watch. You’ll be doubly disappointed if you see this after Dolemite and The Human Tornado, which felt genuine in their efforts. If this was the first of Moore’s filmography you saw, you wouldn’t even make it to the end before shutting it off. (June 18, 2021)

Chris: Save this for late at night, fantasy elements, cult status, Rudy rules in this one, now on Amazon, Watch: On Subscription Service.

Richie: I’ve always liked this movie, and it is now a available on Amazon, Watch: On Subscription Service.

W A T C H E D

(Over December 20-21 2023)

@grandmother-goblin tagged me to post 5 movies I’d love to show others; planned to post this last week but then I got hit by a car 😔

Those of you that know me well will understand I exercised great restraint with this list. I could have filled it all up with Neil Breen films, but I was good. 😇

On to the movies:

1. Liquid Sky. Sleazy nyc genderqueer sci fi. Killer soundtrack.

2. Petey Wheatstraw - Extremely funny movie with the greatest theme song of all time. Rudy Ray Moore’s best film imo; my brother and I quote this movie all the time.

3. The Devils - one of my favorite films ever, but very hard to find. My brother had to get a Korean release just to watch and the quality was so shitty 😭 Warner brothers won’t rerelease it because it’s too horny I guess

4. Time to Duel - I’ve made two separate friend groups watch this and it was a huge hit each time. Please watch this movie. Kaiba’s actor is on another level.

5. Bound - Butch Gina Gershon and Femme Jennifer Tilly. 🥵🥵🥵 also just an insanely slick and entertaining movie and you can see a lot of neat film making that they carried over to The Matrix

Ok I am going to tag @psalacanthea @spectator-eyes @vspin @mercymaker @collegeoflore @boghermit @omgkalyppso and @bhaalsdeepbat. I want to see all your picks if you choose to share 🤭

Petey Wheatstraw:

The Devil's Son-in-Law (1977)

time for rlm botw petey wheatstraw episode rewatch

More Blaxploitation Music

The Blaxploitation Movies of the 1970’s were the first films made by black crews for black audiences. Filmmakers turned to black musicians to score their films and add an extra touch of soul and featured artists such as Curtis Mayfield, Willie Hutch, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye. Here’s our essential selection of 1970′ blaxploitation soundtracks.

Blaxploitation Music

Aragon - Roy Ayers (Coffy, 1973)

Betty's Theme - Charles Earland (The Dynamite Brothers (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Recording), 1974)

Bring It On Down To Me - Pt I - Bobby Franklin’s Insanity (Bring It On Down To Me - Pt I / Bring It On Down To Me - Pt II, 1969)

Car Wash - Rose Royce (Car Wash: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1976)

Coffy Is The Color - Roy Ayers (Coffy, 1973)

Dolemite - Rudy Ray Moore ‎featuring Ben Taylor (Rudy Ray Moore Is “Dolemite” (From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 1975)

Father’s Lament - Grant Green (The Final Comedown - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1972)

The Hitter - Garfeel Ruff (The Hitter (Music From The Motion Picture), 1979)

I’ve Got To Find A Way (To Hide My Hurt) - Moses Dillard and The Tex Town Display (I’ve Got To Find A Way (To Hide My Hurt) / I’ve Got To Find A Way (To Hide My Hurt) Part II, 1970)

Lialeh - Bernard Pretty Purdie (Lialeh (Original Movie Sound Track), 1974)

Make It Right - J.J. Johnson ‎(Willie Dynamite (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 1974)

Sheba, Baby - Monk Higgins and Alex Brown featuring Barbara Mason ‎(Sheba, Baby, 1975)

Steve’s Den - Nat Dove and The Devils ‎(Petey Wheatstraw - The Devil’s Son-In-Law (Original Soundtrack From The Motion Picture), 1977)

Theme from Cleopatra Jones - Joe Simon (Cleopatra Jones (Original Soundtrack From The Motion Picture, 1973)

Where Do I Go From Here (Sonny Carson’s Theme) - Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - The Education Of Sonny Carson (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 1974)

WW III - Luchi DeJesus – Friday Foster (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 2001, originally from 1975)

More Soul Music Lists

The best blaxploitation soundtracks

More Blaxploitation

Movie Review | Death Smiles on a Murderer (D’Amato, 1973)

This is a ‘70s Italian horror film, meaning that the women are all absurdly beautiful and maybe a little perverted deep down, and the men carry a sense of imminent danger. This is also a period horror film, meaning that the characters are often costumed in pleasingly textured fabrics, and the women often wear extravagant headgear, and we get to spend a good amount of time in finely aged manors, their ornate designs coated with a nice coating of dust and wear. It even throws the lead actress in a cape and has her wander down creepy corridors, which is the ultimate sign of quality in films like this one, even if it contrives the scene by placing it after a costume party. (One should not need an actual reason to drift down the halls of a manor in a cape. As for that costume party, it has the characters playing a game where one of them guesses who is behind each mask, which is a much less impressive feat when you consider the masks barely cover their faces and their costumes are otherwise quite distinct.) What I’m saying is that the film contains a number of elements that make me already inclined to like it, but there are things that might make it engaging for those without the exact same cinematic tastes as myself.

The plot is...difficult to explain. There’s the opening scene where the main character is sexually assaulted by a hunchback, whom she also loves, but maybe gets involved with somebody else. And then many years later, either the same character or somebody who looks like her is in a carriage accident where the coachman is killed and she’s rendered unconscious and possibly stricken with a case amnesia. Enter Klaus Kinski as a doctor, whose tests involve turning around as she undresses while watching her with a comically large mirror and later poking a needle in her eye, and I think we’re all glad that medical science has come a long way since the early 1900s. Oh, and there might be a serum to reanimate the dead. Oh, and the lady of the house has an affair with her, but only after trying to drown her in a bathtub. Oh, and there’s a character who I can only describe as Italian Tom Skeritt. Oh, and there are multiple scenes where character run away in fear from a (possible) female zombie, which carry the same charge as the central conflict of Petey Wheatstraw, where our hero Rudy Ray Moore tries to weasel out of a deal to marry the devil’s daughter because she’s so damn ugly.

If this sounds incoherent, it certainly plays that way as you watch the movie, but not entirely in a bad way. There is some dispute as to who wrote how much of the screenplay, but the general sense I get is that there were changes along the way, from what was originally supposed to be more of a giallo to something with a bit more gothic horror flavour. There are certain elements inspired by Edgar Allan Poe (a character gets trapped behind a brick wall, a black cat), tossed into the strange psychosexual blender that produced this movie. This is directed by Joe D’Amato, whose style has always struck me as simultaneously restrained and blunt. The restraint tamps down the narrative incoherence, to the point that the proceedings register has half-remembered memories stewing in one’s subconscious, rather than something overtly dreamlike. The bluntness gives a charge to the scenes of violence, which involve a good deal of facial trauma (shotgun blast, razor slice, eye-gouging by feline).

If you’ve seen the poster, of a guy who looks like Kinski getting his face scratched up by an angry black cat, I can confirm that happens, just not to Kinski. Kinski spends most of the movie away from the other actors and instead fiddling with lab equipment, which seems suspiciously like a ploy to manage the notoriously volatile actor. You do not get any explosive outbursts here, but even in understated mode, Kinski’s very presence suggests that he might go off at any moment. And in the lead role, you get Ewa Aulin, who goes a long way in making this movie work. I have no idea if she’s a “good” actress in the traditional sense, but I do know that she pulls off what’s required for the role, in that she manages to be distressingly sexy while suggesting twisted psychological depths. Maybe the movie cheats to make me like her by putting her in a cape, but the heart wants what it wants.

Ernest Mayhand (March 1, 1916 - May 12, 2007) was in Ohio. He was an actor, known for Sanford and Son (1972), Handle with Care (1964), and Petey Wheatstraw (1977). He was a part of the comedy team of Leroy & Skillet that appeared on numerous risqué comedy albums during the 1960s. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CppkOGPLcEr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

petey wheatstraw 1977

qomp

Dolemite | The Human Tornado | Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law | Disco Godfather | Sheba, Baby | Heathers | Fried Green Tomatoes

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