Filmic Friday 247: Dolemite 1975

In Which He's Bad. So Bad.
But his movie is very fun!

So I saw Dolemite Is My Name, and it got me thinking about blaxploitation movies and how studios basically forgot they existed after the 1970s. It also got me thinking about

Because I had to know 

Dolemite, the 1975 film whose mad genius creator, Rudy Ray Moore, was the source for Dolemite Is My Name, is everything I'd hoped it would be. My god, Dolemite...

Did I understand everything that was happening at every second? Heck no. Did I have to understand every word spoken or every action taken to understand Dolemite and what it stood for? Not in the slightest. Dolemite is a celebration of a film and it's impossible to watch it and be bored. Confused, certainly, but not ever bored.

How can you be bored when there's a very strange yet very cool man surrounded by beautiful women who know Kung Fu?

How can you be bored when there's a preacher who is also a mob boss?

How can you be bored when Rudy Ray Moore is... hold on, I'm looking up at that poster and what is even happening there?! Where is the lady in pink kneeling? Where are her legs? The lady in green is holding onto the barrel of Rudy's pistol, which looks like a shrunk-down sniper rifle! Where is that thing firing? Were the Hardy Boys in the 2000s copying Rudy's shoes on this poster? What is happening? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

Awesomeness. That's what's happening.

Dolemite is awesome.

But what's the story?

Well... this is a lot of inference on my part here, but from what I could tell, Dolemite is a folk hero tale where a man who is kind of a pimp (?) is released from prison because his madame found evidence that he was set up by the cops to take the fall on drug charges. He comes out to a world much changed from when he went in, including having had his own club stolen by the villainous Willie Green (D'Urville Martin). The movie follows his quest to get his club back and seek revenge on the crooked cops and Willie Green.

There are Kung Fu hookers, slightly terrifying sex scenes, the aforementioned mob boss preacher, and car chases galore. There are squibs (the blood-filled explosive caps used to simulate someone being shot) going off left and right, seemingly missing footage which might be the result of the camera running out of film at inopportune moments, and absolutely atrocious lip syncing (in the club), and above all...

There is Dolemite.

Rudy Ray Moore is not a good actor, but you love Dolemite nonetheless because everyone in the movie believes in him. It's hilarious, it's fun, and it's absolutely a movie you should see at least once in your life, and once you see Dolemite, you begin to wonder what its sequel, The Human Tornado, is like. You wonder what the blaxploitation Saturday Night Fever film Disco Godfather is like. You wonder if you can get hold of Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son In Law so you can show your friends...

It's an addiction.

A really, really fun addiction.

An addiction with some very attractive women involved...

 As a final note, I'd like to point out that the intestine-pulling scene in Dolemite Is My Name is apparently a running joke where, since that moment abruptly ends without the intestine-pulling or anything else in the movie. Rudy is doing... something? to D'Urville, grunting and gripping, and then suddenly, we cut over to Jerry Jones who gives his iconic "God damn, Dolemite," and fires his pistol into D'Urville to take the heat off of Dolemite.

Also, I just realized that his hat is very clearly crocheted...
Future Fiber Monday project?

So in conclusion, GO WATCH DOLEMITE!
You will not regret it!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC