Petey Wheatstraw

• (Also known as Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law)
• Written and Directed by Cliff Roquemore
• November 1977

A successful nightclub comedian is murdered by jealous rivals and resurrected along with his killed friends through a literal deal with the Devil.

The humor of Rudy Ray Moore was never sophisticated. I dare say he made Mel Brooks look like Dennis Miller. If you know who Dennis Miller is at this point you might be very old. Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law is a movie that begins stupid and never gets beyond that-and that’s a good thing. Dolemite was an attempt to cash in on the burgeoning blaxploitation genre. While meant to be mostly serious it was poorly done and transcended its flaws to be often unintentional comedy. Petey Wheatstraw is strictly a comedy.

From a technical perspective this is much better done than Dolemite. It works better and is better structured than the earlier film. Even the production values are significantly better than what was found in Dolemite. And it looks like there were retakes as the performances, while not great, are vastly superior to the movie I keep referring back to.

Perhaps its aspects of technical superiority over that other movie are because Rudy Ray Moore had significantly less input on this film than on Dolemite. I suppose that is a good AND bad thing. While entertaining Petey Wheatstraw is not so-bad-it’s-good. It’s just okay for what it is. It never becomes a guilty pleasure.

The movie kind of meanders around. It involves super comedian Petey Wheatstraw (Rudy Ray Moore) who after his murder makes a deal with The Devil (G. Tito Shaw) to marry his daughter (Ebony Wright) who is unbelievably ugly. He then spends a good chunk of the movie (poorly) trying to get out of it. Moore for his part turns in a far superior performance here than he did in Dolemite. He doesn’t rock the house, but when he’s silly or when he is funny, it’s intentional. It’s not accidental like before.

Why was he killed? He is opening his new act at a competing club against two other comedians called Leroy (Leroy Daniels) and Skillet (Ernest Mayhand). This leads to a bit of a gang war-I guess. Petey gets the ability to enact his revenge because he agrees to marry The Devil’s ugly daughter. All the while he’s trying to get out of it. How? No hint really throughout the movie other than using a mask on a hobo.

This movie is a horror comedy as well as maybe even a touch of a parody of the blaxploitation genre. There is kung fu, a magic pimp cane, along with very bad jokes and so much else mixed together. They tossed every cliché and goofy idea they had in this. Our story introduces a few elements that go absolutely nowhere. Petey is born a toddler and threatens his father (Sy Richardson) for abusing his mother but that never gets mentioned again. A few years later he gets beat up by some kids and vows revenge and gets taught by a kung fu sensei but he never gets revenge on them. And the element with the competing club kind of fizzles out. It seems to be the main thrust of the story and then it’s not.

Like I said it begins stupid and just stays there. That is not the issue. The issue is everything that goes nowhere. This certainly had enough going for it that ‘good’ was possible. It was so very close to being a good late night frozen burrito of movies. One of the breakfast variety. As it stands it is more like a spicy shredded beef and bean. Okay in a pinch but not your first choice. It needed focus. Even the Naked Gun films for as silly as they were had good structure.

Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law is an entertaining enough film. While not a classic it is brainless enough to be entertaining. If you are curious proceed with some caution.