MasterChugs Theater: 'Dolemite'

Rudy Ray Moore might not have reinvented cinema, but he is a pioneer when it comes to comedy. Moore peppered his bits with enough four-letter words and sexual innuendo (and not so innuendo) to make Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx blink. He found great success doing comedy party albums, and he also single-handedly shaped what would become hip-hop music, by performing rap before Grand Master Flash and The Sugar Hill Gang even bought a Dr. Seuss book. Moore's stand-up creation Dolemite, was quickly turned into a film character (and later an icon of "blaxpoitation" films), even though Dolemite more closely resembles the style of Bruce Lee films. Funded by Moore out of his own pocket (and helped by sales of his album Eat Out More Often), Dolemite's high-flying karate heroics, little-man-versus-big-man storylines, and bad dubbing work on many different levels, although none very high-brow.

Reviewing Dolemite is all about the little idiosyncrasies that make it so memorable. It's not a film that has too many layers or deserves a vast article focusing on the superb cinematography. The reason to love the film so adamantly is how very stupidly fun it is. You can't talk about Dolemite and not mention his karate fighting stable of hoes (I'm not making this up). It's a package deal, even if the ho's don't get to do a great deal of fighting. Dolemite, or perhaps just the Xenon VHS version, is the only film where in the credits on the front cover there is someone listed as "Martial Arts Champion!" Is it really necessary to have a martial arts "champion" on set? Wouldn't it be more valuable to have a fight choreographer? I have no idea what the 'champion' title means, it's as if someone on set had a tournament and whomever's martial arts won received their name on the front of the film's poster. It's truly bizarre, and considering the complete lack of decency within the fighting it's self, it just makes things even more hilarious. I'm not speaking out of turn either. The 'karate' within Dolemite is the stuff of legend. The very first fight sequence that establishes our character had me laughing so hard I was afraid I would wake the neighbors. It happens during a flashback to when Dolemite was arrested by the FBI (err, I think they were FBI. If not, they were all plain clothes detectives). Some cops come up, demanding to look in Dolemite's trunk (considering this was a clear violation of his rights, it seems that if Dolemite had so much money he could clearly take this to a higher court through some fancy lawyers. Racist G-men or not). Not surprisingly, when they open it up a bunch of fur coats and cocaine are found and they want to take Dolemite to hit the mainline express to prison-town (don't ask me where I came up with that one). Dolemite, being the bad mofo that he is, let's loose his fury with the ever classic "you're going to have to TAKE ME!!!" What proceeds is one of the most astonishingly bad displays of martial arts that cinema has ever seen. The camera follows the punches from behind our fighters, the punches and kicks don't connect very well and it's all so very sloppy. It truly is quite the display.

The greatest fight scene has to come when Dolemite is accosted by the two racist cops who lay a few punches on him (yes, this actually a different fight than the aforementioned one). Dolemite jump kicks one in the back, this somehow knocks him unconscious. Since the kick hit him dead in his back I can only imagine he hit the ground face first, but that's really putting too much thought into a Dolemite fight scene. The other cop isn't so lucky when he receives some very badly aimed punches followed by a kick to the head that is easily TWO FEET away from ever touching his face, and yet our cop falls to the ground writhing in pain. These two scenes, gathered with a large and very sloppily edited bar brawl are only one of a million reasons you and everyone within your family deserves to see Dolemite and obviously should see Dolemite.

Any movie which makes me take notice of the language is an eye opener to start with. When it involves a very large jiving man who commands an army of hookers trained in martial arts I get excited. Hence we have this piece of work. Dolemite was set up by Mitchell and White (who take their orders from the Mayor, who has a business relationship with Willie Green) on drug and theft charges. When the prison warden notices crime is still skyrocketing he makes Dolemite a deal, clean up the streets and you're a free man. ("Hey boss, we imprisoned this guy, but the crime rate is going up. Obviously he wasn't the problem, guess we should let him out ....") What follows is chaos, crazy fight scenes, gratuitous sex, and some amazingly funny dialog. One of the first things accomplished is getting Dolemite's nightclub back from Willie Green, which is neatly taken care of by a secret compartment full of cash under the floor. (Queen Bee had to give up the club for borrowing money.) Willie is not very happy with losing his cash cow, when he shows up with a small army of henchmen to shut the club down all heck breaks loose. I love the martial arts touch, nobody just throws punches, have you ever seen a girl wearing polyester bell bottoms use Ti Kwan Leep on someone? Good stuff, I assure you. On top of all this you have our title character's wardrobe, any man confident enough to wear those has to be tough.

Tough guy gangster films were a dime a dozen at this point in cinema history. The film is a finely crafted piece of seventies cheese, whether you'll like it is truly based upon your character. If you don't dig it, that doesn't make you a square, but it does mean this type of cinema might not be up your alley. If you do love this seemingly noxious piece of B-cinema, join the club because I can't get it out of my head. Sure, it may seem offensive to the "art" to give such a bad film a four rating, but if you don't have fun while watching this film it's hard for me to sympathize. A classic in the area of B-films, a king amongst slop. I love it adoringly, and as should anyone with a heart.