Total Dolemite Experience

DOLEMITE-1975-Perhaps in his day, rhyming comedian Rudy Ray Moore was cool. Nowadays, he's an unintentional laugh-riot at least in this his first movie. Moore plays the title character, a wrongly convicted jive talking pimp nut job who is let out of prison to help bring down gangster Willie Green (D'Urville Martin who also directed). He beats up white guys (the fight scenes are pathetic) and lives with several hookers and a madame named Queen Bee (Lady Reed). He wants revenge because of the death of his nephew. He does a rhyming routine about The Titanic for some drunken “fans” who can't afford to see him perform and gets information from a drug addict named Creeper (said to have been a real junkie). 

Two corrupt white cops dog his trail. Meanwhile an undercover FBI agent Blakeley (Jerry Jones; also the screenwriter) tries to help Dole. After performing at his own club, Dole enlists a bunch of Kung-Fu fighting whores to battle Green's gang. Even the cook in the club beats up a guy! Dolemite gets bloody vengeance on Green but the real bad guy behind it all is the corrupt weaselly white mayor (Hy Pike). The scenes of the FBI agents chasing down the mayor seem like part of a different movie. There's also a weird preacher and Moore saying things like “That's for fuckin' with me you no business born insecure motherfucker!”. Moore is also created with original adaptation.

Thanks for reading!

Boss

BOSS NIGGER-1975-Two black bounty hunters Boss (Fred Williamson also the screenwriter) and Amos (D'Urville Martin) who hunt only white people become sheriff and deputy of a town and basically harass all the white people and give the mayor (RG Armstrong) a hard time. Later Williamson is kidnapped and tortured by Jed Clayton (William Smith) but Amos and Clara Mae (Carmen Haywood) rescue him. A doctor (Don “Red" Barry) patches him up. Later after Clayton kills Clara the townspeople help fight off Clayton's gang and Boss kills Clayton but he seems to be killed at the end (I think...??) 

Despite being directed by the great Jack Arnold (as noted previously he was doing lots of TV shows around this time), BN seems to tread a thin line between drama and parody. Many critics seem to think it's a set up. I personally think it's a disaster and the filmmakers had no idea where they were suppose to take the film.

Thanks for reading!

Pam Grier!

SHEBA BABY-1975-Beleaguered former cop now a P.I. Sheba Shayne (Pam Grier) leaves Chicago for Louisville, Kentucky to help her father (Rudy Challenger) and his partner Brick (Austin Stoker) who's loan business is being threatened by gangsters (“Do they have a fight on their hands”). After barely surviving a car explosion, Sheba forces info from an informant by pushing his face into a bucket of chlorine. After getting a lecture from Brick about taking the law into her own hands they have sex. The whole thing seems to be run by Pilot (D'Urville Martin) and the duo bust up a meeting but he gets away. Later after her dad is killed she gets info at gunpoint from a comic pimp (“How can you look so fine and be mean to me?”) in a car wash. After a chase through a carnival it's revealed that Pilot is just a lackey. The real boss is a white guy named Shark (Dick Merrifield) who has a party on a yacht that Sheba infiltrates and winds up having her cover blown after a cat fight. She escapes and eventually fights Shark killing him before he kills her.

 Grier was in BUCKTOWN and FRIDAY FOSTER the same year. Director William Girdler made THE EXORCIST influenced ABBY the same year he worked on SHEBA. Unfortunately after making only 4 more movies he was killed in a helicopter crash while scouting locations in the Philippines. Stoker was also in ABBY and had a voice role in the animated RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES the same year.

Thanks for reading!

Won't Get Fong Again

BLIND RAGE-1976-5 blind men are recruited by a mobster named Duran to rob a bank. They are a diverse group: Willie Black (D'Urville Martin), Lin Wang (co-writer Leo Fung), Hector Lopez (Darnell Garcia), Amazing Anderson (Dick Adair) and Ben Guevara (Tony Ferrer). A woman named Sally (Leila Hermosa) runs a school for the blind and teaches them how to commit the robbery and act as though they can see. They steal 15 million dollars and kill several people in the process. After finding a blind man's cane at the crime scene the police suspect blind men must have pulled the robbery! They arrest Ben and he rats out everyone. When the remaining gang tries to escape hiding in a gas truck, it crashes and explodes killing them all except Duran who took a different mode of transport. He escapes to LA but when he lands (top billed) Fred Williamson as Jesse Crowder (a character he'd played in several of his movies at the time) shows up and arrests him after chasing him down and beating him up! 

This odd but ultimately far-fetched crime drama was shot badly in the Philippines by Efren C. Pinon who had previously directed ENFORCER FROM DEATH ROW (also starring Fong).

Thanks for reading!

Hammer's Other Time

BLACK CAESAR-1973-Blaxplotation classic starring Fred Williamson (who had starred in HAMMER the year before) as Tommy Gibbs who rises from abused shoeshine boy (who helps with a mob hit) to Black Caesar, the head of the Harlem underworld. He gets help from a phony black preacher (frequent co-star D’Urville Martin) and a corrupt white lawyer (William Wellman Jr.) to secure some ledgers that can expose some corrupt politicians and nearly kills his own father (Julius Harris). In the wildest scene he puts shoe polish on the face of a corrupt white cop (Art Lund) and makes him sing “Mammy” while beating him to death.

Gloria Hendry (who had a role in LIVE AND LET DIE the same year) plays his girlfriend who later betrays him. Val Avery is a mob leader Gibbs muscles out and Don Pedro Colley is Crawdaddy, Gibbs’s right hand man who causes a lot of trouble. The ending finds Gibbs seemingly dying near a burned out building in his old neighborhood after being beat up by local kids. 

He doesn’t die though. Gibbs/Williamson returned in HELL UP IN HARLEM later in the year.

BC was the second feature directed by Larry Cohen (who also wrote and produced). Besides the sequel he also made IT’S ALIVE around the same time and went on to make other quirky features. He and Williamson re-teamed (with Jim Brown, Pam Grier, among others) for ORIGINAL GANGSTAS in 1996.



HELL UP IN HARLEM-1973-This sequel was pushed into production and it shows. It’s a major letdown after the incredible BLACK CAESAR and has a lot of unintentional laughs.

Gangster Tommy Gibbs apparently didn’t die. Despite being shot and beaten he manages to phone his dad (returning Julius Harris) who comes to his rescue, hides the ledgers and gets “some brothers who can still be trusted” to help out. They take Gibbs to a hospital and hold the staff at gunpoint and force a surgeon to operate (with no anesthesia). This part is pretty funny. Eventually the Gibbs character is re-molded into a force for good battling drug dealers and corrupt politicians. For a while he turns over his gang to dear old Dad who starts a gang war and kills his ex-girlfriend (the also returning Gloria Hendry). D'Urville Martin repeats his role as the preacher who is now legit and believes Tommy is doing good.

It’s entertaining but kind of a letdown. It’s been said the role of Tommy Gibbs was first offered to Sammy Davis Jr. who turned it down!

Thanks for reading!

"Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared." Henri Nouwen