Simply put, Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son In Law is a beautiful movie man. Along with Dolemite, this is Rudy Ray Moore's best and most memorable work in film.This crosses over into the horror/supernatural genre a little bit as Petey Wheatstraw makes a deal with the devil to marry his daughter if he brings Petey back from the dead to get even with the treacherous Leroy and Skillet. Lucifer gives Petey a pimp cane that gives him all the powers of The Prince Of Darkness to even the score and along the way Petey has some fun with it. Eventually, this puts The Godfather Of Rap at odds with Satan. This is a constantly entertaining picture with almost no budget that works due to the natural coolness of Rudy Ray Moore. This features his usual Rudy Ray Moore Fu as he takes on the devil. Petey Wheatstraw is totally insane entertainment and one of my all time favorites.

Comedian and martial artist Petey Wheatstraw (a typically dynamic performance by Rudy Ray Moore) gets murdered by his rivals Leroy and Skillet. Petey makes a deal with the devil (smoothly played by G. Tito Shaw) to be resurrected so he can get his revenge, but in exchange has to marry Satan's hideously ugly daughter.

Writer/director Cliff Roquemore keeps the enjoyably off-the-wall story moving along at a constant pace, maintains a blithely absurd and zany tone throughout, derives plenty of laughs from the hilariously tasteless and outrageous sense of go-for-broke dirty humor (the choice offensive watermelon jokes are especially sidesplitting),and tosses in the expected hysterically terrible and unconvincing kung-fu shenanigans for good wacky measure. Leroy Daniels and Ernest Mayhand are total hoots as the dastardly duo who dare to cross Wheatstraw. Nat Dove's funky score hits the right-on groovy spot. We even get a complete corker of a surprise ending, too. An absolute loopy riot.

Some of the very worst films of the 1970s were the Dolemite pictures starring Rudy Ray Moore. Moore could not act nor did he know any martial arts....so it's weird that he went on to make some micro-budgeted martial arts films! Tonight I found one of Moore's non-Dolemite films, "Petey Wheatstraw"....but it pretty much is a Dolemite film in all but the name of the main character and it comes with a strong super-natural bent.

Petey Wheatstraw has an act that is identical to Moore's 'Dolemite' character. When he comes to a new town to perform, two idiot gangsters, Leroy and Skillet, are determined to keep him from doing his act. Why? Because these guys borrowed some mob money and they need to have a huge turnout at their club....but with Wheatstraw performing at a rival club, they stand to lose a lot of money...as well as their lives. Soon, Leroy and Skillet's minions go on a killing spree...and end up killing Petey.

Now you might think the story would end there, but it's only the beginning! Lucifer welcomes Petey to Hell and offers him a proposition--if Petey marries Lucifer's very ugly daughter, he'll allow Petey to return to Earth to enact revenge. And, to help him, Lucifer gives him his magic cane. However, instead of just going out and killing Leroy and Skillet and their minions, Petey does good around the ghetto...and Lucifer needs to return to remind him that he needs to focus on revenge first! But Petey has a plan to try to get his revenge AND outwit the Devil! Can it possibly work?!

This film takes itself even less seriously than the Dolemite pictures. This makes it marginally better, as bad acting, silly costumes and a dopey script work a bit better when it's so obvious the film is a big joke. This does NOT mean it's a good film...it isn't. But there might be enough silliness that bad movie fans might just enjoy it....all others should definitely stay clear!! Terrible acting, terrible writing, occasionally terrible cinematography (such as the blurry shots during the "Ghetto Street USA" song) and a super-dopey plot make this hard to take for most viewers....though it does have a few funny moments.

By the way, the next film up on my Roku after this one was "Amateur Night"....which seems very fitting.