Film Summary DCCLXXIV (Petey Wheatstraw)


This movie is ridiculous. 
It starts off of an over-the-top scene of a woman giving birth to a kid who's already 10 years old. 
Who then proceeds to beat the crap out of his father before his mother tells him not to do so. 
Then there's a flashback to this kid learning Kung Fu with this other random dude and all of a sudden he's an adult who either works or owns some sort of singing Saloon bar. 
Who ends up in competition with these other two guys opening up their own Bar with money they borrowed from some honky criminal delinquents. 
Who threatened to kill them if they don't get reimbursed on their investment. 

It all culminates in this random kid getting shot that leads to a funeral procession where Petey wheatstraw is then killed and summons by the Devil himself to have a second chance at life and take revenge on the people who shot him up, if only he pledges his soul to the devil's daughter who's apparently a really ugly woman. 
So they can birth some sort of antichrist Kid. 
The movie never talks about Antichrist, that's just me for assuming that's what it would be. 
The structure of the film is all over the place. 
You think it's going to be this movie about rival entertainers getting mixed up in gunfights and Kung Fu battles but then it just turns into this weird story where a man uses a magic staff endowed by the power of the devil to fight the devil so that he doesn't have to marry the devils daughter. 

If that story above sounded like an incoherent mess well that's because it is. 
It's not just my poor grammar, this movie really is completely off the rails. 

It feels like they want to make a weird kung fu movie originally but then decided not to because nobody actually knew how to do any fighting. 
And then somebody else thought maybe we should just do a weird comedy where we poked fun at bad black American stereotypes. 
But then some other guy comes along and says; ''Let's make a movie about the devil instead.'' 

This is all speculation on my part. But I just can't imagine how else this movie would have been made. Who decides to start off a movie with a 10 year old kid being born who then goes on to learn Kung Fu only to end up confronting the devil. 
I tip my hat's off to them if that was the original intent. Cuz that's such a crazy idea that I would never conceive of such a thing.

It's all wrapped up with zany cartoon sounds, bad choreographed fighting and extremely cheap costumes that look cheaper than what the film could probably make. 
It's ridiculous, it's ludicrous. It's filled with some fun music and it's definitely worth watching if not for Rudy Moore's performance alone. 

Anyways it's a definite recommendation. This movie is great in every conceivable way. It's fun zany. It's structured just enough that you know what's happening but you're never quite sure what's going to occur. And you can watch it for free on Tubi. 

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