Some years ago—never mind how many—I went to the Knitting Factory to see “Dolemite” Rudy Ray Moore and filth-funk masked-man Blowfly play a double-bill together. The opening act was a bunch of foul-mouthed teenagers making like the Moldy Peaches-meets-electroclash; a real atrocity with a wit-free and punny name like the Fisticunts or something, as I remember. During their entire set a drunk hipster girl standing nearby in the crowd kept up a blue streak of her own, deriding them as lousy, unoriginal, pathetic, shitty and—more than anything else—tame: “This fucking shit hasn’t been shocking since the nineties, you stupid little bastards!” she yelled, flinging a wadded-up bar napkin at the stage. “You might irritate your parents with this garbage, but you fucking suck! You! Fucking! Suck!”

She was right, too. They did suck. But more than that they were out of their depth: We had not fought Friday-night traffic in Hollywood to see a bunch of teenaged white kids doing a bloodless palimpsest of a toast. No, we had come to see Dolemite, whose main business, he was keen to remind us, was fucking up motherfuckers. He came onstage and promptly launched into a monologue of such artful obscenity, such fragrant and extravagant dirtiness, that we were but able to stand and cheer him as he took the vehicle of profanity to the very edge of its envelope and then—with a strange serene recklessness—just this much over. It was transcendent. It was only later that I realized that he was old; this master of the four-letter word was already in his late seventies on that distant and drunken night.

Rudy Ray Moore died on October 19th of this year, and so last night in tribute the New Beverly Cinema, as part of their Grindhouse Film Festival, screened Dolemite and its sequel, The Human Tornado. Shot for seventy thousand of Moore’s own dollars and featuring a cast largely made up of first-timers, Dolemite follows the titular character through an abstruse series of adventures following his release from prison as he seeks to gain revenge on the cops who set him up, wrest control of the streets from his rival Willie Green (played by director D’urville Martin) and generally reclaim his position on the streets. He is aided in this effort by Queen Bee, apparently his business partner, and by a stable of trained martial artists/working girls.

The crowd at the tribute was modest but rowdy; dedicated enough to brave the cold on a weeknight to catch the double feature. (Later on, the clinking of glass on floor and an occasional pop-hisssss emanating from low between the seats led me to suspect that some people, at least, had dealt with the cold in a straightforwardly chemical fashion. And besides, how better to enjoy two Dolemite movies?) I had never seen it on the big screen before, though I had seen the movie a time or two on video, and as Dolemite raged onto the screen in its naughty, nas-tay glory, this time larger than life, I felt a little bit of what I felt that night at the Knitting Factory, that same giddy liberating feeling of being tossed about in a sea of creative profanity, of being dropped into a world where the lapels are huge and the cars big as boats and all the women are sassy and sexy and bad; a place where random and cartoonish violence breaks out suddenly and is just as suddenly forgotten. . . We spent an hour and a half immersed in Dolemite’s world which, on the whole, is not such a bad place to spend part of a winter’s night.

Between the movies, a panel of Moore’s friends and associates sat on the lip of the stage and told us about the making of Dolemite. Jerry Jones, the screenwriter, was there, as was filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka (director of Welcome Home Brother Charles, AKA Soul Vengeance, the only movie made in the West that I can recall where a guy’s dick snakes across a room to strangle someone), John Kerry (not the senator, but the actor portraying the hapless Detective Mitchell), Irene Stokes from Penitentiary, and cinematographer Nicholas Josef von Sternberg. Character vet Ernie Hudson was out of town but sent his regards; Moore had given him his first break in The Human Tornado. As they talked, what emerged was a different picture of Moore than the one you might get if you were familiar only with his record albums and movies: the panel repeatedly touched on his gentility, kindness, and generosity, as well as his example. One got the impression of Moore as the driving force, the organizing principle, the Prime Mover of these odd, handmade movies; an impresario gifted with chutzpah and marketing savvy (“Dolemite ashtrays: Put your butt in my face!”) who never lost his affection for the audience or his sense of what they wanted out of his movies.

After the Q&A we settled in to watch The Human Tornado, but just as the movie was beginning my cell phone vibrated: a friend in trouble of some kind or another, and so we were forced to leave, running out to the smear of the LA night, ready to fuck up some motherfuckers if we had to…

Rudy Ray Moore
03/17/27 - 10/19/2008

- Andrew Roberts, 12-03-08

Editor’s Note:
Having attended the event with Andrew I not only want to second how great this event was, but also to remark on how incredibly and consistently awesome the Grindhouse events are. We are lucky indeed to have a theatre and screening series that offers such incredible lineups as last night’s double-feature of Dolemite and The Human Tornado, or the memorable Bob Clark, Bill Lustig, and Jack Hill tributes of the past. I salute you, Eric and Brian, and thank you for years of entertainment. See you at Black Christmas!!

- Logan