Poster for Dolemite
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Year
1975
Country
USA
Runtime
90 min
Director
D'Urville Martin
Updated
9 Aug 2026
Obscurity
cult (47/100)

Dolemite

Technically inept and completely irresistible. Boom mics in every other shot.

Rudy Ray Moore turns his raunchy stand-up character into a film with almost no money and less technical competence, and the seams are the appeal. Boom mics dip into frame, fights miss by a foot, and Moore commits so completely that the whole thing floats on sheer will.

It should not work and it is irresistible, a monument to doing it yourself when nobody will do it for you. Eddie Murphy loved it enough to make a whole film about its making.

Incompetent in every technical sense and impossible to dislike.

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Written about

  • Blaxploitation, 1971 to 1975

    Melvin Van Peebles caught gonorrhea on his own set, filed a workers' comp claim, and bought more film stock with the settlement. Four years later the studios had mined the audience out and moved on.

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