Petey Wheatstraw
Petey Wheatstraw is a 1977 film from the USA, directed by Cliff Roquemore, running 99 minutes. reelscum files it under blaxploitation.
- Year
- 1977 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 99 min
- Director
- Cliff Roquemore
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- obscure (72/100)
Defined in the glossary: Blaxploitation
Rudy Ray Moore makes a deal with the Devil to come back from the dead. Deranged and delightful.
Rudy Ray Moore, of Dolemite, stars in this fantastical comedy as a nightclub comedian murdered by rivals who strikes a deal with the Devil, marrying his hideous daughter in exchange for resurrection and a magic pimp cane. It is as incoherent and committed as everything Moore made.
The supernatural elements push it somewhere stranger than Dolemite, and Moore's rhyming, profane persona carries the whole thing. Technically shoddy and impossible to dislike, it is a cornerstone of the Moore cult and a genuine oddity.
The name is borrowed from a real bluesman. William Bunch recorded in the 1930s as Peetie Wheatstraw, "the Devil's Son-in-Law", and the film takes his name and that hook. The plot has nothing to do with his life. Ralph Ellison used a near-identical name, Peter Wheatstraw, for a character in Invisible Man.
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The cycle in depth
- 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.
Filed alongside
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An art film that was sold as a vampire picture. Recut and buried for decades.
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Cool to the point of refrigeration, scored by Marvin Gaye the one time he ever bothered.