Deceased Artiste, and Funhouse guest, Rudy Ray Moore: RIP Dolemite!

This week saw the passings of two people I interviewed on the Funhouse. Actor Guillaume Depardieu (more on him in the weeks to come) sadly died at the very young age of 37 after a stormy life that was punctuated by a few really interesting performances on screen. Also leaving this mortal coil, at 81, was a legend of blaxploitation, comedian/scripter/producer/taboo-buster Rudy Ray Moore.

I had a great time speaking to Rudy at the Chiller back in '96, and just as good a time putting together the episode that evolved from the talk. I have placed the entire show on YouTube, and realized once again that, while public access has lost its luster for many in the age of YT, there are still things we can do on access that you can't do on the Net's number video portal, namely show the naked bodies of Dolemite's bevvy of sleazy-lookin' babes of all races (the "offending" portions -- when will America ever grow up? Answer: never! -- are covered with a little msg). The battle to talk dirty, or rather, to use Mr. Moore's phrase "use ghetto expressions," on stage was won during Rudy's long lifetime, but America is still a country that cringes at the thought of nudity and giggles at the notion of sex. All I can say about that is what the man woulda toldja: Dolemite was his name, and fucking up muthafuckas was his game. Farewell Rude One!

Part One:


Part Two:


And the Third and last part:

William Klein: Delirious montages

William Klein has only made a handful of films, but he carved out an amazingly fresh and vigorously strange and funny cinematic style, especially in his trio of fiction films. I’ve been showing scenes from Klein’s films on the program since mail-order copies became available from France, and so I was utterly delighted when Eclipse/the Criterion Collection released all three in the box-set The Delirious Fictions of William Klein. I’ve noticed that two of the most visually arresting scenes from two of the films were up on Youtube already, but in abbreviated versions, and so I thought it would be best to see the scenes in their full mondo-montage context.

First the sequence in Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966) in which our heroine (Dorothy McGowan) becomes part of an odd spoof of beauty-product pitches, and then flies away with her Prince Charming (Sami Frey) in a wonderful bit of photo-animation. The latter part of the sequence is striking, as it prefigures Terry Gilliam’s work at the end of the decade but was influenced by the work of Harry Smith (thanks to Stephen Kroninger for the citation).



Then the wonderful skewering of American patriotism from Klein’s Mr. Freedom (1969). John Abbey (where did he go?) does a dynamite job delivering Klein’s mock recitation of American values, followed by a bright and bouncy montage (with the occasional dark, menacing overtone) elaborating the joys of the U.S. of A.