Disco Godfather (1979)
Hold onto your platform shoes, because this is an utterly baffling mix of Saturday Night Fever and anti-drug Blaxploitation classics like Coffy and Cleopatra Jones. It arrived very late to the party in 1979, at both the tail end of both the Disco craze, and the shelf life of the Blaxploitation genre. Needless to say, it was a dismal failure for its star, the legendary Rudy Ray Moore.
A box office flop, and yet this movie is watchable in that way that all of Moore's films are. It's cinema that implores you, over and over again, to “put your weight on it”, and to “attack the whack”. And if you're smart, you'll do both, especially as you peep the opening scene where funky fun-loving freaks strut and dip as they get down to the latest disco grooves. Surely the most happening discotheque in California, this is where coloured lights beam and glance off reflective walls, mirrored disco balls spin, a dude on roller skates jives to the max, and the finest DJ in the land, the Disco Godfather, wears his sequined jumpsuit, eyeliner, and pumps the appreciative crowd up higher than they've ever been. Raise the roof, ya'll! Do the hustle!
Tucker Williams is his name, and funking up motherfunkers is his game. Rudy smiles a $1000 smile, flamboyantly gyrates, loudly makes asinine declarations, and plays Tucker to the goddamn hilt -- despite not having any dancing skills whatsoever. And as far as I can tell he's really not doing much up there behind the turntables, either, aside for using it as a podium for yelling at everyone to put their weight on it. Regardless of his skills, he has personality to spare, and the boogie-woogying brothers and sisters eat it up and ask for seconds.
Rudy's character is a former police officer, and everything is smooth in his groovy, sweaty world until his dumbass nephew, Bucky (played by Julius Carry), freaks out on angel dust and totally bums everyone out. The movie's audience has a good time, though, because we're the ones that get to see Bucky's nightmarish PCP-induced visions, which have fog machines working overtime, animation drawn right onto the film stock, and revolve around scary basketballs, skull puppets, and an insane voodoo kabuki witch trying to chop his hands off. Clearly, the last place you want to hallucinate during a bad trip is a fucking dance floor in a disco club.
“Call the amba-lamps and when they get here, tell the driver what he has hayadd!", Tucker authoritatively demands.
Later at the local clinic, a concerned Doctor explains to Tucker (who is inexplicably naive for a former law enforcement officer) the dangers that angel dust poses to the hood. Why, one of the addicts in his care made a cooked turkey dinner out of her four month old baby, and served it to her family! Tucker is outwardly outraged at this news, and emphatically decides that he'll spend the rest of the movie “attacking the whack”, which is Disco Godfather-ese for “stop drug dealers from selling PCP”. Hope you enjoy that phrase, because Rudy is going have everyone saying it in every scene going forward. Unfortunately, a couple of the cast members (including The Mack's Carol Speed) somehow screw the catch phrase up during the dramatic protest scenes, instead calling for the community to "whack the attack" -- which I think you'll agree sounds utterly obscene.
Transplanting from the pure debauchery and hedonism of the 1970s disco scene into a movie that calls to mind the old marijuana scare films (like 1939's REEFER MADNESS and 1967's NARCOTICS: PIT OF DESPAIR) is enough to give a disco dancer whiplash. The movie is certainly far too preachy for its own good, but I sort of like that about it, actually. Rudy, however, came to realize that it was the wrong choice, and blamed the unpopularity of the moralistic anti-drug message of the movie for ending his film career.
“The drug use theme was what killed it”, Rudy admitted in an interview that was used in the 'I, Dolemite' documentary featured on the Vinegar Syndrome blu-ray edition. “We were preachin' and trying to curb the people's behaviour, and so forth, and it was not liked. A drug film like that had a great message, but people do not come to the theater to be converted. They come to the theater to enjoy the movie.”
Thankfully, there is a sub plot about a villain that is a gay, whip-wielding drug dealer, so don't worry about getting bored during all that disco dancing and attack-whacking. And certainly stay tuned for the last act, when Rudy finally unzips a load of Dolemite on some henchmen, taking part in some of the most hilariously inept and poorly dubbed kung-fu of his entire career.
“Man, I don't know who got the Oscar that year but Rudy Ray Moore should have won it”, wrote one very pleased Amazon.com customer. “Especially when he reacts in pain to an object that hasn't even hit him yet!”
Disco Godfather is a total hoot, and is probably even better if you've got some Angel Dust to tweak on. The late, great Rudy Ray Moore's headlining theatrical career came to a close after four movies with Disco Godfather, and that's a shame, but the movie lives on with the new dvd/blu combo from Vinegar Syndrome, which gives the Criterion-esque treatment to this very unlikely of recipients. There are tons of great extras features, including a commentary track with various speakers (including Rudy and his official biographer, Mark Jason Murray), stills, trailers, and the great aforementioned documentary about the making of the film.
Order it direct from Vinegar Syndrome! https://vinegarsyndrome.com/shop/disco-godfather/
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