Human Tornado, The (1976)

While on the run from a crazed, racist sheriff, Dolemite comes to the aid of night club owner Queen Bee who finds herself and her “girls” forced to work for a sadistic competitor when two of the girls are kidnapped.

Bad-mouthed comedian and laureate of the blaxploitation genre, Rudy Ray Moore returns for a second round of Dolemite action in The Human Tornado, the sequel to his hit debut. This is an event film made up of a series of low brow acts combining classic exploitation situations, Moore’s stand-up routines, wacky ’70s music, and martial arts action. It’s low budget and full of offensive antics, but it makes for sinfully mindless entertainment.

Dolemite (Rudy Ray Moore) gets in trouble with a redneck sheriff when he’s caught in bed with the lawman’s wife. The sheriff’s deputy is ordered to kill them both and Dolemite makes an explosive getaway with his three buddies that leave their car in ruins. They hijack the car of a gay man and head to California where Dolemite finds his old friend Queen Bee in trouble. She’s a nightclub owner and two of her female employees have been kidnapped by a rival club owner named Cavaletti. The two girls are locked in a torture chamber and subjected to rather mild abuse in comparison to your standard exploitation film. Meanwhile, Queen Bee and her remaining employees are forced to work at Cavaletti’s club. As the redneck sheriff closes in and a local detective investigates Cavaletti, Dolemite does some of his own investigating with Cavaletti’s wife in one truly bizarre scene. Using his comically staged martial arts, Dolemite goes to save the girls while Queen Bee plans to break up a big party Cavaletti is holding. Everybody shows up and takes on Cavaletti’s men with the help of world karate champion Howard Jackson!

The Human Tornado is very dated ’70s grindhouse fare of mammoth proportions which becomes the film’s saving grace. It’s so corny and over-the-top that it’s entertaining all over again. Rudy Ray Moore orchestrates this collection of what is really nonsense into something worth a few laughs. Over the years, Moore has garnered cult status for his trash-talking, stand-up monologues that you will find a sampling of as the film starts. With his films, Moore threw in pretty much everything that would appeal to a young, urban and mostly African American audience of the day looking for cheap thrills. And they got it. The film pokes fun at rednecks, homosexuals, blacks, whites, and even martial artists. A scene towards the end features a skinny, but talented nuchaku user who is wearing nothing but briefs. There is also a fair amount of partial nudity courtesy of several well-endowed women of various skin tones, not to mention gratuitous shots of Moore’s own bare posterior.

As mentioned before, the film plays out in acts. There is no martial arts action for the first hour which is instead filled with a series of skits beginning with Moore’s stand-up, followed in no particular order by a car chase, sex, comedy, and bits of humor and drama. When Moore finally decides to use his martial arts, the action gets pretty silly as he clearly is lampooning the Hong Kong kung fu films playing in urban theaters at the time. The camera is sped up and Moore kicks and punches his way through a bunch of thugs. Later, he’s joined by several women who hold their own. None of the stuff is very good until Howard Jackson briefly steps into the picture. He was a real life karate world champion and this was his first onscreen role, although he choreographed the action in Dolemite (1975). Now the camera work and tone of the film does little to showcase his skills, but he gets in a few good moves. Being a friend of Chuck Norris, Jackson went on to appear in some of his films, as well as a couple of the Bloodfist sequels. I cannot speak for his acting, but Jackson clearly had the skills to be a credible action lead. In this film, it would have been nice to see him play more than just a cameo role.

The Human Tornado is made up of mostly crude and offensive material from start to finish, while the action gives way to Moore’s brand of lunacy. By mainstream film standards given its limited budget, the production is decent, but the plot, script, and acting are laughable. These factors guarantee this film to have a limited audience. Now by b-movie standards, this is fun stuff. Moore is out of control, having a blast, and obviously trying to get his audience to do the same. On a base level it works. Love it or hate it, it’s Rudy Ray Moore in all his glory. Can you dig it?