Yurp, it turns out there really was a sequel to the hicksploitation, corn-pone comedy Preacherman (1971)... after years of folks speculating that Preacherman Meets Widderwoman was either unmade, unreleased or merely just a re-titling of the first film. Hallelujah and praise the Lord!!!
There is actually plenty of evidence of the film’s
existence on the net these days- stills from the film, second hand copies of
the soundtrack album, reproductions of the movie’s poster and even Preacherman
Meets Widderwoman mugs are all available from online auction sites...tracking
down the actual film isn’t so easy though.
Unreleased on tape in the USA, and just about everywhere else in the world,
the only known video release of Preacherman Meets Widderwoman was in the UK
during the early 1980s pre-cert era. It
was put out by a label called A.T.A, which released a handful of movies
–including Creation of the Humanoids, The Cremators and the blaxploitation
oddity Top of the Heap- before disappearing into the blue yonder.
A case of ‘more of the same’ Preacherman meets
Widderwoman begins pretty much where the original Preacherman left off, with con-man
and phoney pastor Amos Huxley (Albert T. Viola) shacked up in a motel with the
mysterious lady in red who picked him up at the end of the first film. The po-lice are still on the Preacherman’s tail
(Bill Simpson and Colleen McGee reprise their roles as the Sheriff and the Lady
in Red from the first film) and soon the preach is on the lam again, where his
horny, greedy eyes turn in the direction of a god fearing widderwoman called
Alzena Suggs (Marian Brown). Despite
Alzena’s reputation –as the film’s dialogue and soundtrack is fond of reminding
us the widderwoman has ‘married five, buried five’-the Preacherman sees Alzena
as his latest mark. The Preach being spurred
on by the fact that Alzena is loaded with cash and has a daughter called Willie
Mae (Jeramie Rain) who done gone set a bad example for the young uns in the
audience, by engaging in ‘sax-ual inner-course’ with the menfolk and has a
sideline stealing watermelons. The
Preacherman is soon up to his old tricks, winning over the locals with his
bible bashing sermons, running gambling scams, seducing the woman folk and
helping himself to money intended to build a church. What with the po-lice from the original film
largely sidelined, the Preacherman’s nemesis this time is Usses (Bob Berg) a
former suitor of Alzena, and father of Willie Mae, who sets himself up as
competition to the Preacherman when it comes to winning Alzena’s hand in
marriage.
Unlike the original Preacherman, the sequel is
actually based on not one, but two plays ‘Poor Rudolph’ and ‘Feather and the
Bell’ by Chet McIntyre. Which begs the
question were there Preacherman stage plays being performed back then?, or was
the Preacherman character written into these plots for the big screen? Preacherman meets Widderwoman doesn’t
entirely shake off its stage play origins, it is a little talky and set
bound. That, and the lack of
exploitation elements, may have factored into its obscurity. The brief nudity, and more sexually driven
plot of the first Preacherman film gave the original film a second lease of
life when Troma re-released it theatrically, sending it out as late as 1983,
and later issuing it on video. Lady luck
didn’t shine so much on the PG rated, family friendly Preacherman Meets
Widderwoman, which doesn’t appear to have played a great deal outside of the Southern
drive-in circuit in 1974 (you do have to wonder then, how a copy of the film
ended up in the UK, let alone be released on video there). The very definition of a regional production,
Preacherman Meets Widderwoman may well be the most North Carolinan movie that I
ever done gone seen. Highlighting a predominately
local- one movie and they’re done- cast, revelling in hillbilly caricatures,
and with its sense of humour tailor made for a Southern drive-in audience. Preacherman Meets Widderwoman’s idea of
down-home entertainment is folks getting custard pies in the face, a simpleton
being told you can only get a woman pregnant by sticking your fingers in both
her ears, a harmonica led musical interlude, and a montage involving Usses and
his idiot stepson playing hopscotch and doing a jig in a field. Preacherman Meets Widderwoman also brings
back a variation on one of the funniest gags from the first film, when the
Preacherman talks a yokel into spending a night in a field ringing a cowbell in
an attempt to appease ‘the angel Leroy’, while indoors the Preacherman seduces
his betrothed. Once again Albert T.
Viola throws himself into the Preacherman role with demented conviction. Viola is spellbinding as the charismatic, sweet
talking, snake oil salesman type, you genuinely believe he really was a phoney,
Southern preacher, rather than the Brooklyn born playwright and former nudie
filmmaker that Viola was in real life.
It’s an illusion that the film actively encourages you to buy into, with
Viola declining an onscreen credit for the lead role, instead favouring the
billing “Amos Huxley...as himself”.
Viola’s multi-tasking on the production, he directed, starred, wrote songs for the film and co-authored the screenplay, could give the impression of a man on an ego trip. However, he is surprisingly generous with screen time, regularly stepping out of the film in order to give the other actors their moment in the spotlight. Jeramie Rain shines here as the sexy, no-nonsense, white trash daughter, a persona that also served Rain well as Sadie in Last House on the Left, made a year before.
I have a theory that Rain’s co-star Rebecca Payson,
who plays Armanda, the other piece of eye candy for the Preacherman in the film,
is actually an actress called Deborah Loomis.
It is Payson (possibly aka Loomis) who is all over the Preacherman Meets
Widderwoman poster, rather than the more mature actress who plays the
Widderwoman. Like Rain, Loomis was an
actress whose career largely centred around the New York area, and includes a
three episode stint in Dark Shadows, Joel M Reed’s horror anthology Blood Bath,
and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first film Hercules in New York. Whether it can ever be proven that Miss Payson
and Miss Loomis are one in the same, is another matter. A few years ago, when Schwarzenegger became governor
there were several, presumably well funded attempts by scandal sheets like the
New York Post to locate Deborah Loomis.
Done in the hope that she may have some dirt on Schwarzenegger from the
time she played his love interest in Hercules in New York. However she proved to be untraceable, so if
the might of the American tabloid press couldn’t find Deborah Loomis, what
chance do the rest of us have? Come to
think of it, a bunch of muckraking city stickers searching for a former actress
in the hope of discrediting a governor sounds like it could have formed the
basis for a third Preacherman film, I’m sure ol’ Amos Huxley would have taken
their money and lead ‘em on a wild goose chase.
Hang on just another minute y’all, a quick word about the various versions of the original Preacherman (1971) that are currently floating around. The 1983 UK video release on the Video Unlimited label is missing nudity from the scene where Mary Lou undresses and gets into the bathtub, there are also cuts to the sex scene between Mary Lou and Clyde, as well as nudity cuts from a later scene where Mary Lou undresses by the window. An American VHS put out by Troma in the 1990s is the uncut version, but judging by comments on the IMDB an earlier American video release on the Paragon label was a censored version “some very obvious jump cuts (sound and picture) remove most of the nudity”. So basically the Troma tape is the way to go for all you sinners out there who wanna see Miss Mary Lou as neekid as a jaybird.
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