Shot entirely on location in Monroe, North Carolina, and produced by the local Preacherman Corp, the film is a product of the early 70s Southern Dixie filmmaking boom. Of the seventeen actors on screen, eleven were local Carolinians, lending it a certain authentic regional grit. The whole operation was the brainchild of Albert T. Viola, a Brooklyn-born transplant who decided to write, produce, direct and star as the titular con man, Amos T. Huxley. He clearly had a blast, though he and co-star Ilene Kristen (the future Ryan’s Hope soap star who plays the target, Mary Lou) are essentially the only ones who saw a career beyond these woods.

Huxley is a roving grifter whose primary hobbies are shaking down congregations and seducing farm girls. After getting booted from White Oak County for sleeping with the Sheriff’s daughter, he’s left for dead, only to be scooped up by the dim-witted but well-meaning farmer Judd Crabtree. Huxley immediately sets his sights on Judd’s daughter, Mary Lou, a girl so pathologically eager to please that she’s already juggling four local boyfriends.

Huxley manages to convince the entire family that he is a divine emissary. To keep the father distracted, he sends him on errands to hunt for the angel Leroy, a celestial cover story for when Huxley wants to sneak into the barn or bedroom. The film reaches peak absurdity when Huxley realizes the family’s true business isn’t farming but moonshining. He pivots from a bogus preacher to a bootlegger, convincing the locals, including the corrupt Sheriff Zero Bull, that they should launder their illicit corn whiskey profits through a new, tax-free church operation.

The insanity didn’t stop there, either. Bill Simpson, who played the villainous Sheriff Zero Bull, actually reprised his role in a 1973 sequel, Preacherman Meets Widderwoman. That follow-up, which saw our hero tangling with a five-time widow, never received a national release, languishing instead in the regional Southern drive-in circuit.