Racket Girls

"Racket Girls" purports to be a searing inside look at the seamy side of Women's Professional Wrestling. So instead of "High School Confidential", we get "Head Lock Confidential".

Heh, I slay me.

Anyway, "Racket Girls" features a whole lot of mannish women rassling the hell out of each other. This might seem like an intriguing prospect to those of you (I won't name names - you know who you are) that found erotic possibilities in those goofy soft-core 'catfighting' picture collections that were on the newsstands 30 years ago.

Naaah. Imagine Captain Lou Albano vs. Mad Dog Raschon, only 150 lbs lighter and with boobs. Film it in grainy black and white and subtract all the showbiz gimmicks and any decent stunts. You would watch this kind of action in order to punish yourself for having indecent thoughts.

The plot? Well, "Racket Girls" follows the career of up-and-coming wrestler "Peaches" Page as she struggles for success and recognition. Peaches has a nice hair-do, a huge rack, impeccably plucked and shaped eyebrows, and an expression of amiable and invincible stupidity. She is the best thing about the film.

"Racket Girls" also follows the antics of her new manager "Sculli" and his stereotypical immigrant Italian sidekick "Joe" as they wheel and deal in the shadowy world of gambling while using Women's Wrestling as a front. Supporting Sculli in his efforts are a turtle faced grandma with the body of a 20 year old, an accountant named "Monk" who obsesses about other peoples' apartments, the enigmatic "Mr. Big", who sends Micheal Stipe to threaten Sculli at random moments in the screen play, and an assortment of stone faced women in undergarments who do the actual wrestling.

But Sculli overreaches himself - he 'buckets' too many bets, and he tries to bribe "World Champion" Clara Mortenson into throwing her match, and this brings punishment swift and merciless. Peaches bails out on him 10 minutes before the end (never to be seen again) and Sculli comes to a bad end in a hail of bullets and "Hop Along Cassidy Run Away Stage Coach" music. (Or alternatively, as Mike and the Bots would have it, "the Ukranian National Anthem").

I'm making it sound better than it is, believe it or not. This little nugget was hermetically sealed to prevent any trace of actual emotion or humanity from reaching the celluloid. Cast members declaimed their lines as if they were reading them from cue cards for the first time, and you get a sense that there weren't a lot of 2nd takes or film left over on the cutting room floor when the editors were done.

I never would have seen this, except as an episode on MST3K, and their coverage adds a desperately needed element of humor and irony to watching it - in fact, I feel this is one of their best "post Joel" sessions. I can't imagine anyone watching "Racket Girls" for any other reasons - if you have a yen for old school B-and-W epics, there are dozens of better Republic serials and gangster flicks to choose from. In fact, of all the MST oldies, only "I Accuse My Parents" would be of less interest to a modern day audience.

Still, Peaches is a striking figure, and we will never know what happened to her, or whether she was really as uncomprehending and cement-brained as she appeared here....so in empathy for a mysterious, possibly tragic film figure (not you, Dick Contino), I give it an extra couple of stars. 3 out 10.

And there you have it, in one of the choicer remarks from the MST3K version, one of their proudest moments. (God, I miss them.) A bad movie that opens up the possibilities of bad movie-making to other bad movie makers, featuring large-breasted but decidedly unsexy female wrestlers stranded amid a ridiculous sports-crime milieu. Timothy Farrell, the lead, was in fact a member of Wood's stock company, and his performance is actually one of the movie's more professional -- though Muriel Gardner, as his hard-bitten secretary, actually manages to get something like a performance going, and Peaches Page, a real-life wrestler, at least seems like a nice lady. With stock footage, stock music, and even inept camera setups, it would be a laughfest even without the MST commentary, but their bon mots transform it into something special. As Crow opines during an endless scene of a large-breasted female wrestler throwing a ball over and over: "This movie is refreshingly itself."

As Trace said it best, "I feel so wrong that this movie has stirred my loins for women who are long dead..."

Racket Girls (1951)

* (out of 4)

Produced under the personal supervision of George Weiss, this exploitation film is certainly one of the worst ever made but it's also so weird that you can't help but slightly be entertained if you're a fan of bad movies. Peaches Page plays pretty much herself, a wrestler who goes to work for promoter Scalli (Timothy Farrell) but she doesn't realize that he's just a low thug. RACKET GIRLS, also known as PIN-DOWN GIRL and probably several other titles, is a bad film, there's certainly no question about that but I think bad movie fans will be intrigued by it. I think the most interesting thing is that the producer was obviously trying to pass this off as a sexploitation picture because a lot of the running time is devoted to the women wearing very little or very tight clothing. Mrs. Page has rather large breasts and quite often she's in a right outfit or being rubbed down. I'm sure this was meant to pull guys in because of the sexuality but when viewed today you really can't help but laugh. There are other scenes of various women working out, which are just as funny. The wrestling matches, including three very long ones, are incredibly boring and really kill the film. The performances, as you'd expect, are pretty bad but I must admit that I'm a major fan of Farrell who appeared in a few Ed Wood films. I've always loved him in these "C" movies and I thought he was fun here as well. Anyone expecting anything well-made or good are certainly going to be disappointed. But then again, I'm really not sure how many people would watch this and expect anything good.

Racket Girls: 2 out of 10: I want to talk about Bridget Jones for a minute. No not the fictional character portrayed by Renee Zellweger but the writer and occasional actress on MST3K.

Though she never got the recognition that fellow female comic Mary Jo Pehl received, she had some incredible star turns. While she is best known as that sociopathic Roman aristocrat with a touch of sex appeal Flavia as well as that singing dancing sensation Nuveena, Girl of the Future, it is in the MST3K version of Racket Girls that she reaches her thespian pinnacle. She plays Lisa Loeb. Who am I kidding she is Lisa Loeb. It is a highlight of a very good MST3K episode.

Alas, Bridget Jones is lost to us now. She married a temp by the name of Mike, bore him two sons, and is no doubt singing "Waiting for Wednesday" while toiling in the kitchen of the future.

Oh yeah the movie. Large woman wrestlers, who clearly block most blows with their face, deal with a sleazy promoter who is trying to fix the fights. Peaches Page is the lead rassler who has a pair of large... well peaches and a winning, if simpleton, personality. The other female wrestlers look like they run a prison laundry.

Plenty of shots of these women grappling each other interspersed with a winning performance by Ed Wood alumni Timothy Farrell. When an Ed Wood alumni gives the best performance that should be all she wrote.

The "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Racket Girls (Season 7, Episode 16): 9 out of 10: Really good riffing considering the challenging material. Moreover, it has gay robot marriage and Lisa Loeb. This is one of the better episodes for seasoned veterans of the series.