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.

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.

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."

Man. What a terrible movie. Ugh. Even with the MST3K riffs. People who claim "Manos" is the worst movie ever really need to watch this. It is on par with "Starfighters" as the most boring episode, mixed with LONG sections of boring wrestling, mixed with butter-faced women and their attempt at what can only be described as retro-soft porn. Avoid at all costs. If you must watch make sure it is the Mystery Science version. I would watch "Manos" 20 times before watching this excrement again.

And 1951? With the "editing" and everything else in this movie, it feels like one of those early, silent, turn-of-the-century films. But those would defiantly be better.

Schlock film producer George Weiss (High School Confidential, Glen or Glenda) covers the women's wrestling game in this crass clunker that opens with an overlong 15 minute match that pads the running time upfront before the lady grapplers get to go thespian. It gets pinned early.

Loathsome Umberto Scalli ( Tim Farrell) fronts for the mob, pimps and fixes wrestling matches. Along with assorted flunkies he's built a sleazy empire but is in a bind with the mob at the moment for some heavy dough. Meanwhile the girls continue to work out at the gym and wrestle in the ring as Scalli looks for ways to get some fast cash. He attempts to turn one young lady out while in another scheme tries to bribe the wrestlers into throwing matches.

Sloppy, unintentionally ironic and comic Racket Girls features actual champs Clara Mortensen and Rita Martinez taking umbrage at the slithering Scalli trying to get them to actually throw a match. Mortensen rails at him for trying to besmirch the dignity of the sport and its sense of fair play but later in the film after winning a match decides to kick her beaten opponent while down. The Amazonian Peaches Page is also on hand to be ogled and chauvinistically toyed with by the boys, a group of crumb bum wise guys out sleazed by Scalli. The character it seems turned out to be Tim Farrell's Rambo who would play him in two other films despite the handicap of being killed in all three; kind of like Heath Ledger as the Joker in one Batman. Racket Girls is a movie making mess that makes no apologies and does not have to since it already has your ticket money.