Racket Girls

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.

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.

There couldn't be more perfect MST3K fodder if Mike and the Bots directed it themselves. Lame and directionless plot, unapologetic and endless reuse of footage, molasses-in-January pacing, production values that would make Roger Corman wince, gratuitous sexuality from intensely unsexy women, ultra-doofy characters...oh yeah, and it's a SPECIAL INTEREST PICTURE ABOUT WOMEN'S WRESTLING IN THE FIFTIES.

Well, at least it starts that way. You will catch nary a glimpse of dull-witted, mammoth-chested "protagonist" (the movie doesn't really have one) wrestler Peaches in the closing act, as the screenplay (like a rambling, senile old man) has decided to focus its attention on the sleazy promoter and his downfall at the hands of a gangster scintillatingly named "Mr. Big." Thus, the film degenerates from campy fiftiesdom into grade-Z noir.

I bestow upon this picture the greatest of all honors--a 1 out of 10. Plenty of schlocky black-and-white pictures get compared to the illustrious Ed Wood's work--this is the rare one that actually merits the comparison. It's pure gold.

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."

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.