7cb1d79195 Scalli is a gangster who manages women wrestlers as a front for his bookmaking, drug, and prostitution rackets. He trusts the wrong people and ends up trying to run away from both the police and mysterious mob boss Mr. Big, to whom he owes $35,000. This film features real-life wrestlers Peaches Page, Clara Mortensen (world champion wrestler), and Rita Martinez (champion of Mexico). A money launderer uses women's wrestling as a front for his illegal activities, but earns the enmity of a powerful mobster. This film was riffed by Mystery Science Theater 3000 which is most likely how most people have even heard of this film. A film that seems to really go all over the place, of course, it is a movie primed for riffing! Seriously, this film has random scenes here and there and lots of stuff to fill in the time between the wrestling bouts, but the film is sort of not even primarily a women's wrestling film. Well, maybe it is! Who can say? The film has just so much packed into it that if a scene is boring you, do not worry, it will be gone before you know it was even there. That is, unless it is one of the wrestling matches. They do go on the longest, so maybe this film is more about women's wrestling and less about racketeering and training and everything else that was thrown in the pot to make an incredibly busy, but bad tasting stew! Sure, it has some cleavage, but there are only a couple of girls in this movie whose cleavage you would want to see. Still, it did not linger much on anything except for the matches so at least if a scene was boring you could blink and it would be over! <br/><br/>The story, well a guy that is into illegal gambling uses women wrestlers as a front for his crimes, because as we all know, women's wrestling is a clean business. Well, he recruits a young lady by the name of Peaches to be the newest girl in his gym. Unfortunately, Mr. Big thinks the guy is holding out on him and he wants his money. People are betrayed left and right and matches between to cat girls go on right before the main event between the American champ and Mexico's champ and we get to see Peaches train and then kind of just exit the movie without being an important character like she seemed to be setting up for and all this happens in like less than an hour! <br/><br/>This one made for a pretty funny episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the short that preceded the film was pretty good too. Both were ripe for riffing! The film is all over the place which gives you a wide range of riffs and showcases why I enjoy Mike as host a bit more than Joel. We get a film that has more going on that all the Hercules films that Joel did combined! The jokes about the strange crowd noise during the matches, the strange addition of music near the end and the strange courtroom with the huge American flag made for easy targets in this one and the film did not linger on anything except, well, you know.<br/><br/>So the film is not good by any standard, I am sure a non riffed version of this film would not have any additional footage that would make the film a winner by any stretch of the imagination. This film seemed to sort of promote women's wrestling, but just did so in very poor fashion. The matches were very drawn out and rather boring, but this is a time before more high impact moves and finishers. Back then, a body slam probably was on of the big time moves a wrestler could do. The film just seemed to fill the rest of the film with so much stuff, that it did not seem to go together at times. The main guy went from being okay to evil, to being someone you could sympathize with to someone who you wanted to see get taken down. An uneven film that was sort of a women wrestling film. I just finished watching Racket Girls and it's got me thinking about some of the ratings I've given other movies. Do those movies really deserve a 1/10 when compared with the hella bad Racket Girls? Is Hillbillys in a Haunted House as bad as Racket Girls? In comparison, Hillbillys was almost fun stupid fun, but fun nonetheless. What about Zombie Lake? Zombie Lake comes close to falling into that "so bad, it's good" category something Racket Girls could never hope to achieve. Sinbad of the Seven Seas? Lou Ferrigno can be good for an unintentional laugh or two something I can't say about anything in Racket Girls. How about a movie like Red Zone Cuba? Well, you got me there but Racket Girls is just as bad. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Racket Girls has to be one of the very worst movies I've ever had the misfortune to see. Many of the other movies I've given low ratings to come out smelling like roses in comparison. The plot, such as it is, involves a shady wrestling promoter who is also into gambling, prostitution, and drugs. Nice fella, huh? He's got the local mob after him for $35,000 so he tries to have his girls throw a few matches to raise the cash he needs. They won't go for it so he tries to make a run for it. It's tacky, dull, and lacks anything in any way resembling entertainment. Movies truly don't get much worse than this.<br/><br/>There's really only one way to watch a movie like Racket Girls. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary turns this piece of trash into a goldmine of laughs. It's a very solid effort on the part of the MST3K crew. I give it a 4/5 on my MST3K rating scale.
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370 weeks ago