Racket Girls (AKA The Blonde Pick-up and Pin-Down Girl) is an Ed Wood-esque snoozer of a 1951 exploitation film which exists only to show women wrestling. Forever. It was directed by Robert C. Dertano.
Fresh-faced and large... muscled Peaches Page comes to the big city and is accepted as part of a gym's stable of women wrestlers. Meanwhile, the owner of the gym, who uses it as a front for organized crime, manages to get in trouble with "Mr. Big," and the subpoena doesn't help him in any way.
For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page. It was also inducted into the annals of WrestleCrap in 2016.
Not to be confused with Rocket Girls.
Tropes:
- All Men Are Perverts: Joe and Scalli both regularly ogle the women employed by Scalli. Scalli also has a side business as a pimp, and makes advances towards some of the women in the story.
- Anything but That!: Joe's reaction verbatim to Scalli's threat of making him a peanut vendor again.
- As Herself: All of the wrestlers (including Peaches Page, Clara Mortenson, and Rita Martinez) play themselves.
- Author Appeal: Shame on you, George Weiss. Though this is par for the course for Ed Wood, if it's true he wrote the script.
- Brainless Beauty: Peaches Page. Even after being told a story about how Scalli forced a woman into prostitution, she still wonders why the other women in the gym seem to despise him so much.
- Broken Bird: Ruby, thanks to Scalli. Long ago she was enticed by Scalli's affection, and she has been employed by Scalli for a long time. But she has come to realize that he doesn't actually care for her or any of the other women he employs. He just uses them. Ruby tries to warn Peaches of this, but Peaches doesn't seem to understand the gravity of Scalli's wickedness.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Invoked.Peaches: You know what they say: "Good things come in little packages."Joe: (openly staring at Peaches' breasts) Not to my way of thinking.
- Canon Immigrant / Legacy Character: Timothy Farrell played Umberto Scalli in three films, including one a few years after this one (in which Scalli apparently died).
- Catfight: Well, it's female wrestling, but they take it to a whole new level when two women dressed as cats wrestle! Actually, less dressed as cats and more wearing crappy cat-masks.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Monk is a bookie employed by Scalli, and he is privilege to Scalli's gambling records. Monk informs Mr. Big of Scalli's operation in order to profit and prove his loyalty to Mr. Big's syndicate instead. Monk's loyalties are for sale, cheap.
- Covert Pervert: Joe the Jockey when he's not being obvious about it.
- The Ditz: Scalli isn't the sharpest tool in the box. For example, he gets a hot tip about a fixed longshot, and he passes on it, mumbling some bullshit about its ironic nickname.
- Dumb Blonde: The female lead in this film is completely pointless. She never even figures out why people don't like her horse race fixing, pimping, and all around criminally Jerkass boyfriend. Thanks to the dialog, it makes her sound like she has to be told how to use a towel! The script tries to portray her as Incorruptible Pure Pureness, but she comes off as naive — to the point of being ROCK STUPID.
- Ed Wood: There's a rumor going around that Wood sold the script to this movie to raise cash for Glen or Glenda, which George Weiss also produced. There's a couple Wood standbys in it — Ruby even wears an angora top — and it certainly has the gender confusion that plagued him.
- Epic Fail: Joe gives a horse steroids to cheat at a race — and ends up killing the horse.
- The Faceless: Mr. Big, who unfortunately was in this movie, meaning he was always framed in the bottom of the screen and often in the corner, making him look small and weak.
- Fanservice Pack: While there is a plot here, the film can be seen as an excuse to show off athletic women wrestling around in sports bras for the much of the runtime. Even the headliner "actress" Peaches Page is mostly in the movie as an attractive body (even the poster for the film says as much), as she barely does anything other than get the audience introduced to the setting and having backstory dumped on her.
- Fixing the Game: Scalli fixes horse races by doping the horse (one of whom drops dead in the starting gate), and attempts to fix wrestling matches. However, all the wrestlers he approaches turn him down because "women's wrestling is a clean sport".
- Ironic Nickname: Puncture Proof was punctured — and killed — by Joe.
- The Ingenue: Peaches's main role. Aside from the fanservice, she seems to exist just to get other characters to provide exposition on the kind of person Scalli is.
- Insistent Terminology: Women's wrestling is a clean sport. It must be noted that during this period, point shaving was rampant in college and pro sports, such as the 1951 CCNY scandal.
- Kick the Dog: The male lead in the movie forces a woman into prostitution.Ruby: He's the sort of man who would turn an evening's stroll from a recreation to an occupation!
- Male Gaze: Joe the Jockey openly ogles Peaches in the office, in the gym, and when they are jogging. Scalli also sometimes stares obviously.
- The Mole: Scalli's bookkeeper, Monk, also works for Mr. Big on the sly, keeping the crime boss updated on Scalli's behavior.
- Ms. Fanservice: Peaches's other role in the film as it were. She gets a minor montage that literally consists of nothing but her "training" via exercises that facilitate bouncing around.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Joe gets a bloodless bullet to the forehead during the climax. Thanks to the Hays Code, that was as close to gore as the film would be allowed to show.
- Screaming Warrior: Rita Martinez certainly doesn't scream like a little girl. At all.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: The wrestlers in this movie labor under the mistaken belief that they're legitimate athletes and not an excuse for jiggling. The male lead tries to get nearly every single one to throw a fight for him and none will.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Peaches doesn't seem to mind Joe leering at her ample bosom. It's implied she enjoys it (she does call Joe "cute" after all), or, considering how she acts in the rest of the film, that she genuinely doesn't realize it.
- Sudden Musical Ending: There's no music at all in the film (excluding Peaches's outdoor training scene) until the last five minutes. Suddenly a stock music piece plays during the cop chase scene.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: A bookie being questioned by the Senate — just a single politician (?), mind you — is apparently worthy of being broadcast on national radio. Sure, it was The '50s, but The Kefauver Hearings this ain't.
- Would Hit a Girl: Though he's relatively lenient on the woman, who was skimming off the top. It's debatable whether Scalli is a Hypocrite for doing the exact same thing to Mr. Big.
