Prison Shadows (1936)

A boxing-crime drama which rather pulls it's punches.

Gene (Eddie Nugent) is a boxer who is in prison for killing a man in the ring. He is released from prison and bought back into the fight game by an unscrupulous promoter (Forest Taylor) and his partner Claire (Lucile Lund) whom Gene has the hots for and thus Claire is able to wrap him around her little finger, much to the disappointment of Mary (Joan Barclay) who really loves Gene. Gene kills another man in the ring but it seems there are illegal drugs being used and a plot by the promoter to use death to build up Gene's name...

This isn't a great film, though is perfectly watchable for what it is. The story doesn't make a lot of sense plus Gene is incredibly naive which makes it hard to root for him as the main character. 

No more than OK, it wouldn't win any prizes though does have a clever dog (Corky) in the film who is the real hero.

The One and Only (1978)

Amiable if somewhat annoying tale of seeking wrestling stardom.

Andy (Henry Winkler) is an aspiring actor, unfortunately he finds it hard to get any parts despite being the most self-confident man in the universe. This is a concern to his wife Mary (Kim Darby) especially as she is now pregnant. 

Andy learns from another actor Milton (Hervé Villechaise) that he can make money in the ring as a wrestler. Mary is not that keen on this change in direction but Andy tends to ignore her concerns anyway (why she stays with him is the film's biggest mystery) but soon gets the bug and seeks super-stardom in the squared circle with a hot new gimmick...

This is a fun enough film, Andy's character is very annoying but Henry Winkler makes it bearable. It is a decent comedy though not without flaws. Real wrestlers who appear in the film include Roddy Piper and Chavo Guerrero Snr.

The Wrestler (1974)

A nostalgic view of professional wrestling in the 1970s but not much of a film.

Frank (Edward Asner) is a wrestling promoter who is involved with other promoters around the country trying to come up with a unified national show (so foretold the rise of Wrestlemania in the 1980s somewhat). However, the mob want to fix some matches to make some bread which goes against everything Frank believes in (this film is strictly kayfabe). 

Meanwhile, the champion and Frank's friend Mike (Verne Gagne) refuses to put his title on the line against the up-and-coming and dangerous challenger Billy Robinson. Frank puts his friendship with Mike on the line to book the match...

This really isn't that great a film from a dramatic piece of work standpoint. The plot is plodding and sometimes confusing, the acting from most of the wrestlers is pretty poor. However, for a nostalgic look at wrestling in it's time this is great. Some real legends of the ring are on show here (the film is heavily AWA based) including Verne Gagne, Dusty Rhodes, Dick Murdoch even a very young (and brown haired) Ric Flair in one scene!

The Jesse Ventura Story (1999)

Jesse "The Body" Ventura (wrestler, actor, politician) has a life story almost tailor made for a biopic, unfortunately this isn't it.

We see Jesse from his early years as a US Navy Seal, then breaking into pro-wrestling before injuries forced him to take on a broadcasting role. This led to him beginning a film and TV career before finally entering politics and becoming governor of Minnesota. 

A great story but unfortunately so much of the story portrayed on screen is completely wrong, especially the wrestling segments which seem to exist in some parallel universe utterly against actual wrestling history (Raven, Goldberg in wrestling supposedly set in the 1970s and 80s? Really?)

To make matters worse, the guy who plays Ventura (Nils Allen Stewart) doesn't really look or sound like him, which is always a drawback when the original is one of the most recognisable people on Earth! Quite why the makers took so many liberties is unknown, but this is really terrible. Watch the real Jesse Ventura in Predator or Abraxus instead!

The American Angels: Baptism of Blood (1990)

Ah this sounds like it could be a tough and gritty film from the violent world of wrestling, actually no this is a largely bloodless though frequently soft core bit of sexploitation.

Lisa (Jan Sebastian) is one of a number of girls who want to train to become wrestlers and join the American Angels organisation. Lisa has a secret though, her grandfather was Killer Kane (Robert D Bergen), notorious for killing someone in the ring. Luckily Lisa doesn't follow in his footsteps, yet. She is desperate to fight the champion Mimi (Mimi Lesseos) and will even seduce the show owner Diamond Dave (Tray Loren) to get her shot. As Diamond and Mimi are a couple this adds extra spice to the final showdown...

OK its fairly obvious who this film is aimed at, it's full of scantily clad fit and toned young women getting sweaty (so not all bad then). Despite all sexploitation nonsense, it isn't that bad a film and has some decent in ring action, assisted by real wrestlers like Susan Sexton. 

Not great but could have been a lot worse.

Thrashin' (1986)

Classic 1980s youth gang action on four wheels, four wheels of a skateboard that is!

Corey (Josh Brolin) is a young hotshot skateboarder who arrives in LA with his crew to compete with the best. They immediately come into conflict with a bunch of skateboarding punks led by Hook (Robert Rusler). Corey is going to take part in a downhill race and grab all the glory and money. Hook has other ideas of course. Things get complicated when Corey meets Chrissy (Pamela Gidley) and they fall in love. Complicated because Chrissy is Hook's kid sister...

This is a fairly formulaic teen drama with the usual tale of challenge, set backs and eventual redemption. The film is often quite silly but is cool (especially if you are nostalgic for the 1980s) and fun. The skateboarding is realistic (and includes many accidents!)

Look out for the young unknown band who appear in an early scene. They were pretty good, i wonder what happened to them. They called them the Red Hot Chili Peppers i believe...

Red Line 7000 (1965)

A hot tale of racing drivers in the 1960s NASCAR scene and not short of cliche. Jim (Anthony Rogers) and Mike (James Caan) drive for Pat Cassarian (Norman Alden). Jim is expecting his fiancé Holly (Gail Hire) but dies in a race when he pushes the red line too hard and blows his engine at speed. Holly stays on and forms a link with Mike. New hotshot Ned (James Robert Crawford) is Jim's replacement and hooks up with Pat's sister Julie (Laura Devon). Meanwhile, Dan (James Ward) arrives with his latest flame Gabrielle (Marianna Hill)...

So, a tale of three racing drivers and their girlfriends and various antics. This film is quite melodramatic and sometimes resembles a soap opera with racing cars. The acting is a bit patchy but the cars look great, footage from real races is well used. 

Not a great film but an enjoyable one for the 1960s nostalgia and the sport. George Takai appears as a race engineer.

Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1987)

A vampire snooker musical, yes you read that right. A very strange film it is too (as you probably would expect). It is based on the real-life snooker rivalry between the old guard (and Dracula-like) Ray Reardon and young buck Jimmy White.

T.O. (Bruce Payne) is the manager of young snooker player Billy the Kid (Phil Daniels), he has a gambling problem and big debts owed to The Wednesday Man (Don Henderson). The Wednesday Man manipulates T.O. into agreeing to arrange a showdown snooker match between Billy and champion Maxwell Randall (Alun Armstrong) who has something of the night about him...

Unknown to Billy the loser of the match will also have to give up their career. Randall isn't quite the washed up has-been Billy is let to think he is.

The story line contains a number of songs, of various quality. The story is fairly light and frequently bizarre. A surreal film, maybe a little too weird to be "good" but definitely memorable and highly enjoyable.

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939)

A player (Anthony Bushell) collapses during a match at Highbury, is he injured? Is he dead? Was he murdered? Indeed he was and the rather eccentric detective Anthony Slade (Leslie Banks) is bought in, once he is dragged away from a show he is producing (which includes policemen in tutus) and has chosen the correct hat.

So this is a rather strange film but is a decent crime drama. Slade discovers that poison applied to a ring sent to the deceased was the means. The question is who sent the ring and wanted the man dead. Slade begins to look into the pasts of the other team mates...

A rather light film (despite the fact it includes two murders) which is mostly down to the odd but entertaining performance of Banks. Some real Arsenal stars of the day appear as themselves, the manager George Allison actually doing quite well in his role.

The best part of this film is the fascinating look at top level football in the late 1930s, rather different to today!

Spiker (1985)

Although this follows the usual cliched pattern of a sports movie the fact it is about volleyball makes it slightly novel. It follows a number of young hopefuls, including Sonny (Stephen Burns) and Catch (Patrick Houser), who want to make the US Olympic volleyball team under tough Coach Doames (Michael Parks).

Not everyone makes the cut and along the way there are a lot of toil and sweat and mysterious looking training exercises. Sonny and Catch fall foul of Coach due to their love of parties and / or the opposite sex. Team veteran Newt (Christopher Allport) meanwhile has trouble of his own as his wife Marcia (Jo McDonnell) is becoming bored of being a volleyball widow...

The film has little you haven't seen before but is a decent watch even though it is painfully low budget and rather shoddy at times. The acting is slightly awkward but has a natural feel to it. The AOR soundtrack is great and adds to the heavy dose of 80s cheese. We don't get to see if the team actually did go and win gold, though in a heavily stylised way it is implied. The real team did win gold in 1988 incidentally.

The tough and often precarious life of an Olympic athlete is well portrayed. As the Coach said, do you really want it? 

Grunt! The Wrestling Movie (1985)

A rather interesting mock documentary on the crazy world of early 1980s wrestling.

A few years before top wrestler Mad Dog (Magic Schwarz) decapitated his opponent in the ring and then apparently committed suicide... but now documentary maker Jeff Dial is trying to find out if a hot new name in the ring, and with a very similar style to Mad Dog, called The Mask actually really is Mad Dog...

All the craziness of the pre-WWF style of American wrestling in the early 1980s is on show here including midget matches, battle royals and deranged TV hosts. A number of real wrestlers including Adrian Street and Dick Murdoch feature in the film as themselves.

The problem is the film is a bit unstructured and a little too interested in novelty. To be honest it is hard to send up something like pro wrestling which is quite so strange in the first place. It is undeniably fun though and the glimpse of early 80s wrestlers is great.

Silver Dream Racer (1980)

Nick (David Essex) is a hot-headed young mechanic and motorbike racer though lacks a decent machine to compete with the delightfully arrogant and big headed Yank Bruce McBride (Beau Bridges). However after his brother dies in a motorbike accident Nick gets his hands on the prototype bike his brother had built. Its pretty hot stuff and silver. All he needs is the backing to compete at Silverstone...

So Nick is the classic underdog who battles against the odds to fight the favourite. Along the way he has to get over the fears of his girlfriend Carol (Sheila White) and somehow gain the finance he needs. Julie (Cristina Raines), who is linked to McBride in a vague way, helps out here.

So the story isn't that innovative, though certainly has a few shocks including the ending which simply has to be seen to be believed. The performances are as good off the track as well as on including from Essex. There is a good supporting cast including Harry H Corbett, Diane Keen, Clarke Peters and Nick Brimble.

Hollywood Stadium Mystery (1938)

A prize boxer dies in the ring, but not because of his opponent's fists but because of poison. DA Bill Devons (Neil Hamilton) is on the case with detective novelist Pauline Ward (Evelyn Venable) hanging on to assist / perform her own parallel investigation... but also a potential suspect along with a few thousand other people in the audience.

Bill and Pauline also have a love-hate flirting thing going on throughout. They have some nice chemistry together.

The investigation continues at the stadium with various false leads and mysterious goings on. In many ways a standard murder mystery but the setting adds novelty. The film is pretty creative and nicely done, raising it above the usual B-film. Interestingly the poster for a Gene Autry film is a major plot point...

One jarring point is when murder suspect Edna (Lynne Roberts) is blacked up to keep her away from the clutches of the law but the film is easily good enough to forgive that.

The Big Chance (1933)

Young boxer Frankie (John Darrow) is moving up the ranks... however his fights are being fixed by a hoodlum called Flash (Matthew Betz). Flash's plan is for Frankie to get a title fight when he will take a dive and he and his backers will get a big pay off.

A complication arrives when Frankie falls in love with pious church going Mary (Merna Kennedy) and he starts to have second thoughts about Flash's plan. Flash tries to break up Frankie and Mary including using Natalie Moorhead to try and seduce him...

It isn't a bad film just a bit obvious, the fight scenes use a mixture of rather blurry stock footage and close-ups where the boxers have a chat in the middle of the ring! There is some decent humour though especially from Mary's strait laced religious father (Frank La Rue) and plenty of decent one-liners which makes the film worth seeing. Mary's little brother is played by Mickey Rooney in an enjoyable supporting role.

My Breakfast with Blassie (1983)

Comedian Andy Kaufman and legendary wrestler / manager "Classy" Freddie Blassie sit down for breakfast and... well that's pretty much it! They talk for an hour about various topics including personal hygiene and their respective careers over the poached eggs and toast and whatever else they had.

A rather strange little film, itself a skit on the also a bit strange My Dinner with Andre (1981). Why was Kaufman hanging around with an old wrestler? The film was made just after Kaufman had entered the wrestling scene himself and had a legendary feud with Jerry Lawler which broke wrestling into the mainstream for awhile a couple of years before Hulk Hogan...

The film makes for pleasant if unsubstantial viewing. Freddie Blassie just oozes charisma as the seasoned flamboyant old hack. Andy Kaufman is somewhat edgy and awkward. They played to their characters very well.

No Way Back (1949)

Based on a short story written by Thomas Burke as part of his Limehouse Nights collection No Way Back is the story of a washed up ex-boxer played by Terence de Marney who hits hard times and eventually ends up just another thug in a spiv's gang.

But the spiv's girl (Eleanor Summerfield) is his one of his ex-s and still has the hots for him - and soon romance is rekindled which doesn't go down too well with the spiv boss obviously...

At times this is a decent noir drama, though at others (especially with the police chase and siege at the end) it can be a bit silly. The scenes of post-war London are fascinating though with bombed out buildings still yet to be rebuilt. The film also has some odd charm at times.

The Square Ring (1953)

An interesting British film about boxing, set on one night at a boxing card in London, and following five different boxers - who fulfil various British/boxing stereotypes: plucky, washed up, wide eyed naive et cetera.

The film has plenty of star power and is an enjoyable watch (Jack Warner, Joan Collins, Robert Beatty, Sid James and Bill Owen among others) but it is all a bit too cliched and the "boxing is fixed" game is laid on a bit too thick.

The actual boxing scenes, especially the final title fight, are very well done and there is an undeniable sense of drama about the film despite it's shortcomings.

Below The Belt (1980)

I've seen a few films about professional wrestling, and starring wrestlers, and they are all pretty awful... except for Below The Belt which follows Rosa (Regina Baff) as she leaves her dead-end life in New York to join the (wrestling) circus.

However this isn't the glitzy and media rich world of the WWE nowadays, this is the rather lo-fi wrestling scene of the 1970s (the film was made in 1974 though not released until 1980). Wrestlers did the hard yards travelling from town to town living out of a suitcase, shedding blood for a baying crowd for a handful of dollars. Although about wrestling this film can be seen more as a road movie... with head locks.

The relationships of the wrestlers makes this movie, the new blood and the old soaks. Hopes and dreams... for some still burning bright, for others fast fading away.

It's a terrific film, dosed in 1970s Americana: big cars pounding endless freeways, popcorn stands in grubby arenas in the back of small towns. Easily the best wrestling film I've seen, of course that doesn't mean much considering the competition. Just trust me that this obscure film really is pretty special. Like Rosa, the film might not look much but it's got it where it counts.