The Blonde Pick-Up Film Review

Aka - The Racket Girls

Trash-O-Rama. It begins with a six-minute women's wrestling match and I was wondering if I had taken a wrong turn and stumbled into a Mexican Luchador. One of them is a busty blonde who spends a lot of the time scissored between the stout legs of the dark-haired wrestler, heaving her ample bosom to get free and keep looking pretty while the brunette is as attractive as a tar pit. The men in the audience all look on with shifty eyes, sweaty and happy to see two women pummeling one another. Nothing like women's wrestling to charge up your hormones. The scene shifts to the gymnasium where a dozen women in halter tops and shorts are working out on barbells, bicycles, stretching machines, rowing machines, hoops and wrestling moves on the mattress. The camera pauses over each of them like a panting peeping tom on a subway. "Boss, can I go watch the girls in the gymnasium". "For the tenth time, no".

Peaches Page (a real-life wrestler) joins up with the promoter of the women wrestlers. She was the blonde in the opening match. How she can wrestle is a mystery. Her top practically reaches into the next zip code and she has the I.Q. of a hammer. She was nick-named the Pin-Down Girl and in Man Magazine she was touted on the cover as "Nude Belle on a bike". I'll have to look for my August 1957 issue in the basement. They take her out to do some road work - jogging and skipping rope. Watch the bouncing ball. One of the other girls describes her as looking like a truck - but one with some set of head lights. The wrestling though is just a front for a crime racket of betting and prostitution. The Big Man wants his money from the promoter. Now it is time to take another break as we watch the Leopard Woman wrestle. Back to the gym for some more eye-candy. Back in 1951 this was hot tawdry stuff, produced by dime store production companies. This one is Arena Productions and it was shot in the same studio where Plan 9 from Outer Space was shot eight years later.

The big match is between Rita Martinez, the Woman Wrestling Champion of Mexico and the other is Clara Mortensen, the World Champion. As the film credits them. No doubt, their names are very familiar to all of you. They have the looks and charms of two pit bulls attacking each other. Mortensen was a big name in the business in the 1930s and 40s but had retired by the time of the film. She went by Tigress or Muscles as well. Martinez was still on the circuit. They both had met in real matches a few times - in 1943 and 1937. This is a fun write-up on their 1937 bout won by Clara.

https://classicwrestlingarticles.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/clara-still-girl-champ/#more-3262

The Promoter tries to bribe each to lose the match. They both turn him down because Woman's Wrestling is the only clean sport left. There is a shoot-out at the end between two gangs but sadly Peaches is never seen again. I wanted more Peaches. They must have run out of money. 67 minutes.