Fresh and Exciting

A Masterpiece!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Three persons in search for a dream scour the back roads and interstates of the mid-western, United States searching for fame and money. Professional Wrestling Manager and ex-Teacher Harry Sears(Peter Falk) and his two lovelies, ex-girl friend Iris (Vicki Frederick) the brunette twenty years younger than Harry is constantly gripping about getting substantial venues to show her wears in the Wrestling Profession.The other partner in this sexy tag team is the soft spoken blonde Molly played by Laurene Landon. Riding town to hamlet Harry Blares his opera music in his car and tells the Girls where there next match will be. Bookings become scarce and Harry relegates, basically humiliates the two woman into a mud-wrestling match which leaves Iris questioning her own self worth as she breaks down and cries which motivates their crusty manager. Harry finagles his way to Reno for a possible winner take all tag team title match. I was drawn to this story because I'm a Peter Falk fan. He doesn't show emotion and stays on an even keel despite terrible odds. This movie has a beginning, a middle and a happy ending which will not disappoint, Weird vehicle for both Falk and Director Aldrich but it some how caught my interest. Both Fredericks and Landon (Our two lady Stars) convinced me that they were really Professional Wrestlers by their moves in the squared circle. Kudos to the consultants that trained the two. It's not a chick flick but more a wrestling movie with the Columbo touch!

Dear Mel Frohman, I liked the story - A couple of female wrestlers and their manager on the road, traveling to various shows and their hardships portrayed humorously. Peter Falk looked like a working class man. Vicki Fredrick and Lauren Landon were gorgeous. I liked the melancholic stories that Peter Falk told the two wrestlers while they drove around in the car. While I'm no expert on Italian opera, the music played while they were on the road was novel. It seemed like you and the director were trying to underline the fact that you guys were not a couple of dunces. The wrestling bouts were quite long and did not add much to the film. I do not understand the people who call this film an exploitation flick because it was not erotic or anything. But the film is still quite interesting because who would make a film like this in this day and age. The film is not without its flaws. Like I said, the wrestling scenes do go on for too long and are farcical. But the film is quite melancholic as well. I was reminded of the Clint Eastwood film - Every Which Way But Loose. Best Regards, Pimpin. (7/10)

As a long time wrestling fan, i was very pleased with "All The Marbles" when i saw it in the theaters at the tender age of 13. Even back then, i KNEW wrestling was a show, a put on, a big fix or whatever you want to refer to it as. So to see the actual matches in this film portrayed as legitimate pugilistic contests kind of undermined the whole point of wrestling: to put on a simulated but well choreographed show in which opponents perform moves and holds that realistically can only happen when BOTH participants are cooperating to "sell" the effect. So, in wrestling terminology, this film is done in what is known as "kayfabe" or keeping the illusion up. But apart from that one quibble, everything else regarding pro wrestling was dead on. Long and very boring hours driving from town to town, living out of suitcases, taking all your meals at whatever restaurant you come to, and of course, lots of physical abuse, staged or not, on a nightly basis.Making this about a women's tag team, as opposed to a men's, was obviously a marketing move, with the intention that T&A automatically equals box office. Not quite. "Marbles" bombed at the box office, because unfortunately at the time, pro wrestling wasn't quite the money making juggernaut on TV and at large arenas that it would become just a few years after this film's release. Had it been release in 1985 or later, when the wrestling boom started in earnest, it may have fared better. But who knows? So, we have Peter Falk as a world weary manager for his team, "The California Dolls", also known as Molly, the tall blonde one, and Iris, the short but scrappy brunette. These ladies can wrestle their cute butts off, and they do frequently. What does this odd trio want from this life they are in? To be successful, of course, to reach the top. To do so, the trio must contend with long tours on the road, sleazy promoters, one of the girls trying to kick a painkiller addiction, and of course the stigma that, as Burt Young, ("Paulie" from the "Rocky" movies) says to Falk, "all the crowd wants is t*ts and a$$". Falk takes umbrage at that philosophy, as do the ladies, and so would anyone who loves wrestling for it's action and showmanship, as opposed to simply ogling pretty bodies in the ring.But our trio soldiers on, impressing other influential promoters besides Young, and finding themselves in a championship match at a "Wrestlemania" like event in Reno, Nevada, and right at Christmastime, no less! Laurene Landon and Vicki Frederick, as Molly and Iris, respectively, put on spectacular wrestling performances throughout the film, and even Vince McMahon would be envious to have ladies of such talent and charisma working in his WWE.This is not to say "Marbles" is a perfect film, for it isn't. Besides the "kayfabe" quibble, there's also some embarrassing business regarding a mud wrestling match at a county fair, (yeah, you just knew mud wrestling was going to come into this sooner or later), and there's the soap opera like subplot with Molly trying to kick her painkiller addiction, and a hint that at some point, Iris and Harry (Falk's character) were romantically involved at some point earlier. But all of these negatives don't outweigh the positives: the life of a wrestler is not all glory and glitz and big bucks. It's a very tedious, monotonous and sometimes painful life, lived mostly on the road, with very few days of downtime at home to recharge. And the wrestling business then, and even today, too, is chock full of lowlife sharks who think nothing of making money off the injuries and agonies of the wrestlers who fill their arenas.Clearly, this film was meant for wrestling fans, for only wrestling fans will truly appreciate the physical and mental sacrifices that are made by those who seek fame and fortune in the squared circle. It's not high art, not by a damned sight. And it's a bit less of an emotional rush then what you would get from the first couple of "Rocky" films, but all in all, "All The Marbles" gives you your money's worth of wrestling action, and humanizing the super-heroines who bust their bodies for other people's entertainment.Give it a look, and let the California Dolls dazzle you into submission! Nine stars and a title shot for this film!

This one's a puzzler. With such an honored film resume, it's hard to understand why Aldrich took on this project; it's probably sad that this was (?) his last project before he died in 1983. Also curious how an actor like Peter Falk signed on (although if memory serves he really didn't do all that much since Colombo at this point in time). Harder to figure still is how the film got green lighted in the first place. Was it a comedy? Was it a drama? Was it a "buddy" film? Was meant to be a lady "Palooka" or boxing genre? Th movie suffered from trying to go all over the map and as a result, didn't do any one thing well. Certainly it couldn't have been a star vehicle for Vicki Frederick (better known for her role in the "A Chorus Line" movie), could it? Also, the timing of this is amazing if you consider that "Wrestlemania" (that popular culture earthquake that popularized "modern pro wrasslin" and characters like Hulk Hogan, Cindy Lauper, and "Girls Just Wanta Have Fun" video star Capt'n Lou Albano, etc.) was still another five years away.Seemingly had nods toward "Rocky (I)" in terms of the story: down-on-luck, working class fighters struggle and get their shot at the brass ring. But again, the film didn't seem to flesh out any of these various story lines: • Is pro wrestling real or fake (again, this was BEFORE the industry's dirty little secret of "KayFabe" was broken in open court)? • Can the "good guys" (Good Girls in this case) succeed in their crusade against the morally challenged fight promoters or the "system" of low-budget/low esteem pro wrestling traveling circuses? • The physical and emotional affects of this lifestyle (battles with "substance dependency" by one the characters, "how did my life turn out like this?, how did I get here?") • The sexual discrimination and women-in-a-man's-world attitudes faced by these two young women trying to "eek" out a living in high-inflation, low morale, and national malaise Jimmy Carter's "Rust Belt" America.I'm not even mentioning the obvious salacious subject-matter (scantily clad women rolling around wrestling rings with other scantily clad women). The film's reliance on clichés and other pleas for help are numerous: 1) Jumping on the "mud wrestling" craze of the late 70s and early 80s (when this was supposed to be about in-ring "pro" wrestling; 2) The completely unnecessary and blatantly opportunistic special guest appearance by "Mean Joe" Greene (of the then Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and "Hey, Kid"/Coca Cola TV commercial fame); and finally, 3) The apparent May-December romance between the two "stars".It's almost like Falk and Aldrich were fulfilling a contractual commitment to the studio by doing this film, and this was the script that they settled upon. Either that or you have to wonder which one of them – perhaps both -- has the wrestling fetish. Having said all this, the viewer CAN tell that both Falk and Aldrich are brining some sophistication to the film, and that's probably what saves it from being completely ready for Mystery Science Theater 3000. The choreography of the wrestling sequences is right up there with some of the better boxing pictures I've seen. And the "driving" interludes through small, depressed industrial towns and the back roads of the Midwest farmlands nicely convey the "living on the road and out of the trunk of the car" day-to-day existence the trio might have endured. Falk's character grooms the young, up-and-coming "athletes" or "performers" for their "shot" at the big time (think Burgess Meredith in Rocky). Falk's performance -- as the streetwise but disrespected, good-hearted but washed-up, grouchy but lovable manager – is distracting not because it's tired and cliché but because it is so far above any other actor in the movie. Had I been there, I would have LOVED to ask him about this role during his appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" a few years ago. Speaking of Rocky, Burt Young, Rocky's brother-in-law Paulie in the series, basically plays the same character here, only not as lovable but a shady character with some power to "pull some strings" when it suits him.But ultimately the tag team relationship between Frederick and Landon -- teammates and theoretically "friends" -- is almost nonexistent. Really only one scene even attempts to explore this "bond" (a la Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid). The physicality of their performances and their obvious training to learn the bumps and rolls of the wrestling game is commendable, but doesn't save the movie, either.We're not sure whether we're supposed to believe what they've been through is real, so we really don't care for any of the characters by the end. But by that time, we pretty much know what's going to happen, anyway. Watch it for an interesting, if not laudable, project by each Messrs. Falk and Aldrich.