Comments on: Gee, Mr. Scalli

Gee, Mr. Scalli

Horace Rumpole — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:41:57 -0800

Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 may remember Racket Girls as a sleazy little Poverty Row crime drama featuring wooden lady-wrestler acting and inexplicable overdubbed audience shrieking. You may not be aware, however, that Racket Girls was one of three movies starring Timothy Farrell as the oily Umberto Scalli, and that Dance Hall Racket (1953) was written by, and costars, Lenny Bruce.

Dance Hall Racket is available in its entirety on the Internet Archive.

By: penduluum

penduluum — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:51:11 -0800

Reflex favorite for the MST3K reference; now to schedule time to watch the linked movie. Excellent.

By: hyperizer

hyperizer — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:04:42 -0800

Racket Girls is a tough movie to get through, even with riffing.

By: cog_nate

cog_nate — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:08:36 -0800

"Aaaaa." ^"Aaaaa." "Aaaaa."

By: ShutterBun

ShutterBun — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:43:32 -0800

I think the guy who played Scalli also did the narration for "Glen or Glenda," didn't he? Racket Girls was produced by George Weiss, (the boisterous producer Ed Wood convinces to produce G or G, as dramatized in Ed Wood )

By: sixohsix

sixohsix — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:05:51 -0800

Thank you, Horace, for directing me to the YouTube account of MrXclio, wherein a hundred or so MST3K episodes, lovingly ripped from VHS, are uploaded.

By: Bunny Ultramod

Bunny Ultramod — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:38:18 -0800

I think the guy who played Scalli also did the narration for "Glen or Glenda," didn't he? Yep. Timothy Farrell. He was also in Ed Wood's "The Violent Years" and "Jail Bait." Believe it or not, the character he plays in "Racket Girl," Umberto Scalli, also appeared in an earlier film, "The Devil's Sleep," a film about pill pushing in a woman's health spa. Interesting cat. While he was acting in these sorts of poverty row exploitation films, he was a professional bailiff -- which caused him no small amount of embarrassment when one of his films, "Paris After Midnight," was raided by vice cops (the films is about 2/3rds strip club scenes.)

By: ShutterBun

ShutterBun — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:08:41 -0800

Thank you, Horace, for directing me to the YouTube account of MrXclio, That's a great collection he's uploaded. I had been looking for "Last of the Wild Horses" for quite a while. Looks like he got very active around the end of last year. Shame he's not able to upload them without 1 hour breaks (some others have apparently had their accounts upgraded to allow full episodes) but it sure beats the old 10 minute limit. I also appreciate that he cuts out all of the tunnel segments and planet logo bumpers. Completionists may disagree, but after 20+ years of viewing, I think we've all seen them enough times by now. one of his films, "Paris After Midnight," was raided by vice cops (the films is about 2/3rds strip club scenes.) Looking at George Weiss' filmography, it's amusing to see his career go from titillating/sensationalist titles, then into the "educational / documentary" phase. (nudity in films was not permitted, except for documentary & educational films, which gave the world more than its fair share of docs about nudist colonies and Swedish "marriage counseling" titles.