wrestling

OUT IN THE RING: macho and flamboyant, wrestling is also queer

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Charlie Morgan in OUT IN THE RING. Courtesy of Ryan Bruce Levey.

Out in the Ring is Ryan Bruce Levey’s encyclopedic yet irresistible documentary history of LGBTQ professional wrestlers. There is no sports entertainment that is more macho than pro wrestling. Or more flamboyant. Or, as it turns out, more queer.

Out in the Ring takes us back to the 1940s, when the straight journeyman wrestler Gorgeous George became a star and transformed wrestling by affecting a gay pose as his gimmick. George was just the first to do so, and Out in the Ring traces the many straight wrestlers who have pretended to be gay.

At the same time, many of wrestling’s best performers were closeted, notably the great Pat Patterson. Out in the Ring focuses on Patterson’s career and personal life, and how he grew into an important executive in the business. Out in the Ring surveys a long list of LGBTQ wrestlers who were forced to stay in the closet, like Patterson and Susan Tex Green.

[Personal note: The Movie Gourmet is a Boomer who, as a child, was glued to the TV for KTVU’s Saturday pro wrestling broadcasts, announced by Walt Harris. (Harris also called also roller derby.) In that era, Pat Patterson was a dominant presence in Bay Area pro wrestling.]

Out in the Ring showcases the panoply of today’s Out wrestling stars, led by Charlie Morgan and Mike Parrow. The variety is astounding: gay men, lesbians, bisexual women and men, transsexual men and transsexual women, asexual and nonbinary. There are those who make their queerness a signature of their act and those that don’t. They tell us about the homophobia that they have faced and their relief and joy from coming out.

Ry Levey has brought many films to Cinequest as a publicist, especially Canadian indies. The exquisitely sourced Out in the Ring is his first feature as a director.

I screened Out in the Ring for its US premiere at Cinequest. Both unflinching and uplifting, it’s a documentary as fun to watch as pro wrestling.

Coming up on TV: Night and the City

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Richard Widmark running out of luck in THE NIGHT AND THE CITY

On July 15, Turner Classic Movies is showing the under appreciated film noir classic Night in the City (1950). Richard Widmark is superb as a loser who tries to corner the pro wrestling business in post-war London – and, as in any noir classic, it doesn’t end well for the sap.

The American director Jules Dassin had just made the noir classics The Naked City and Thieves’ Highway when he shot Night and the City in the UK. He was blackballed in the McCarthy Era and never moved back to the US.

At the request of a studio exec, Dassin created a role in Night and the City for the stunningly beautiful but emotionally fragile Gene Tierney. The cast also includes real life wrestlers Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki.

Night in the City (along with The Wrestler) represents wrestling on my list of Best Sports Movies, and there’s a clip of an extended wrestling scene from the movie on that page. (Also, Dassin’s Brute Force makes my list of Best Prison Movies.)