Wrestling pics are having a moment. Last year saw the excellent, if unjustly ignored, , about the ill-fated Von Erich brothers. Now comes Ash Avildsen’s hugely entertaining, old-fashioned biopic about Mildred Burke.
If you don’t know who Burke is (and the vast majority probably don’t), this film aims to correct that. A pioneer of the sport who became the first million-dollar female athlete in history, Burke was a three-time women’s world champion from the 1930s through the 1950s, a time when women’s wrestling wasn’t even legal in most of the country. Her story fairly demands to be told, and , which served as the opening night film of the 39th annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, largely does it justice.
Based on Jeff Leen’s extravagantly titled 2009 book (try fitting that on a marquee), the film stars Emily Bett Rickards ( ) in a breakout performance as Burke. We first see her as an unwed teenage mother working as a waitress in a Kansas diner under the watchful eye of her mother (Cara Buono). But Millie, who possesses a formidable muscularity, has dreams of becoming an entertainer.
And since she can’t sing or dance, she figures that wrestling is her way out of the boonies. When promoter Billy Wolfe (a charismatic ) swings by with his traveling wrestling show, she takes the opportunity to impress him by requesting a bout with one of his male wrestlers. The skeptical Billy lets her compete for his own amusement, but becomes a believer when she con.
