Main Cast: Peter Falk, Vicki Frederick, Laurene Landon, Burt Young, Tracy Reed
Release Year: 1981
Country: US
Run Time: 112 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Director Robert Aldrich's last film, All the Marbles stars Peter Falk as a "win-at-all-costs" type manager of a ladies tag-team wrestling combo. These girls are good and Falk wants them great. And he doesn't really care what they've got to do to get there. (This film's "R" rating is not for Raunchy, but it could be for "Revealing.") Following sort of a Rocky theme, this film finds our ladies tag team climbing its way to the top of the women's wrestling world where they face off against the world's best. ~ All Movie Guide
Ursaline Bryant-King - June; John Hancock - Big John Stanley; Claudette Nevins - Solly; Richard Jaeckel - Referee in Reno; Angela Aames - Louise; Susan Barnes - Merie's Wife; Lennie Bremen - No-Name Promoter; Stanley Brock - Myron; Don Brodie - Reno Timekeeper; Clyde Kusatsu - Clyde Yamashita; Perry Cook - Doctor; Cliff Emmich - Obese Promoter; "Mean" Joe Greene - Himself; Alvin Hammer - Geisha Doctor; Gloria Hayes - Jerome's Girlfriend; Chuck Hicks - Thug; Susan Mechsner - Creature #1; Faith Minton - Big Mama; Lenny Montana - Jerome; Cosmo Sardo - Barber; Nick Shields - Warehouse Player; William Kulzer - Akron Referee; Gary McLarty - Thug; Charlie Dell - Merle LeFevre; Ernie Fuentes - Man with Dice; Steven White - Body Builder; Charles Anderson - Body Builder
Credit
Beala Neel - Art Director, Eddie Saeta - Associate Producer, Walter Blake - Associate Producer, Bob Mackie - Costume Designer, Chuck Myers - First Assistant Director, Robert Aldrich - Director, Richard Lane - Editor, Irving Rosenblum - Editor, Frank De Vol - Composer (Music Score), William Turner - Makeup, Carl Anderson - Production Designer, Joseph Biroc - Cinematographer, William Aldrich - Producer, Richard S. Church - Sound/Sound Designer, Mel Frohman - Screenwriter
Among the young unknown actresses who auditioned for the film, but did not receive a part, was Kathleen Turner.
The wrestlers were trained by former women's world wrestling champion Mildred Burke.
According to Laurene Landon, while the film did not do very well at the box office in the United States, it made a healthy profit in foreign markets, and producers were planning a sequel, to be set primarily in Japan, when Robert Aldrich's death put a halt to the project.
The film is known overseas as "The California Dolls", because "all the marbles" is an American idiom that makes little sense in most other countries.
