The One and Only; A fictioanlised Gorgeous George

So welcome to an irregular column written about films (I am off school this week and decided I had to write more, I am kind of in a groove at 10,000 words so here goes a few more). Inspired by the news that Glen Jacobs is to once again star in a flick. This column will be about wrestling movies, either movies about wrestling or movies featuring wrestling. So I shall start with an old childhood favourite, The One and Only. This stars Henry Winkler as a pro wrestler who can't find his groove despite numerous attempts at finding a bankable gimmick. It roughly follows the life history of Gorgeous George, the 1940's icon that essentially put wrestling on the map in the early TV era.

Gorgeous George was in his earlier career as straight up and down George Wagner a mid card kind of guy. Middleweight, winning the Northwest Middleweight title early in his career, not particularly startling as an athlete, and not really what you would call a star. Just a dependable guy promoters liked because he could have solid matches with just about everyone. Not what you would call a star. That changed when he began to apply some showmanship to his matches. He was one of the first to get married in the ring. Which turned out to be a drawing card and so was reenacted several times in several territories (before TV made that kind of thing less likely). When he heard about Lord Patrick Lansdowne and his flamboyant robes and capes he realised he could push that gimmick to a higher level and so began using outlandish materials, ceremony and pomp that would become a huge influence on pro wrestling. Buddy Rodgers, Ric Flair, "Exotic" Adrian Street and Adrian Adonis all owe a debt to George. In fact modern stars such as Fandango and Robbie E push the same buttons George used to back in the '40s when long hair was frowned upon.

Essentially this film is about being reborn and finding your place in a new idiom. Actually that was a theme of a lot of films starring Winkler in the late '70s and early 80's. Still a star from his days as The Fonz in Happy Days, each movie he seemed to make had and edge of reinvention to it another of my favourites from 1982 (one of Ron Howard's first direction jobs), featured him as the director of a morgue who after being consigned to a night shift rebels and uses the morgue as a base for a pimping operation.

The film is well made and has a neat story. I remember watching it as a wrestling obsessed child one Saturday afternoon around Christmas on BBC 1. It was my first exposure to any kind of American Wrestling culture. So plug in the popcorn sit back and enjoy.