. Two gorgeous ladies of wrestling and their sleazy manager (Peter Falk) go to the mat for tag team glory in what would be Aldrich's final film. In dingy arenas, dodgy motels, and even the degrading slop of the mud-wrestling pit, the trio of this unlikely buddy movie peddles their tinsel glamour and T & A from the recession-wracked industrial towns of the East to a final, excruciating grudge match at MGM's Grand Hotel in Reno. Though Aldrich wanted to make an “out-and-out commercial movie” with “no messages, just comedy,” what he ended up with was another tainted genre, a parody of the come-from-behind film. These California Dolls almost get their heads pulled off-and bashed in-but the film's genuine warmth and wit could put any critic in a choke hold. Even Andrew Sarris felt “cleansed, exhilarated, almost sanctified” by the “exquisite communion between a rowdy director and his raunchy audience.”