Best movies like Mister Universe
You'll Howl...When the Tusslers Meet the Musclers
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Mister Universe Starring Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Vince Edwards, Bert Lahr, and more. If you liked Mister Universe then you may also like: We've Never Been Licked, World in My Corner, The Wrestler, Night Parade, Rackety Rax and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
A gullible and honest "Mr. Universe" winner, Tommy Tomkins, gets added to the stable of a con-man and a wrestling prompter.
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World in My Corner
A scrappy fighter from Jersey City named Tommy Shea -- "born in a dump, educated in an alley" -- catches the eye of wealthy businessman, Robert Mallinson, who allows him to train at his Long Island estate. Shea soon falls for Mallinson's daughter, Dorothy, but fears he doesn't have the money to support her in proper style. To get this money, Shea decides to work with crooked fight-promoter Harry Cram, even though this means dropping his honest manager, Dave Bernstein. As the big fight approaches, however, Shea begins to have second thoughts.
The Wrestler
Frank Bass (Ed Asner) is an honest guy trying to make a living in the cut throat world of professional wrestling, and he's gonna make it work - even if he dies trying! But first - he'll have to strong-arm his way through all the mobsters, gamblers, promoters and fight fixers and help his past-his-prime wrestler once again win a championship belt. Features appearances from real-life legendary wrestlers and AWA superstars Verne Gagne, Rick Flair, Superstar Billy Graham, Dusty Rhodes, Dick the Bruiser, Ray Stevens, Dory Funk Jr., Ken Patera, Billy Robinson, Dan Gable, Eddie Graham, Dick Murdoch, Vincent J. McMahon, and more.
Night Parade
Bobby Martin, a young middleweight champion boxer, is an honest and decent fighter. However, a dishonest but beautiful woman uses every trick to ensnare him.
Rackety Rax
Gambler/racketeer "Knucks" McGloin takes note of just how much money and action (aside from the game itself) takes place around and about the annual Rose Bowl football game, and decides this is one sweet proposition and could be even sweeter if one had his own college and football game and had a large say beforehand as to the outcome of any game this team had. So he ups and creates his own college---Carnasie after his own neighborhood. His gangster rival. Gilatti, thinks this give McGloin a definite inside advantage and, if there is one thing a gambler can't abide, it is that someone has an inside advantage and they are not that someone. Gilatti gets himself a college football team. Education marches on.
Jackie Brown
Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan — with help from a bail bondsman — to keep the money for herself.
Joe Palooka, Champ
After losing heavyweight contender Al Costa to mob boss Florini fight promoter Knobby Walsh recruits small town boy Joe Palooka to take his place. First in the series.
Joe Palooka in Winner Take All
Joe is scheduled for the big fight as usual. This one has more fight sequences than plot.
Joe Palooka in the Big Fight
Gangsters frame Joe on a drunk charge and a murder rap so they can put their own fighter into a big event. Joe investigates in an attempt to prove his innocence.
Pumping Iron
Amateur and professional bodybuilders prepare for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests as five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young Lou Ferrigno.
Girls Can Play
The Hollywood Post's sports writer, Jimmy Jones (Charles Quigley), yearns to be a crime reporter, and thus looks for foul play on even the most routine assignments. In writing a piece about a girl's softball team, Jimmy discovers that their sponsor, Foy Harris (John Gallaudet), is a notorious racketeer who has supposedly gone straight. Jimmy suspects Foy is still up to no good. He begins hanging around the team to do a bit of snooping, and also to be near the cute new pitcher, Ann Casey (Jacqueline Wells).
An Honest Liar
An Honest Liar tells the incredible story of the world-famous magician, escape artist, and world-renowned enemy of deception, James 'The Amazing' Randi. The film brings to life Randi's intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists with quasi-religious fervor. A master deceiver who came out of the closet at the age of 81, Randi created fictional characters, fake psychics, and even turned his partner of 25 years, Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru names Carlos.
A Man Betrayed
A businessman during the Great Depression discovers that his partners are crooked con-men, and he tries to make things right for the stockholders, but gets framed.
Mars Attacks the World
Feature version of the 1938 film serial FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS. Flash Gordon fights Ming the Merciless once again to ensure the survival of the Earth.
Stardust
Carla de Hulvea is a rumba dancer who makes news by posing as a South-American heiress. She is doing fine with her hoax until she meets American Peter Jackson, a high-pressure promoter who is looking for movie-producing money. He does some big-time bluffing on his own in order to get Carla to invest in a film he is making with his partner, Roy Harley. Through Carla, Roy meets actress Diana West, who is given a role in the movie, and Roy falls in love with her.
Escape by Night
Runyonesque crooks on the lam hide out on blind man's pastoral farm and decide to go straight.
The Green Buddha
Yankee charter pilot Morris inadvertently finds himself in the midst of thieves who have purloined a costly antique jade figure from an exhibit. He tracks the thieves to Battersea, where he rescues the fair Germaine from their unsavory clutches, and the Buddha boosters gain only jaded justice.
City of Shadows
After several years of supporting parts, Victor McLaglen once more landed a leading role in Republic's City of Shadows. McLaglen plays Big Tim Channing, an ageing but powerful gangster who raises young newsboy Dan Mason as his own son. Upon reaching adulthood, Mason (John Baer) becomes a law student, with the covert (and illegal) help of Channing. Despite his checkered past, Mason opts for honesty when he falls in love with Fern Fellows (Kathleen Crowley). This decision ultimately spells the doom for Mason's mentor Big Tim.
Alias the Champ
Slammin’ Sammy Menacker is killed in the ring, and Gorgeous George (in his only film appearance) is arrested for murder. Out to clear his name is his manager Lorraine and cop Ron Peterson, who was already on the scene to investigate the Mob’s influence on pro wrestling.
Partners in Crime
After being dismissed for imitating his boss's voice on radio, former Assistant District Attorney Richard Deming witnesses a store robbery and is taken captive by the criminals. Suspected of the crime, he is sought by the police, but his sweetheart, Marie, convinced of his innocence, enlists the help of two friends, a newspaper reporter and a half-witted detective. Hoping to win the girl's favor, the two go to the gangsters' hideout, encounter a violent gang war, and accidently set off a case of police tear bombs. The police, summoned by Marie, arrive just in time to save the kidnaped attorney.
Me, Gangster
Told in the form of a diary, the story details the rise and fall of gangster boss Jimmy Williams.
Highways by Night
A young millionaire (Richard Carlson) joins the real world and meets a maid (Jane Randolph) and mobsters.
Hunted Men
Notorious racketeer Joe Albany kills James Flowers when he discovers he is embezzling from the club they own. Joe escapes through a window and hails a taxi, but when he gets nervous at the sound of sirens, he jumps out. Hardware salesman Peter Harris accidentally hits Joe with his car, and unharmed, Joe seizes this opportunity to hide in Peter's car. Peter is so drunk that Joe is able to con him into believing that he is Charles Edwards, a fellow hardware man who was with him at a convention, and in the guise of friendship, accompanies Peter to his suburban home. The next morning, Joe gets antsy and wants to leave, but Peter's family, his wife Mary, young son Robert and daughter Jane all entreat him to stay.
The Crooked Road
A blackmail threat from an old prison buddy compels a man who has gone straight to consider yet another crime.
The Big Timer
Loud-mouth hamburger flipper, Cooky, thinks he can box. His big chance comes when everyone else quits the gym when it is inherited by a dame.
The Branded Sombrero
A cowboy promises his dying foster-father, "Honest" John Maggert, that he will return the cattle that Maggert rustled from the local ranchers.
Panic on the Air
A sports announcer and a friend investigate after a pitcher misses a series. When they discover that gangsters are trying to find a hidden fortune, they use the radio show to foil the plan.
The Harlem Globetrotters
All-American basketball player, Billy signs up with the world-famous "Harlem Globetrotters", an all-Negro professional team. Billy struggles with important life decisions and their consequences.
Secret Valley
Rancher entertains girl in Nevada to get a divorce. Then her gangster husband shows up.
Speed to Burn
Horse racing provides the framework of this crime drama that centers on an orphan who has been raising a promising horse.
Monte Carlo Nights
A man wrongfully convicted of murder escapes custody and goes in search of the real killer. The problem is that he only has one clue to go on.
The Crime Patrol
Prizefighter Bob Neal (Ray Walker) is in debt to gangster Vic Santell (Hooper Atchley) for training expenses. Santell orders Bob to take a dive in the fourth round so Santell can recoup prior gambling losses. Taunted by his ring opponent, Bob wins the fight. Realizing that his profession and underworld characters connected to it are causing him problems, Bob decides to join the police force. After taking nurse Mary Prentiss (Geneva Mitchell) to a drive-in restaurant where the total bill is a depression-era cheap eighty-two cents, Bob and his fellow officers round-up a gang of fur thieves in a warehouse shoot-out.
American Fighter
A desperate teenager is forced into the dangerous world of underground fighting to win enough money to save his ailing mother. He finds out what he's made of in the face of these violent hungry competitors.
Deadly Bet
Jeff Wincott plays a gambler who puts his life on the line to buy his way out of the clutches of a mobster.
I Cheated the Law
An attorney (Tom Conway) learns he was duped into being his gangster murder client's (Steve Brodie) alibi.
Silks and Saddles
College student Jimmy Shaw inherits a racehorse, named Lightning Lad, and sells stock to fellow students in order to obtain funds for racing the horse. Lightning Lad wins very race he is entered in. Marion Braddock, a spoiled rich girl who owns a racing stable offers to buy Lightning Lad, but Jimmy refuses to sell. The day of the big handicap-race arrives and Jimmy and his fellow stockholders are on their way to the track. But a group of gamblers, betting on Lightning Lad to lose, have some skullduggery plans to ensure Lightning Lad does not win the race.
Winner Take All
When a waiter makes a lucky hit and wins a benefit prizefight, gamblers rig some fights for him; but a reporter arranges for a real boxer to put him in his place.
Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows
This documentary follows superstar Bret Hart during his last year in the WWF. The film documents the tensions that resulted in The Montreal Screwjob, one of the most controversial events in the history of professional wrestling, in which Vince McMahon, Shawn Micheals, and others, legitimately conspired behind the scenes to go against the script and remove Bret Hart as champion.
The Payoff
An honest sports columnist's greedy wife persuades him to go easy on a cheat, famous for crooked sports deals.
Sporting Blood
A horse with great potential is reluctantly sold by the breeder and by chance passes through multiple hands who do not treat him well.
A gullible and honest "Mr. Universe" winner, Tommy Tomkins, gets added to the stable of a con-man and a wrestling prompter.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Mister Universe Starring Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Vince Edwards, Bert Lahr, and more. If you liked Mister Universe then you may also like: We've Never Been Licked, World in My Corner, The Wrestler, Night Parade, Rackety Rax and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
We've Never Been Licked
Young Brad Craig enters the military school with a chip on his shoulder which upperclassmen quickly knock off. Once adjusted, Craig falls in love with a professor's beautiful daughter, only to find she is in love with his roommate.