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Our Columnists Reflect on Oscar's Best Films |
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UNITED ARTISTS Directed by John Avildsen Written by Sylvester Stallone Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers |
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A million-to-one shot:
A hit prizefighting movie!
of TheColumnists.com
In 1976, these were the odds against "Rocky" becoming a box office phenomenon that would win the Best Picture Oscar, make a superstar of its unknown leading man and produce five sequels spread out over the next 30 years: A million to one.
But this was the movie with the tagline, "His whole life was a million to one shot." And it all came true... in perhaps the most unlikely success story in Oscar history.
As conceived by little known Sylvester Stallone, Robert "Rocky" Balboa was a "tomato can," a lackluster professional "opponent" who picked up a few extra bucks now and then getting beaten up by promising newcomers in Philadelphia fight clubs. Nobody came to see Rocky fight. He was the one who wound up in the record book with a listing that said "L10" or "KO by..." after each new matchup.
That also was roughly the fate of any boxing movie made in the years before "Rocky." Even movies with big star names like John Garfield ("Body and Soul," 1947), Paul Newman ("Somebody Up There Likes Me," 1956) or Anthony Quinn ("Requiem For A Heavyweight," 1962) failed to become big box office hits. Women, who generally hated boxing, wouldn't go see such pictures and most guys skipped them, too, if their dates were going to pout through the movie and the rest of the evening that followed.
But Stallone and the producers he convinced to take his story to United Artists all felt there was something very special about "Rocky," something that might resonate with both male and female moviegoers desperately hungry for a "feel good" movie about a common, simple guy who's been down so long that he can't even remember what "up" looks like. When he finally gets the chance to "be somebody," it was the break of a lifetime--something maybe everybody hopes for in every walk of life.
Studio publicists jumped on that band wagon and tried to portray Stallone as a kind of "Rocky" himself, living his own scenario. He had shopped the script around with the proviso that he play the title role, the legend goes. When UA wanted the script, but insisted on a well-known leading man, Stallone supposedly cut the price of the script to Guild minimum if they'd take him as the star. Some sources now say that last part was "story enhancement" by the publicity guys.
Still, it remains to this day an amazing accomplishment that Stallone was able to sell himself as the star as well as the author of "Rocky." Before "Rocky," Stallone was best known as one of the young hoods in the low budget 1974 movie "The Lords of Flatbush" (along with Henry Winkler, before his "Fonzie" fame on TV's "Happy Days") and as the disfigured villain (nicknamed "Frankenstein") in the 1975 exploitation film "Death Race 2000." Nobody was calling Stallone a "star of tomorrow." In fact, his profile had been so low before those films that he even worked in a porn flick, which was reissued after "Rocky" became a hit, using a new title: "The Italian Stallion"--Rocky Balboa's ring nickname in "Rocky."
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gives Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) his last instructions before his bou;t with Apollo Creed. |
Given Stallone's later success as a movie action hero playing inarticulate guys like Rocky, killing machine John Rambo and the like, too many movie fans have assumed Stallone is a lowbrow himself, an aging "hunk" who never did anything significant on the screen and blatantly squeezed all the juice out of "Rocky" by doing sequel after sequel, up to and including last year's "Rocky Balboa."
But the real Stallone is a very articulate guy with loads of talent as a writer, which was never more apparent than in "Rocky," a film that has plenty of skillfully-written dialogue, some very poignant scenes and distinct insight into the character of the people who inhabit Rocky Balboa's world. Though "Rocky" surely is a manipulative film, dedicated to the notion it's going to get you cheering through the final reel, its warm welcome by the public vividly demonstrates how savvy Stallone was in creating what is now clearly an iconic Hollywood classic.
From the very first frames of "Rocky," we know we're in for something special. It opens with the giant letters spelling "ROCKY" moving from right to left across the screen as Bill Conti's stirring "Rocky" fanfare salutes us for the first time. This is such a rousing theme that it has become a fixture at many boxing arenas around the world to herald the arrival of the main event.
We first meet Rocky Balboa as he;s in the process of losing a grueling bout to a well-travelled opponent nicknamed "Spider." The setting is a smoky Philadelphia fight club. His ring performance is that of an uninspired, clumsy brawler. Then "Spider" makes the mistake of thumbing him in the eye and Rocky blows up such a head of steam that he suddenly overwhelms the other man, hammering him to the canvas with such a surge of violence that the referee stops the fight. He wins by knockout.
After the fight, Rocky gets his pitiful
chunk of a small purse. Barely enough money to pay for bandages.
Still, he has won, so he walks home in his own version of a swaggering
"pimp roll" walk. As he passes a gang of boys doing
some impromptu singing on a street corner, one of them calls
him a "bum." (It's an in-joke: The caller is Stallone's
real-life brother, Frank, a musician.) Later, he pulls a sassy
young girl away from a bunch of hoods on the street and walks
her home, giving her his very crude advice--that she'll be branded
a whore if she keeps hanging out with guys like that on street
corners.
Obviously, he has a social conscience. He's kind to strays, be
they dogs or slutty girls. When he gets the girl safely home,
she shows how much respect she has for him by yelling, "Screw
you, Creepo!" So much for the Sir Galahad of Philly's urban
jungle. He shrugs and continues his pimp roll home.
By now we get it, all right. Rocky Balboa
gets no respect in the neighborhood. Little wonder. His regular
job is working as a "leg-breaker" for a loan shark.
The loan shark's driver thinks Rocky is a real bum. The guys
looks Rocky over, seeing the bandages and bruises from his night's
work and asks, "Did you get the license number?"
"What license number?" asks Rocky.
"The number of the truck," cackles the driver, "that ran over your face!"
As a fighter, he's a washout. When he goes to the gym, he finds his locker has been emptied out and turned over to an up-and-comer with more promise. His stuff has been packed into a sack and hung on a coat rack in the gym's "skid row." When Rocky complains to Mickey (Burgess Meredith), the old ex-pug who runs the gym, Mickey makes it clear Rocky's going nowhere as a fighter.
"You got heart," Mickey tells Rocky, "but you fight like a goddammed ape!"
Rocky lives in a squalid little apartment in the urban ghetto. On the wall is a picture of his idol. Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight champ who retired undefeated. Rocky identifies with Marciano, who was a small heavyweight like him, but so tough that he dismantled everybody who ever got in the ring with him. But nobody else sees the resemblance.
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connects with a left to the ribs of champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). |
No, this Rocky is a lonely man who's in the early stages of accepting the fact he's a nobody going nowhere. Still, for a fighter, he's kind of a tender guy. He talks to his pet turtles, which he keeps in his flat with him. He always stops and says hello to Buttkus, a burly, canine version of Rocky that lives in a tiny cage in the neighborhood pet shop. He's a sucker for the animals in there--and it also gives him an excuse to chat with Adrian Pennino, the sister of his best friend, Paulie, who works there as a clerk.
Rocky is sweet on Adrian, but she's shy and unresponsive, wearing a stocking cap and layers of clothing that make her resemble a big female turtle, ready to pull into her shell the minute any guy approaches. She lives with her coarse, uncouth brother and serves him almost like a hired housekeeper. Rocky feels for her, but so far he hasn't shown her any reason to think he'll ever amount to anything.
Before the movie is 20 minutes old, we have a clear picture of Rocky Balboa as a tender-hearted, caring man who's trapped in the body of a used-up athlete, facing a future that's loveless and dispirited, surrounded by people who barely notice him and certainly don't give a damn about his eventual fate.
Then, out of the blue, his life is changed. World Heavyweight Champ Apollo Creed--think Muhammad Ali--is desperate for an opponent to take the place of the injured contender who was supposed to challenge for his title in a televised match from the Spectrum in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, a bout scheduled as the nation's major Bicentennial Sports Event.
Apollo, played by former NFL grid star Carl Weathers, is a smart operator in and out of the ring. He's looking for a way to save his big bout and he comes up with a pip. What if they offered the shot at Creed's title to a local Philly fighter--an unrated boxer getting a "million to one shot"? Wouldn't that appeal to sports fans everywhere--an untested nobody getting a chance to earn a fortune and be part of The American Dream?
Going through the list of local heavyweights, they come across Rocky Balboa. Creed seizes upon Balboa's nickname: "The Italian Stallion." He sees a link to America's 200 years of history--Christopher Columbus discovered America, right? And wasn't he an Italian?
Would one of boxing's great champs--a man
undefeated in his long career--get away with giving a title shot
to a nobody? Nobody who knows boxing history would ask such a
question. Heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson once gave a title
shot to Pete Rademacher, an amateur boxer from the 1956 U.S.
Olympic team. Incredibly, Rademacher fought for the heavyweight
championship of the world in his very first professional fight!
Amazingly, Rademacher actually put Patterson on the canvas once
before being annhilated a few rounds later.
But the inspiration for the Apollo Creed-Rocky Balboa title fight
really was the 1975 fight between legendary champ Muhammad Ali
and mediocre New Jersey heavyweight "trial horse" Chuck
Wepner, known widely as "The Bayonne Bleeder" because
of his tendency to suffer severe cuts in nearly every bout. Stallone
saw that bout, saw Wepner knock Ali down (he was standing on
Ali's foot at the time he slugged him), then saw Wepner actually
"go the distance" with the champ for an epic 15 rounds,
even though he was being hammered mercilessly by the much superior
Ali.
Stallone ached to play such a character, a man nobody respects until he shows the grit and determination to stand in there with one of the all-time great heavyweight champs until the final bell tolls. Actually, Stallone was much more anxious to see himself across the ring from Apollo Creed than Rocky Balboa was.
When the fight promoter calls Rocky in to sign the papers, Rocky is certain it's some kind of joke. He actually turns down the fight, thinking that, at best, he'll just be a pushover win for Apollo Creed. He has enough respect for himself that he doesn't want to be humiliated by the champ. But the promoter asks how any man who calls himself a prizefighter could ever turn down the chance of a lifetime--a shot at the title?
"I'm just a ham-n-egger and he's the best," Rocky mumbles, but, in the end, he agrees to the match.
In his heart, there's a glimmer of hope--not, perhaps, that he'll beat the heavyweight champ of the world, but rather that he'll go the distance, that he'll earn the respect he craves more than anything else in the world. Ultimately, Rocky realizes this IS his chance of a lifetime--not just to win a title, but, more importantly, to turn away from the squalid life of an arm-twister for a loan shark and finally use the publicity and the money to make something of himself.
In perhaps the film's best scene, Rocky
rejects the advances of gym owner Mickey to become his manager
and trainer. Mickey is desperate for his own chance to be somebody
again, so he comes to Rocky's flat and asks for the chance to
get him ready for this epic struggle. Mickey believes Rocky has
the goods to give even Apollo Creed a fight if he would only
train seriously and start believing in himself.
Rocky remembers all the insults Mickey has dished out over the
years and sends the man back to the lonely street. But then he
realizes this broken, 76-year-old is not unlike himself--branded
a "loser" by everybody in their tiny world, but aching
for the chance to prove everybody wrong. He runs after Mickey
and catches him on the street. The scene plays out in a long
shot in which we hear no dialogue, but clearly see from their
body language that these two "losers" are sealing a
pact that will last them as long as they live.
When Rocky starts the three-week regimen that will bring him to the big night at the Philly Spectrum, the movie really starts to sprint. We see him laboriously rise in the morning, drink his "potion" of raw egg yolks to build energy and bulk and start his roadwork through the urban ghetto, leading finally to his struggle up the long. wide steps that end at the plaza in front of the Philadelphia Museum.
These training sequences are done mostly without dialogue and Conti's music builds a momentum until that viscerally exciting moment when we finally see the hard, firm and ready Rocky dashing through the streets, springing up those steps and leaping up and down in a victory salute at the top of the stairs, all Philadelphia spread out before him.
This is a classic moment in cinema history--Rocky is ready! That triumphant theme, "Gonna Fly Now," lifts you out of your seat as you realize this may not be the pipe dream everybody thinks it is. Rocky Balboa may really be on his way to something big.
And Rocky draws his little crowd of "losers" along with him, each finding the means to rebuild their own lives through his infectious attempt to rmake himself in the image of a real ring hero. Porky Paulie (Burt Young), Rocky's pal, wants to be his publicity man--and he stumbles upon a great gimmick. Rocky will work out in the meat warehouse where Paulie works, hammering the chilled flesh of hanging beef carcasses instead of a body bag in a gym. He finagles a TV crew into taping Rocky pounding the carcasses until his hands are reeking in blood. It gives the viewers at home an indelible image of a man who's going to give it his all.
While Apollo Creed, his managers and promoters concern themselves with money matches beyond the Balboa fight, Apollo's trainer is watching the TV clip of Rocky pounding the beef carcass and a new light comes into his eyes. "This guy is serious," he says. And you can tell he's thinking, "What if that guy hammers Apollo's body the way he's pounding that beef?"
Mickey the manager/trainer also is serious. He sets up a regimen for Rocky that's calculated to maximize his punching power and harden him for 15 rounds of action. He ties a cord between Rocky's feet, so he can't move his legs into a position that will rob him of punching power and make him unstable on his feet. If Rocky learns to stay close to Apollo and always keep his feet firmly planted to deliver short, devastating punches, he may have a chance to bust a few ribs and slow the tricky champ down.
Also rising to the occasion is little Adrian (Talia Shire), who slowly comes out of her shell and begins to let her natural beauty shine through. Watching this wallflower blossom is catnip for female moviegoers. She becomes the very reason for Rocky to want to win--the fact that somebody actually loves him and cares about the man inside his battered visage.
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(Talia Shire) becomes the focus of the life of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). |
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When fight night finally comes, Apollo is cocky and overconfident. Dressed like Uncle Sam with an enormous top hat and a costume of stars and stripes, he points at Rocky and says, "I Want You!" He is, of course, a caricature of the great Muhammad Ali, a gabbing wiseguy so sure of his superiority that he thinks he's giving Balboa a blessing by even acknowledging his presence in the ring.
But once the fight begins and Rocky slams Apollo to the canvas in the first round, the great champion rises knowing this is no set-up "tomato can" in front of him, but rather a lethal, loaded weapon intent upon taking his crown. He swings into serious action himself, drops Rocky and by round's end has the challenger hanging on by a thread.
The fight itself is ludicrous in terms of realism. A good referee would have stopped it any number of times in order to spare one opponent or the other serious injury--or, for that matter, to rule Rocky out for illegal blows. It makes no difference. The fight is swift and dramatic and the ending is both satisfying and credible.
Sylvester Stallone emerged from "Rocky" a major Hollywood star. He went on to become one of the great box office attractions of the 1980s, working in "Rocky" sequels and in sequels to his 1982 hit "First Blood," which introduced him as a second iconic screen character, wronged Vietnam vet John Rambo, who hones himself into a human killing machine. Stallone extended his hold on the "Rocky" franchise by directing the second, third and fourth "Rocky" films himself.
Burgess Meredith, Burt Young and Talia Shire all prospered with "Rocky" and returned in many of the sequels. Meredith, who gave his best performance since "Of Mice and Men" in 1939 in "Rocky," was Oscar-nominated and so was Burt Young. John Avildsen won the Oscar for directing the first "Rocky." Carl Weathers earned his own weekly TV series on ABC ("Fortune Dane," 1986), his own syndicated action series ("Street Justice," 1991-93) and was a regular in CBS' "In the Heat of the Night" (1993-94) and "Tour of Duty" (1989-90). Bill Conti was in great demand for both film and TV scores after "Rocky" and did the catchy themes such long-running TV shows as ABC's "Dynasty" and CBS' "Cagney & Lacey."...Even more careers were made by the "Rocky" sequels, including that of Mr. T, who went from "Rocky III" to TV's "The A-Team," and Dolph Lundgren from "Rocky IV," who went on to star in his own action films in the 1990s.
With the Oscar and the tremendous box office for "Rocky," the boxing film was out of Hollywood's dog house, leading to such classics as "Raging Bull" with Robert DeNiro's Oscar-winning performance as real-life fighter Jake LaMotta and "Ali" (2001) with Will Smith as Muhammad Ali.
The saga may be over now with Stallone in his 60s and Rocky Balboa long retired, but the surprisingly good box office returns for 2007's "Rocky Balboa" may induce somebody to figure out yet another way for this remarkable character to "go the distance" with somebody new and intimidating.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photos are courtesy of MGM/UA. This column first posted Feb. 18, 1976.
OTHER 1976 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: "All the President's Men," "Bound for Glory," "Network," "Taxi Driver."
OSCAR TRIVIA: Former heavyweight contender Ken Norton originally was signed to play Apollo Creed in "Rocky," but was dropped and replaced by Carl Weathers...Real-life Philadelphia boxing legend Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion, is the only "guest" introduced in the ring before the start of the Creed-Balboa fight..."Rocky" begins with Balboa's club fight on Nov. 25, 1975, so Rocky really only has about a month to get ready for Apollo Creed--during the height of the Christmas season....The budget for "Rocky" was only $960,000 and made $47 million in its initial release, not counting home video, making it one of the greatest investments a studio ever made.
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