Rocky

Year Released: 1976
Director: John G. Avildsen
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire

Draped Upon His Own Myth

The robe was two sizes too big. The hat was a size too small. The shorts were the wrong color. Fairy tales aren't tailored for the nobodies of Fishtown, Philadelphia. Fairy tales aren't written for ugly people in ugly towns competing in an ugly sport and despite a similar shoe size, Sylvester Stallone is not Cinderella.

Who would want to see it? In 1975, major studios hadn't yet forgotten what a star looked like, MGM still had Judy Garland on the mind and nobody had ever heard of the name Sly Stallone. With five sequels past and the product so beaten into the ground, beaten into the pop culture subconscious, it's easy to overlook - or even forget - how big a deal Rocky was. In 1976, the posters hit the streets with the tag line, "His whole life was a million-to-one shot," and everyone behind the scenes knew what a bunch of crock that was; the film Rocky was more like a trillion-to-one shot.

Stallone was a nobody - an extra on Farewell, My Lovely. He met Irwin Winkler by pure chance and it was only as an afterthought that Sly mentioned, mumbling, "I write screenplays, too," and found himself pitching ideas to MGM as a writer. It was at Sly's brokest that the Rocky script earned him an offer of over 250,000 dollars and it was at Sly stubbornest when he turned it down for a shot at starring in it himself. I wonder where Vegas odds might have placed Stallone's chances on that gamble. A million-to-one?

Stallone was perfect for the part of Balboa and producers Winkler and Robert Chartoff recognized that. However, this was MGM and the big executives in New York had to decide if Stallone had what it took to carry the MGM label onto a Hollywood red carpet. Therein lurked the Vegas odds and my favorite plot twist in this Making Of a tall tale; the NY office received a copy of The Lords of Flatbush and while watching the film - starring Perry King, Stallone and Henry Winkler - someone asked, "Which one is Stallone?" and an outdated think tank assumed that a vying MGM star must be the pretty blond kid, Perry King, and signed off on lucky little Sly.

So Stallone sold the script for nothing and was cast in the role of his dreams. At the time, MGM had a policy that kept any films with budgets under one million dollars safe from the scrap heap; Winkler and Chartoff dug down deep and came up with the audacity to hop on the million-to-one train and yet another die was cast; they even mortgaged their homes to finish the project. The foundations were so fragile that according to Winkler, if Stallone tried to sell the script for 5,000 dollars, Rocky wouldn't have been made. Instead, the producers were blessed with a starving actor on the brink of his dream, grateful for everything, humble before everyone, trailerless and eager to see his pet project grow:

Sylvester Stallone. There he stood, an extra from Brooklyn who had positioned himself onto the doorstep of artistic recognition and Hollywood stardom, a minuscule form trying to don armor far too large, lift a sword far too heavy and slay a dragon far too formidable. When Talia Shire described her first impression of Sly - a man who had draped Rocky upon his own myth - I couldn't help but picture Balboa standing in that oversized robe looking foolish. This wasn't Orson Welles. This wasn't even Clint Eastwood. This was Sly Stallone, an action star with bad diction whose cast-type continues to convince us that he wasn't blessed with much of a brain and couldn't possibly be much of an artist.

Maybe that's why everyone was so surprised when Rocky didn't slip off of Sly's shoulders. The larger-than-life fairy tale outgrew its home in Fishtown Philly, outgrew its six-digit budget and outgrew all of Stallone's potential shortcomings until a Best Picture Academy Award fit perfectly. Undeniably, Rocky had a special quality. Balboa had a special quality - a tough guy, discouraged and frightened, baring his soul to an audience - and Stallone embodied it. In doing so, he cracked Hollywood, rewrote the formula and spearheaded one of the most copied genres in film history. And that's how a show-biz nobody - who few can take seriously, who is written off by today's intelligentsia and who might never receive a lifetime achievement award from the Academy - changed the way movies were made forever.

Rocky

  It's More Than Okay With Me.   9.0/10




Yes, I am a fan of the series and yes, I did own a cardboard cut-out of Rocky Balboa between the ages of 21 and 24; and yes, I do get frustrated when people write off 1976's Rocky as just a Stallone movie, just a Rocky movie or just a sports movie, because, yes, Rocky was so much more. So, I guess I am trying to say that, yes, I am a sucker for this kind of thing.

I can admit, however, that Rocky was not a masterpiece. I understand when the film is put down for any number of listed flaws, because, yes, it isn't the golden scale for actors and directors everywhere. If anything, it's a fluke. It's the rookie at the plate, his first at bat in the major leagues, hitting a home run to win the game. Maybe the home run was sloppy, maybe the wind was blowing toward left field, maybe he closed his eyes when he swung, maybe the ball slipped out of the pitcher's hand and maybe it bounced off the left fielder's head and over the fence. In the end, it was a still a home run and his team still won the game.

Rocky was Stallone's rookie home run, Rocky was John G. Avildsen's, Winkler's and Chartoff's unlikely victory and Rocky was, in my opinion, fluke or not, a 9.0/10 film. And all of that million-to-one, underdog mythos that surrounds the film - overplayed and underwhelming as it may seem - is, in my opinion, deserved. Rocky is a great film that shouldn't have even been made. More importantly, with a budget of one million dollars, Rocky was a great film that shouldn't have even been good.

To get a better idea of the hardships behind the scenes of this film, I would recommend any fan to indulge in the Special Features of the Rocky Collector's Edition DVD. Here is a list of some of these obstacles:

- Most of the million dollar budget went to the big fight scene.
- The actors dressed their own characters.
- Some scenes had no rehearsals.
- Some scenes had only one take.
- Only two scenes didn't make the final cut.
- The producer's office was used for the boxing promoter's office.
- Cast members include a brother, a nephew and a friend's daughter.
- Filming took place over the course of only 28 days.
- There was a shortage of extras.

The list goes on and that month in Los Angeles and Philadelphia must have felt like making a home video to some of the more Studio-experienced crew. That a watchable film emerged from the mess is as mythic as the film's microscopic chance of release. It was one Cinderella story piled atop another and in the end, all of the improbabilities sat upon the film like a kingly mantle. Watching Rocky in 1976 was like watching three million-to-one stories at the same time and the fact that it was also a great film is the straw that breaks the Okay-Now-That-Can't-Be-Real camel's back. Maybe that's why some of you aren't fans?

In case you haven't seen it...

Almost-bum Balboa is one breath away from living the rest of his life alone and miserable when a million-to-one boxing opportunity forces Rocky to find the winning personality within himself - in boxing, in love and in life.

Loved

• The minuscule budget forced Avildsen and Stallone to make many last minute changes. Take the date scene at the ice skating rink. Stallone had written this scene to take place in the middle of the day with a crowd of people. Due to a lack of funds for extras, the scene was changed to take place after closing time and the hopelessness of Rocky's wooing efforts only makes the scene more touching. Likewise, when the giant banner of Rocky above the boxing ring is given the wrong colored shorts and when Rocky's robe turns out to be too big for Stallone, Sly changes the lines to address the production mistakes. These lines turned out to be some of the most meaningful lines of the movie. Leading up to the biggest moment in his life, Rocky's fixation on details is more telling than any direct admissions of nerves.

• When Avildsen returned to direct Rocky V, he tried to mimic the look of the original, but he couldn't. His new director of photography refused to lower his professional standards, refused to underlight scenes and refused to let his film devolve into what he called "documentary-style." I think the term is accurate. In Rocky, Director of Photographer James Crabe had very little to work with, did his own operating, often had no focus puller and had no lighting to speak of. Crabe shot Rocky in "documentary-style" and it worked. Rocky was meant for dark, dirty alleys and roughly cut silhouettes.

• The last two Loved items are some of the reasons why people consider Rocky a better film for its low budget. Even Avildsen agreed that if he'd had a huge MGM budget to make the movie, it wouldn't have worked. Besides the general home video charm and Hollywood dream-come-true backstory, a movie about a small time neighborhood and a character without a big screen personality simply wouldn't have fit the studio feel. Rocky looked gritty and that's exactly how it should have looked. When was the last time you saw a film that took place in the winter time and you actually saw the actors' breath?

• Burt Young called Stallone's script "street literature." I'm not so sure I would go all the way to say that, but I do think that Sly is a good writer and that's something at which most people today squawk. I remember something that my creative writing professor said in college; good writing is when the words say one thing, but basic statements like Beauty, Pain and Love are expressed without ever being mentioned. That idea comes to mind when Rocky expresses love with, "I dunno, she's got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps," and Rocky's alternative form of expression throughout the film is why Sly's screenplay will continue to be listed in top 100 lists for a long time.

• Stallone said in his commentary track, "Rocky is non-stop chatter," and I love that description. I think that's why he is so endearing to audiences; Rocky never stops spilling out his soul to us, to Adrian, to everyone he runs into on the street. In the same vein, I also love how Rocky is always shadowboxing, always moving. To me, the air punches are the visual expressions of his "non-stop chatter" and the fact that Rocky never stops expressing himself to everyone around him goes a long way in establishing his figure as the vulnerable tough guy with a good heart.

• I've never tried it and I never want to imagine watching Rocky without Bill Conti's soundtrack. Would the film have achieved such heights without Conti's unforgettable tracks? I doubt it. While Rocky's "non-stop chatter" keeps the audience engaged and distracted for most of the scenes, it's Conti's music that picks up every time Stallone shuts up and it's Conti's music that keeps the constant motion of the film on its feet. And, of course, it's Conti's music that lifts the audience into the emotional rapture that Rocky feels in moments of victory.

Loathed

• In 1976, Burgess Meredith was the big name on the Rocky marquee. He is a respected actor and I've loved the work of his that I have seen (read: as The Penguin and in The Twilight Zone). However, I don't like Burgess Meredith in this film. He was amazing in portraying his character, a disgruntled boxing has-been looking for redemption, he stole all the scenes he was in and I never doubted his character for a second. However, it didn't fit the rest of the cast. In a film where most of the acting felt naturalist, Burgess comes off theatrical. In a film where the best dramatic scenes are filmed at full body (Paulie's breakdown), Avildsen gives him too many growling, angry closeups. And in a film that invites the audience in with realistic settings, Burgess Meredith is always in the audience's face.

• I mentioned earlier that Rocky is a flawed film. However, circumstances have determined that I don't loathe Rocky's flaws and that may be the film's most winning feature.

The Otto Preminger Award
for cinematic advancement: Garrett Brown

There are a million things about Rocky that can qualify for this prize. The Academy Awards, independent films, casting and screenwriting were never the same after 1976 and, as previously mentioned, the crew behind the lights on the Rocky set had to reinvent methods of filmmaking every step of the way. However, I am choosing to give this award to Garrett Brown, the inventor of the game-changing steadicam. While the steadicam had been used in the earlier films Bound for Glory (1976) and Marathon Man (1976), it's Rocky that gets most of the credit, because despite the horrible technical flaws in the long steadicam shot (camera truck in back, singular light source with lens flares and hyperfocusing), the scene with Rocky lecturing the neighborhood girl is the steadicam's first breakout appearance in the industry. (If anything, it adds to the "documentary-style" and "non-stop" movement of the film that I like so much.)

The Fanty & Mingo Award
for out-of-the-blue allusion: Lloyd Kaufman

In yet another stunt of money saving, the drunk outside the dive bar in the beginning of Rocky was not played by an extra but by tech man Lloyd Kaufman, who volunteered on the set. The name Lloyd Kaufman might not mean much to you, but you've probably heard of the company that he co-founded with Michael Herz two years prior to Rocky's release - Troma Entertainment, a low-budget independent production company that has its own noteworthy place in film history. I have to wonder if Kaufman learned anything about cost-cutting on the set of the greatest cost-cutting Best Picture ever.

The Slim Pickens Award
for memorable mustache: Carl Weathers

The supporting acting troupe of Rocky really earned the title "supporting" and I think they all deserved their Oscar nominations and a shoutout for the Arnold Strong Award, but while Burt Young and Talia Shire brought an emotional realism to Rocky Balboa's thuglike presence, it was Carl Weathers' larger-than-life portrayal of Apollo Creed that really sticks in my head and it was Creed's relationship with Balboa that made the Rocky sequels possible. Carl may not have been the greatest thespian, but for a character based on Muhammad Ali, Apollo Creed become a creature of his own. One thing that separates Apollo from Ali is the mustache. While Ali sported the 'stache before, it's the image of Joe Frazier that Apollo calls up in likeness. Since it is Joe's training exercise of punching raw meat that Stallone ripped off without credit, I think Carl Weathers' mustache and therefore Frazier deserves some credit, too.

If you liked this film...

...give Ron Shelton's Tin Cup a chance. The Rocky-formula is applied (almost exactly) to great success with this romantic comedy about golf and it's one of my favorite sports movies.

I didn't see Rocky until my twenties. By then, as a creative writing hobbyist of the worst kind, I'd developed a certain modus operandi in my stories. I liked writing about nobodies who, through chance and sudden clarified purpose, turn their life around by pursuing something seemingly out of reach. At the same time, as a geeky nobody myself, I'd always believed in the power to improve myself regardless of circumstance and the possibility of making these changes in leaps and bounds. When I saw Rocky for the first time, I found in the young, starving actor Stallone a kindred spirit. As another hopeful romantic, I fell in love with the film instantly and despite my personal changes in writing and life style since then, I am still in love with Rocky.

If you would like to read more Rocky fandom from a different perspective, I would highly recommend looking through Sheila O'Malley's blog entries on the subject. I enjoyed that read very much. Even though she is a fun writer to read, my favorite part of her Rocky entries was the reaction of her friend to watching Rocky for the first time since childhood. Because I like this passage so much, I am shamelessly quoting it here, edited for capitalization and punctuation:

Rocky bobbed and weaved his way in and out of my dreams last night and I woke up in a panic at one point. Rocky and Adrian. Adrian and Rocky. Do they stay together? I can't believe I failed to ask you this question. Did their romance endure through 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6? After you left I was talking to my mom on the phone telling her about Rocky....and she was like, "Yeah, I was never much of a Rocky fan." And I was like, "No, no, no, Mom. You don't understand. You just don't understand." At which point I launched into a diatribe about steadicams and a script written in three days and a having to sell the dog and the macho tough with a gentle heart and sets that weren't sets at all and the sweet love affair where gaps were filled and the personal victory of transcending the limitations we set for ourselves and the movie's raw gritty realness that has been so readily eschewed in today's films for florid cinematic polish. At some point I'm pretty sure she put the phone down and went and took a bath or something.

But (in my whiniest, most hopeful voice) do Adrian and Rocky stay together?

I think she describes the meaning of the film well: "the personal victory of transcending the limitations we set for ourselves." Because, despite all my bluster about million-to-one shots, to me, Rocky's Cinderella story takes a back seat to the unknown personal victories that people experience all the time and the real reasons we feel pride at the end of the day.