Paradise Alley *** (1978, Sylvester Stallone, Lee Canalito, Armand Assante, Kevin Conway, Anne Archer, Joe Spinell, Tom Waits) – Classic Movie Review 10,646

The 1978 drama Paradise Alley in a naïve but agreeable yarn, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone with energy in his feature film directorial debut, about three Italian-American brothers in the 1940s who try to climb out of the Hell’s Kitchen, New York City slums and into the money.

The oldest brother Cosmo Carboni (Stallone), a hustler and con-artist, turns his youngest brother Victor (Lee Canalito) into a champion wrestler in this Rocky clone with lots of the required physical action, confidence trickery and clashes with gangsters. Armand Assante in his first major film ably plays the middle brother, war hero Lenny, now an undertaker who has returned from the war with a limp and a bitter attitude,

Paradise Alley seemed to have the right elements, but the public and critics were not impressed (though the Stinkers Awards were), and it took only $7,185,518 at the US box office.

Joe Spinell, a Rocky co-star, plays the wrestling MC, and the film also stars Tom Waits in his film debut, while playwright and screenwriter John Monks Jr appears as Mickey the bartender. A number of professional wrestlers also appear, including Terry Funk as Frankie the Thumper, the foil to the hero.

Stallone won the Stinkers Bad Movie Award 1978 for Worst Actor.

Also in the cast are Kevin Conway, Anne Archer, Joe Spinell, Tom Waits, Frank McRae, Terry Funk, Joyce Ingalls, Aimée Eccles, Chick Casey, James J Casino, Ferdi O Gordon, Max Leavitt, Ray Sharkey and Frank Stallone. Wrestler cameos include Ted DiBiase, Bob Roop, Dick Murdoch, Dory Funk Jr., Don Leo Jonathan, Don Kernodle, Gene Kiniski, Dennis Stamp, Ray Stevens, and Uliuli Fifita.

Stallone wrote the story as a novel and then as a screenplay before he wrote Rocky. Stallone told Roger Ebert in 1980 that Paradise Alley was a much longer film before he was forced by Universal Pictures to cut it down.

Stallone said: ‘I’ll never forgive myself for the way I allowed myself to be manipulated during the editing. There were a lot of scenes to give atmosphere and character, and they wanted them out just to speed things along. They removed 40 scenes. I put 10 of them back in for the version shown on TV. For example, the whole sequence of the soldier without legs, sitting on a bar eating peanuts.’

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,646

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