Rocky ***** (1976, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Burgess Meredith, Carl Weathers) – Classic Movie Review 2,389

Director John G Avildsen’s 1976 prize-winning champion boxing movie Rocky is a great old-style, feel-good film, directed with a lot of punch by the Oscar-winning film-maker. A triple Oscar-winner, it was the highest-grossing movie of 1976. Best of all, both as actor and writer, the youngish Sylvester Stallone (he was already 30) really makes you care about his character of Rocky Balboa, who just wants to ‘go the distance’ with heavyweight world champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).

The then unknown actor Sylvester Stallone’s story about the shy, slow-thinking, simple-minded Philadelphia fighter Rocky Balboa (Stallone) knocked out the competition and the movie won 1977’s Best Picture Oscar, as well as Best Director and Best Film Editing (Richard Halsey, Scott Conrad). It takes its place as one of the cinema’s handful of great boxing movies, up there with Body and Soul (1947), Champion (1949), The Set-Up (1949) and Raging Bull (1980).

Stallone was inspired to write the screenplay for the film after seeing the Chuck Wepner-Muhammad Ali fight on March 24, 1975 at the Richfield Coliseum outside Cleveland in Richfield, Ohio.

Rocky is a struggling boxer, working as a debt collector for a pittance. Apollo Creed visits Philadelphia, where his managers want to set up an exhibition match in which Creed would easily knock out some struggling boxer, though touting the fight as a chance for a nobody to become a somebody. Rocky sees this as his shot at the big time.

The excellent star support cast includes Burgess Meredith as Rocky’s feisty trainer Mickey Goldmill, Talia Shire as Rocky’s girl Adrian Pennino (or Adriana) and Burt Young as her brother Paulie Pennino, Rocky’s brother-in-law and best friend. Also in the cast are Thayer David as George ‘Miles; Jergens, Joe Spinell as Tony Gazzo, Tony Burton as Tony ‘Duke’ Evers, Pedro Lovell as Spider Rico, Stan Shaw as “Big Dipper” Brown, Joe Frazier as Himself, and Jimmy Gambina.

The story is gripping throughout and it’s topped off with a big finish. Great climax there may be, but the canny Stallone ensures there’s plenty of room left here for a sequel – and five have materialised so far, up to Rocky Balboa in 2006, with the spin-off film Creed in 2015, starting a new series.

Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff offered Stallone a then unprecedented $350,000 for the rights to his screenplay. He made it a condition that they agreed to him starring in the film, though he had only $106 in the bank to gamble with. They did agree, provided Stallone continue to work as a writer without a fee and as an actor for scale.

Rocky’s dog Butkus was actually Stallone’s dog – the one the near-broke actor was trying to sell because he couldn’t afford to feed it.

The iconic shot of Rocky running up the steps of Philadelphia Art Museum came about because Philadelphia Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown shot show footage of his girlfriend running up and down the museum steps to sell his newly invented Steadicam device. Avildsen saw the footage, hired Brown and the Steadicam, and replicated the shot with Rocky.

John G Avildsen decided not to direct part two – a decision he said was ‘one of my greatest mistakes’ – but he returned to the franchise to direct 1990’s Rocky V. He also directed The Karate Kid (1984) and its two sequels. He died on 16 June 2017, aged 81.

Rocky stars Sylvester Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire, Burt Young and Carl Weathers, and features Thayer David, Joe Spinell, Jimmy Gambina, Tony Burton, Pedro Lovell, Bill Baldwin, Al Silvani, George Memmoli, Jodi Letizia, Diana Lewis, George O’Hanlon and Larry Carroll.

It received ten Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Picture (Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler), Best Director and Best Film Editing (Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad). Sylvester Stallone was nominated Best Actor, Talia Shire was nominated Best Actress, Burt Young and Burgess Meredith were both nominated Best Supporting Actor, damaging their chances to win. Stallone was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay. ‘Gonna Fly Now’ was nominated for Best Original Song.

A spin-off film series followed, with Creed (2015), Creed II (2018) and Creed III (2023) as the seventh, eighth and ninth films in the incredibly long-running Rocky franchise. The series stars Michael B Jordan as boxer Adonis Creed, with Stallone as his trainer in the first two films.

Sylvester Stallone recalls his Rocky co-star: ‘To my dear friend Burt Young. You were an amazing man and artist, and both I and the world will miss you very much.’

American actor and former boxer Burt Young [Gerald Tommaso DeLouise], best known for his role as Rocky Balboa’s brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the Rocky series, died on 8 October 2023 at 83. He earned an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the 1976 Rocky.

His diverse career included Once Upon a Time in America and Chinatown. Sylvester Stallone paid tribute to his co-star on Instagram: ‘To my dear friend Burt Young. You were an amazing man and artist, and both I and the world will miss you very much. RIP.’

Burt Young also appeared in The Gambler (1974), The Killer Elite (1975), Convoy (1978), Uncle Joe Shannon (1978), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), A Summer to Remember (1985), Back to School (1986), Last Exit to Brooklyn (1990), Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), Transamerica (2005), Win Win (2011), and Bottom of the 9th (2019).

He owned a restaurant in the Bronx, New York.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,389

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com