Max’s Drive-In Movie – Rocky

I love boxing movies like Raging Bull, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and even Chaplin’s City Lights that feature a match. This movie also included that musical theme that is probably played more at gyms than anything else. 

At the time it was released, the movies coming out had unhappy endings. It was the trend at the time. I like movies like that as well but this one split the difference. Rocky didn’t end up winning the belt in the movie but he held his own against Apollo Creed the current champion. The movie is the ultimate underdog movie. 

In the mid-1970s, Stallone was an unknown actor struggling to make it in Hollywood. He had only a few minor roles and was living in poverty, even selling his dog at one point because he couldn’t afford to feed it. He wrote the script for Rocky in less than four days. The character of Rocky the Underdog mirrored himself because of the struggles he was going through. 

Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff offered him $360,000 for the story but Stallone had one condition…he insisted on playing Rocky. Despite his financial struggles, he refused to sell the script unless he was cast as the lead. The producers were hesitant, preferring a big star like Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds, but Stallone convinced them.

The budget was low so they had to film sometimes guerrilla-style without permits and permission. Stallone’s friends and family were cast in roles to save money. For example, Stallone’s wife, Sasha, played a minor role, and his dog, Butkus (he bought him back), his two pet turtles Cuff and Link, appeared in the film.

Why was this movie so successful? Other than rooting for the underdog, it was the characters. They all had faults, likes, and dislikes but we could relate to these people because we knew them. You had Talia Shire playing Rocky’s shy love interest, Burt Young who played He played Rocky’s brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino, Burgess Meredith who played his trainer Mickey, Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed the character influenced by the boxer Jack Johnson. 

The main story is about one man’s struggles to overcome the odds but it is also a love story. There are real touches of greatness… such as Burgess Meredith as Mickey a veteran boxer who does not want to train Rocky as he sees him as a washed-out bum until he is offered a shot at the big time. Then seeing his relationship with Rocky grow. The acting is superb and the music still pumps me up to this day. This may have been the movie to invent the training montage which is now a must in any movie about sports or fighting. Stallone’s performance is great in this role.

All Rocky wants to do, as he confesses to Adrian (Talia Shire) in that touching apartment scene, is go the distance with the champ. He doesn’t have to knock him out, doesn’t even have to win, just go the distance. You know, I still have to remind myself at times as I reflect on the picture that Rocky really didn’t win the match but the film won because of it. 

Rocky has become part of pop culture for so many years it’s hard to look at the first film as a standalone low-budget entry in the boxing genre. This is a great film and put the writer and main lead Sylvester Stallone into the stratosphere of Hollywood. The film is not flawless but it is classic. 

A fun note about this film. In the movie, Rocky has two pet turtles, Cuff and Link, and he still has them at his home today. They are around 50 years old. He bought his dog Butkus back and the guy that he sold him to knew he had Stallone over a barrel so Stallone had to pay him $15,000 but he said it was worth every penny. 

PLOT IMDB

Rocky Balboa is a struggling boxer trying to make the big time, working as a debt collector for a pittance. When heavyweight champion Apollo Creed visits Philadelphia, his managers want to set up an exhibition match between Creed and a struggling boxer, touting the fight as a chance for a “nobody” to become a “somebody”. The match is supposed to be easily won by Creed, but someone forgot to tell Rocky, who sees this as his only shot at the big time.

Quotes

  • Adrian: Why do you wanna fight?
  • Rocky: Because I can’t sing or dance.

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  • Adrian: Einstein flunked out of school, twice.
  • Paulie: Is that so?
  • Adrian: Yeah. Beethoven was deaf. Helen Keller was blind. I think Rocky’s got a good chance.

____________________________________________

  • Bodyguard: Did ya get the license number?
  • Rocky: Of what?
  • Bodyguard: The truck that run over your face.

THEME of Rocky

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

37 thoughts on “Max’s Drive-In Movie – Rocky”

  3. Saw Rocky I & II in the theatre with a buddy who’s still a buddy almost 50 years later…I know that I was a 7th grader for Rocky I. For those of us in our age group Max this is one of the staples of our childhood…if you were into the Rocky movies of course.

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  4. I saw it back, not when it was new, but maybe new to VHS. Anyway, I’m not a boxing fan so it wasn’t a must-see but I remember thinking it was pretty good and more than just boxing. Like Sheila said, you have to admire his determination to be in the movie and have it done his way. It’s like ‘Clerks’ in that it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as good if it had a huge budget & well-known stars in it.

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      2. Yes he did…I’ll have to check but I think he might have had a hand in all of them. I would not even classify it as a “boxing” movie…its totally the underdog type movie.

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  7. My father was a boxer and distinguished between boxers and fighters. Rocky was never a boxer. I could never handle the Rocky movies where the idea seemed to be to get knocked silly without losing consciousness and then miraculously win. Maybe he could have learned not to get hit, i.e. learn to box.

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    1. Thats a point they made in the 3rd film I believe…they made him more defensive instead of like George Foreman and a bull in a China ship mentality….but yea…he didn’t do defense at all hardly in this one.

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  10. Pingback: Max’s Drive-In Movie – Rocky – MobsterTiger

  11. I have a lot of nostalgia for this movie because my Dad liked it. When we visited Philadelphia, I drove him up the wall by running up every set of steps and doing the Rocky pose at the top. The day of my father’s funeral, I came home and turned on the TV and Rocky was starting, so I watched the whole thing while thinking of my Dad. It was providential.

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    1. There is one movie I meant to ask you about CB…he was in a movie in 1974 called The Lords Of Flatbush…I want to see it. Don’t know if it’s more authentic or commercial. But yea…I loved this story.

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  14. Indeed a classic. I have it at number 15 on my all time list. What still stands out for me are these three aspects:
    1. Just how darn good his script still holds up,
    2. How it was filmed in just 19 days or thereabouts, and
    3. The acting

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  15. This film caught everyone sleeping. It came out of nowhere and is now a part of pop-culture. Everyone cast was perfect for their role, and Stallones lack of Hollywood acting talent lent a bit of realism. I had forgotten about Butkus and the turtles. Nice write up, no I gotta watch the movie, again. What happened to Adrian?

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