Mr. Smith Goes to Philadelphia.

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2009)

What a nice fairy tale, and most of it due to the writer and star, Sylvester Stallone, aided by director John Avildsen. Stallone is a low-life, well-intentioned young guy who breaks thumbs for the Mafia and makes a few dollars fighting in shabby clubs. He can't even get it on with the homely Talia Shire. Part of the problem is hers in that she's pathologically shy. She lives with her brother, Burt Young, who abuses her, calls her a "loser". Finally a drunken Young throws her out. She moves in with Stallone. Two of life's losers, you might say, but otherwise things are at a stalemate.
Into this static scene, like the Good Witch of the West, comes the heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, who picks Stallone's name out of a hat for his next bout. "The land of opportunity," says Weathers, rubbing his hands gleefully over the prospect of pounding the crap out of a white guy in Philadelphia.
Now Stallone must get into the ring with this arrogant monster and the odds in Vegas give him no more than three rounds out of fifteen. So he gets up at 4 AM, drinks half a dozen raw eggs, puts on his sweats, and runs and runs and runs, huffing and puffing, through the garbage-strewn streets of dawn. The rough-hewn guy who owns the local gym, Burgess Meredith, adopts him and becomes his manager.
The night of the heavyweight championship bout arrives and guess what? Stallone doesn't get knocked out in the third round. Instead, he steps out of his corner in the FIRST round, Weathers taps him politely on the chin, and Stallone slumps to the floor dead. Just kidding.
Actually, after fifteen rounds of brutal battle, with Weathers' rib broken and Stallone's face simulating the recovery phase of a major face lift, Weathers has won on points but barely. Stallone has achieved his goal, which was to "go the distance," to give it his "best shot." On first viewing I thought the ending was perfectly constructed. No thirty-year-old slum bum could train for a couple of weeks and win the championship from a skilled and powerful boxer, no matter how big his heart. But he COULD go the distance. Alas, the ending has Rocky losing the fight, regaining his self esteem, marrying the now rather fetching babe, and winning $150,000 -- but it was all commercially oriented. The fight HAD to end as it did, not for dramatic purposes, but so that the inevitable sequel could follow, and the sequels to the sequels, and so on ad infinitum. It wasn't about self respect or love at all. It was just about money.
That ending turned out to be a crashing disappointment but in the context of the first Rocky film it works flawlessly. So does the rest of the script. Stallone is quite good as the inarticulate hoodlum, constantly hunching his shoulders and shadow boxing along the sidewalks. He's like Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront".
Don't want to run out of space here, so let me mention a weakness or two. Unlike the Rocky character, it's obvious that Sylvester Stallone doesn't lack much in the way of self esteem. His pheromones are so powerful that he scores with his girl on their first date. He hardly ever passes up a chance to strip off and exhibit his bulky muscles. He climbs out of bed on the first morning of his regimen wearing a grimy sweatshirt that matches his other outfits, and -- you should see this apartment. It looks worse than MINE. Junk all over the place. Two turtles ("Cuff" and "Link" -- cute, eh?) in their aquarium. Naked light bulbs. But he gives us a glimpse of his skivvies -- blue Gucci Pucci nylon briefs that barely conceal his genitals. Stallone hands us his genitalia all the time, in this and other films. (He starred in a skin flick once, so it is said.) Rocky refuses to "fool around" with his girl while in training because he has to remain "strong." In other words, sperm equals strength, and women drain you of it. What the hell is this -- folk physiology or psychosis? I ask because another Rocky had the same conviction in "Raging Bull" and because the insane General Jack D. Ripper also believed it in "Dr. Strangelove." It must have involved a monstrous effort on Stallone's part to disguise such a phenomenal ego.
I thought there was something of a problem with the racism too. Apollo Creed (whose name whisks me back in time to Catechism and memorizing the prayer The Apostle's Creed) is a thorough dufus, given to snapping out orders to underlings, like, "Make sure you fly my barber to Philadelphia." When he chooses to fight a white man, the promoter says, "It's a very American thing to do." "No," says Weathers, "it's a smart thing." He's an egotistical fool, and not an endearing one either. Just a fool.
Now I've gotten the bad stuff out of the way. The bad stuff would become badder as the series wore on and lead finally to the self glorification of Rocky XXI. But that doesn't detract from the charm of just plain "Rocky." It's a fairy tale but an uplifting one, written with insight into the characters, a perceptive performance by Stallone, and expert direction. When Stallone first invites the bashful Shire upstairs to his room, he enters the doorway alone. She's standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up doubtfully. And we see his hand emerge from the flat and hold the door open invitingly. And there's a scene in which Stallone and Meredith must first argue heatedly and then agree to a partnership. The reconciliation is in long shot and we don't hear any dialog. We only see the two finally shake hands, evidence of a director's delicate touch.