Actors - Rocky

	Actors - Rocky

Rocky (1976) is a motion picture written by and starring Sylvester Stallone as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa. It tells the rags-to-riches American Dream story of "Rocky Balboa", a slightly dull-witted but good-hearted "collection agent" for a loan shark in Philadelphia with a penchant for boxing who gets a shot at the world heavyweight title. It was written by Stallone and directed by John G. Avildsen. The movie was inspired by a real-life fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner, as well as having parallels to Ali's two fights with George Chuvalo. He is named after Rocky Marciano.

Tagline: His whole life was a million-to-one shot.

Plot

Rocky Balboa is a dead-end, "bottom of the barrel" guy from Philadelphia who is going nowhere in life. He works days as an enforcer for a loan shark and as a boxer at night. With the nation's bicentennial coming up, and scheduled contender Mac Lee Green injured, the undefeated heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) searches for a new opponent for the match on the nation's birthday. With all the deserving competitors unavailable for one reason or another, Creed comes up with the perfect bout: he will fight the local underdog "Italian Stallion" Rocky, and by doing so give him a chance at the world title. Creed sees the whole thing as a big joke, a spectacle, rather than a fight. In the time leading up to the fight, Rocky trains with crusty, 1920s-era bantamweight fighter Mickey Goldmill, played by Burgess Meredith. At the same time, he falls in love with his best friend's sister, Adrian (Talia Shire). After intense training and with a newfound focus and determination, Rocky takes his thousand-to-one shot at the title. The night before the match, Rocky admits to Adrian he knows he can't win but he's going to go the distance (i.e., make it through all 15 rounds of the bout). Rocky explains:

"(I)t really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head either, 'cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood." In the first round, at the Philadelphia Spectrum, Creed treats the match as a joke, until Rocky catches him with a left hook that throws Creed on his back and nearly knocks him unconscious. In his entire professional boxing career no one had ever knocked Creed down let alone in the first minute. From that point on, Creed takes the match seriously, and the fighters beat each other bloody. Neither man will back down, even when Rocky's eyes have swelled shut and Creed's ribs have been broken. Creed hits as hard as he can, but Rocky refuses to stay down and fights Creed for all fifteen rounds, only to lose on a split decision.

Though Creed is declared the winner, Rocky's accomplishment garners him fame worldwide. He has proved himself to all those who had doubted him before, including his trainer Mickey, and his feat demonstrates that one man can stand in the face of overwhelming odds.

Cameo appearances

Given the inevitable comparison between the outspoken Apollo Creed and the real-life outspoken Muhammad Ali, one interesting detail is the cameo appearance of Joe Frazier, a former world heavyweight champion who fought Ali three times, as himself. Apollo accuses Frazier of "dodging him" prior to the start of the match with Rocky. In that year's Academy Awards, Ali had a little comic scene of confronting Stallone onstage which ended amiably to make it clear that he was not offended by the film.

Other characters included Burt Young as Rocky's best friend Paulie and Thayer David as the fight's promoter and ringside announcer. Los Angeles television sportscaster Stu Nahan played himself. Founder of the longest running independent film company Troma, Lloyd Kaufman makes an appearance as a drunk.

Trivia

Rocky won the 1976 Academy Award for Best Picture and earned Stallone a nomination for Best Actor. John G. Avildsen also won the award for Best Director, and Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad won the Academy Award for Film Editing.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Rocky ]

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Actors - Rocky

Plot

Cameo appearances

Trivia

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