~ ~ Over the past five nights the satellite channel, UKTV Gold, has been re-running what has to be the greatest series of epic boxing movies ever to hit the silver screen. Starting last Monday, and running a sequel every night through to Friday, viewers have been able to watch the “Rocky” saga, starring Sylvester Stallone, right from his early days as a debt collector for a dodgy loan shark, through his golden years as World Champion, and ending with his eventual bankruptcy and downfall (and re-incarnation as a trainer!) in the last film in the series, Rocky V.

~ ~ The movie itself is a classic tale of the underdog winning through against overwhelming odds.
Rocky Balboa is the 30-year-old son of Italian immigrants from the wrong side of the tracks. He has no education to speak of, practically no social graces, and ekes out a meagre living as a strong-arm man for a local Italian loan shark. He lives in a run-down, dingy one-room apartment along with his two pet turtles, where he keeps a picture of his boxing hero, Rocky Marciano hanging on the wall. His favourite pastime is hanging out around “Mickey’s Gym”, where in between sweeping up and cleaning out the other boxers’ lockers, he fights the occasional low-budget bout for a few meagre dollars. His boxing skills are practically non-existent, and he survives in the ring purely on his street fighting instincts, losing more fights than he ever wins.
But Rocky has one major asset; he has a heart as big as Mount Everest, and simply never knows when to quit, giving his all in every bout. He comes to the attention of the World Champion, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), who desperately needs a substitute after his opponent calls off their title fight at short notice. Rather than lose the revenue from the fight, Apollo decides to give an unknown local boxer a crack at his title, and picks out Rocky from the boxer’s book for no better reason than he simply likes the name that he fights under, “The Italian Stallion”.
He contacts his Jewish manager Mickey (Burgess Merideth) to set up the bout, and suddenly Rocky’s world is turned upside down, as he finds himself billed as the next “cannon fodder” for Apollo.

~ ~ Although it operates at many levels, Rocky is still primarily a film about boxing, possibly the most primitive sport in the modern sporting spectrum.
But there are, in fact, only two fights in the movie. One at the beginning, when we see Rocky fighting in a low-budget local bout, and the World Championship fight itself against the mighty Apollo Creed. The rest of the time is taken up with concentrating on how Rocky prepares himself both mentally and physically for the fight against Apollo, culminating in one of the most memorable scenes in the whole movie, as he triumphantly sprints up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. (Where a statue to commemorate him is later erected!)
The world championship fight itself takes up relatively little of the film, but remains to this day one of the finest boxing scenes ever to grace the cinema screen. Apollo has taken Rocky too lightly, and consequently has done little training for the fight, and it isn’t too long before he realises the folly of his ways as Rocky begins to batter him with hammer blows that would stop a rhinoceros in its tracks! The camera work during the fight scene is truly wonderful, and fully catches the sheer brutality of the sport, although you have to suspend belief somewhat that any human being could actually survive the unbounded ferocity of some of the punches without being instantly killed!
The movie is also graced with a fantastic soundtrack; not least the pounding and uplifting theme tune “Rocky’s Theme”, by composer Bill Conti.

* At the time he wrote Rocky, Stallone was a struggling actor with only $106 in his bank account, which highlights his total commitment and resolve to play the lead role when he was offered over $300,000 to sell the script to the major studios. (He turned them down!)

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