Talking about Rocky, the 1976 Best Picture winner at '77 Oscars

 

By Doug Gibson

Over the first weekend of 2026, I watched a Rocky marathon on AMC. It brought back pleasant memories of the franchise, which I've enjoyed nearly 50 years. This post will focus mostly on Rocky, the (deserved) Best Picture Oscar winner in 1977. But most of the rest of the films are good. Rocky 2 is a bit derivative, but fun. Rocky 3 is rollicking fun, a combination of the old Saturday morning thrillers and comic books. Rocky 4 is delightful Cold War kitsch; the final half is mostly a series of montage music videos, so very '80s. The less said about Rocky 5 the better, but the much later entry Rocky Balboa is surprisingly good. A scene where Rocky reproves -- with love -- his self-pitying son is among the best in the series. The Creed series is great too, and it's not over yet.

But let's get back to the original, Rocky. I'm amazed at how compelling, well acted and atmospheric it is; shot low-budget in the streets of Philadelphia, its biggest strength is the humility, empathy, and kindness of its protagonist, ham-n-egger boxer Rocky Balboa, (Sylvester Stallone) a lonely athlete who shelved his dreams of fistic fame to be a reluctant "thumb-breaker" for a loan shark. Rocky doesn't like who he is, but he treats other kindly; in fact, he goes out of his way to do so. He effects a tough-guy persona, but it's not him.

Here's some examples:

Early in the film, Rocky kindly attempts to mentor a young teen neighborhood girl drifting into street life. He cares about her future and in his unique street-syntac way tries to counsel her. She disses him in the end. It's poignant that as Rocky walks away he only has criticism for himself, not the girl.

Rocky makes daily visits to chat with a shy, wallflower-type woman named Adrian (Talia Shire), who works at a pet store. Her self worth is very low and she lacks the courage to mostly respond to him. Yet, Rocky, in his earnest, clumsy way, is attracted to her, and senses she likes him. As Rocky leaves, Adrian's enthusiastic final goodbye provides a hint of future romance.

Rocky's graciousness extends to his surprise invitation to meet boxing champ Apollo Creed's promoter. He's deferential and humble, asking the secretary for the invitation card back (scrapbook?). The sequence where he works to sell himself as a sparring partner for Creed to a bemused Miles Jergens is powerful. It underscores Rocky's yearning to be more than he is. His initial "no" upon learning the offer is to box Creed for the championship reveals his humble, practical side. At that point in time he knows he'd be slaughtered by the champ.

That leads to the best scene in Rocky, where gym owner and trainer Mickey offers his services to prepare Rocky for the title fight. Until then, Mickey (Burgess Meredith) has been harsh to Rocky, taking away his locker at the gym, and generally being short-tempered with him. But one never senses Mickey hates Rocky; his anger is tinged with disappointment. When Rocky presses him, Mickey erupts. He yells at Rocky, telling him he threw away his potential to become a "legbreaker" for a cheap crook. Rocky's reply is classic in its simplicity: "It's a living." Mickey replies, "It's a waste of life."

Back to the scene. We learn that Mickey's life has been discouraging too. He sees in training Rocky a chance to have his shot. Mickey's humble request brings out repressed resentment from Rocky. In the superb scene, Rocky rebuffs Mickey. As Mickey continues, Rocky, back to Mickey, loses his temper. Rocky's pent-up angry rant spills out for a long time, continuing as a defeated Mickey leaves his studio apartment and walks the street. The climax of the scene again reveals Rocky's humanity. He follows Mickey down the block and catches him. Mickey flinches for a split second but Rocky puts his arm around him. The audience can't hear but you know he's accepting his help.

Some other scenes include Rocky gently letting Adrian know what a pretty woman she is on their Thanksgiving date. Another is Rocky in the gym, seeing Adrian's jealous but cowardly brother Paulie (Burt Young). Paulie had earlier caused drunken havoc at Adrian's home, threatening Rocky. Rocky had easily repelled him. But it was an ugly scene. At the gym Rocky's forgiving nature again reveals itself, allowing Mickey to earn $3,000 by arranging to have his work place an ad on his entrance robe for the big fight.

More scenes: In the opening club fight, Rocky, in the corner between rounds, takes time to assure a bet-happy bum he can KO his opponent in the next round. In another, Rocky, working for the loan shark, disobeys his boss and does not break the thumbs of a debt-ridden bet loser who hasn't paid. Finally, I like the quiet dignity of Rocky, alone in the arena the day before the fight, telling condescending promoter Jergens that his trunk's colors are wrong on the poster. Jergens feels it's no big deal, telling Rocky he'll "put on a good show."

By the way, my favorite two seconds in the big fight is a camera cut away to Jergens in Round 2. He is puffing on a cigar in Row 1, eyes fixed, with an understated shocked look on his face that the club-fighting underdog has Creed on the ropes and is tagging him right on the chin. 

One more thing: The ensuing bout between Rocky and Creed (Carl Weathers), while over the top, is quite realistic. You can imagine a real fight like that. As the franchise went on, Rocky's ensuing fights became absurd, unrealistic slugfests.

Also, Stallone's Rocky hides his embarrassment at "cheap shots" from insulting TV sports journalists by being blustery and witty at the end of a TV interview. The night before the bout, he confesses to Adrian going the distance is more important than winning. If he does that, he'll know he wasn't just another bum from the neighborhood.

Here's two paragraphs for boxing nerds like me: Rocky calls himself a club fighter to Jergens, and it's true that the opening fight in the film is a club card. Rocky nets less than $40 for the win. But was Rocky always a club fighter? I say no. His record is listed as 44 wins and 20 losses. That is the record of a good journeyman heavyweight. When they choose Rocky as an opponent, although unmentioned, Jergens and Creed are perusing a record book of decent to great heavyweights. Rocky's in there. I think Rocky was until very recently a working, main-bout heavyweight, winning more than not but losing the bouts against contenders and top prospects. To sum up, I think he's given up his career dreams to work for a loan shark but still loves the sport enough to fight in the clubs. That underscores Mickey's irritation at him early in film.

So why am I ruminating such poppycock? Because I think an excellent prequel series on Rocky Balboa could be a streamer series or movie. We could see Rocky as a young prospect, his early hopes and then the ensuing discouragement of losing to top heavies of the previous decade: Sonny Listen, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, Jimmy Ellis, even Joe Frazier? I heard a Rocky prequel might be in works, but I doubt they'd take this appoach.

Plan 10 From Outer Space – A Wacky Mormon Parody

Review by Steve D. Stones

On The evening of November 24th, 2019, I had the great pleasure of meeting local film director Trent Harris for a special screening of his 1995 film - Plan 10 From Outer Space. During this event, Harris autographed my VHS copy of his other 1992 cult masterpiece – Rubin & Ed. The event took place as a film festival at The Monarch building in Ogden – an arts hub for local artists. The event was well attended and director Harris answered questions from fans in attendance. I also had the pleasure of meeting the parents of actress Stefene Russell at this event.

Norman Talmage, played by Curtis James, is a mad prophet in 1853 who buries a bronze plaque near the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. A hundred and forty years passes, and a young and beautiful woman named Lucinda Hall, played by Stefene Russell, discovers the plaque, known as the Plaque of Kolob, and becomes obsessed with decoding its meaning. Kolob refers to a star or planet mentioned in the Book of Abraham, a foundational scripture of LDS theology.

Hall’s brother Larsen (Pat Collins) is a return LDS missionary, who is receiving shock therapy treatments for stealing women’s panties. Larsen begins to see strange hallucinations after his shock treatment. He intercepts messages from outer space. Meanwhile Hall spends her time writing a book but is greatly distracted by her neighbor who dances almost completely naked in front of his apartment window every evening.

While researching Norman Talmage, Hall decides to track down his only living relative – Guy Fonsbeck (Deva Cantrell). Fonsbeck turns out to be the half-naked guy who dances in front of his apartment window every evening. Attempting to decode the Plaque of Kolob, Hall discovers a plot by aliens and their feminist goddess Nehor, played by Karen Black, for world domination to put women in charge.

The most intriguing scenes of this film are of the one-eyed beehive alien in his red space suit with bee wings. Nehor’s animated throne is another great highlight of the film. Director Harris narrates a sequence early in the film about the history of the Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon.

An interesting connection is made in Plan 10 to Harris’ earlier film of Rubin & Ed. Hall is not allowed inside a music club where Nehor and some aliens are doing a dance. To get into the club, Hall puts a tire hub cap on her head and dresses in a cape. In Rubin & Ed, actor Crispin Glover also places a hubcap on his head to shield the heat of the desert sun. The hub cap connects the two films together.

If you own the DVD or Blu-Ray of Plan 10 From Outer Space, don’t miss the extras of a documentary Harris puts on the disc – Naked Reality. Harris drives around in the desert near the Great Salt Lake salt flats looking for interesting subjects to film. He encounters a dead beetle that crawled out into the desert and died from the heat. Harris talks about living in Hollywood and getting a phone call to go to lunch with Warren Beatty. Look quickly as the end credits roll for a special thank you to Wade Williams – science fiction archivist and collector. Happy viewing.

(The second photo above shows director Harris at far right. Blog post author Steve D. Stones is at far left. To the right of Stones is Christopher T. Ostler, who arranged to have Plan 10 From Outer Space shown in Ogden in 2028. The photo is from the above-mentioned 2019 event.)

 

The Curse of the Cat People a gentle, but sinister sequel to Cat People

 

Review by Doug Gibson

In 1942 RKO released Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton. Universal's horror dominance was fading and RKO began to produce the best B horrors. Cat People, while a PG movie, has many adult themes, Cat People's plot went right over the heads of the Hays Commission pseudo moralistic "horny teenagers." It involves a young immigrant, Irena (below) (Simone Simon), a fashion designer, who meets, falls in love with and marries engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). There's a problem unknown to Oliver though. Irena, from Serbia, is descended from a tribe of Cat People. When aroused or angered, she turns into a large homicidal cat. Irena, aware of this, asks Oliver to give her time to initiate lovemaking.

This leads to tension, and Oliver becomes attracted to a co-worker, Alice (Jane Randolph). Irena, angered, becomes withdrawn and stalks Alice. Irena's psychiatrist plans to commit her, but first tries to seduce her. He's killed. Irena eventually commits suicide by allowing a zoo panther to attack her. This is a genuinly frightening film and scored well at the box office.

RKO, eager to have a sequel, released The Curse of the Cat People in 1944. Executives were expecting another frightening film. But Lewton had other ideas. He produced a gentle drama of a young child -- Oliver and Alice's daughter Amy (Ann Carter) -- looking for someone to relieve her loneliness and become her friend. The family lives in Tarrytown, N.Y., away from the city. They're a happy family, but there is that undercurrent of tension. Oliver is very worried about Amy, and frustrated she is introverted and cannot easily make friends.

This is also a  Christmas movie, although it was released in March. Turner Classic Movies usually airs it a few times a year, including in December.

One day, Amy sees an old woman at a second-story window of a nearby house. Other children say a witch lives there. The woman throws Amy a "wishing ring." Later, Amy visits the old woman and she acts out the story of The Headless Horseman to Amy. The old woman, Julia, is a former actress. She is played by Julia Dean. She is kind to Amy but appears to have slight dementia. She lives with her sullen, unloved daughter, Barbara (played by Elizabeth Russell). Barbara begs Julia to acknowledge her but Julia calls her an imposter, claiming her daughter died in childbirth. Eventually, a bitter Barbara, after a visit from Amy, says she will kill the child the next time she sees her.

One night, Amy frightened in her bed remembering The Headless Horseman story, begs the wishing ring to bring her a friend. The spirit of Irena (from Cat People, Oliver's deceased first wife) comes to her. Irena offers her friendship and comforts the child. Simone Simon, as you see above, is pure beauty in the role. She is ethereal. One assumes her spirit has achieved peace and she is now capable of good works.

Tension soon develops, Amy finds pictures of Irena in the house, including one when she is with her dad. She tells Oliver that the woman in the pictures is her friend. No one can see Irena but Amy. Oliver, perhaps not over grief/guilt feelings over Irena's sad fate and worried about Amy's "fantasies," overreacts and lashes out at the child, bringing Amy to tears. 

Irena appears to Amy and tells her she'll need to leave her. She doesn't want to hurt Amy's relationship with her parents. On Christmas Eve, Amy runs out of the house, heartsick Irena has left. She seeks help from Julia. When she gets there, tragedy ensues and Amy faces a threatening Barbara. This occurs as her parents, the family's house servant (Sir Lancelot) and others are searching for her.

This is an extemely good movie. It has wonderful settings, strong slice-of-life scenes that involve school, kids playing, a teacher discussing Amy with her parents, then-popular singer/actor Sir Lancelot singing, home life, Christmas carolers and a Christmas party. There is excellent rapport between leads Smith and Randolph as they maneuver their way through a happy marriage that still has bumps due to Oliver's first marriage and their trauma from Irena's despair and wrath. They are loving parents, concerned for Amy. Ann Carter is an excellent child actor who conveys innocence, loneliness and longing for companionship. Both Dean and Russell provide strong supporting roles.

The film was less successful than Cat People. As mentioned, RKO wanted something more menacing. The suits tinkered some with producer Lewton's script but it still retains its gentle fable-like atmosphere. Lewton wanted to call the film, Amy and Her Friend, but RKO execs said no, wanting Cat People in the title. The film was mostly directed by Robert Wise. Gunter von Fritsch was the original director, but took the film over its planned budget, running more than a week over schedule. 

Contemporary reviews were mixed but The Curse of the Cat People has gained in esteem from critics the past 50 years. It's not uncommon to see it described as a classic. This reviewer agrees.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT Christmas episodes: Tales From The Crypt (1972) and Tales From The Crypt: “And All Through The House” (1989)

 

By Steve Stones

Long before HBO created their Tales From The Crypt TV series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Amicus Studios (an adjunct of Hammer Studios) in England created a full-length feature film in 1972 based on the William Gaines, Al Feldstein and Johnny Craig E.C. comic books of the 1950s. 

For this article, I will focus on comparing one segment of the full-length feature film with an HBO TV episode in 1989 entitled: “All Through TheHouse.”

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

A group of tourists is taken to a crypt in an old England cemetery. A
tour guide tells them that religious martyrs of Henry VIII are buried
there. Five members of the group get lost and wander into an empty
crypt. The crypt keeper intentionally traps them inside but informs them that he has a purpose. He then asks actress Joan Collins what her plans are after she leaves the crypt.

Next, we see a young and beautiful Collins murdering her husband on Christmas Eve with a fire poker as he is reading the evening newspaper. She wants to collect on his life insurance policy. As she says goodnight to her daughter and quickly tries to clean up the blood on the floor from the murder, she hears on the radio that a killer has escaped from a local sanitarium and may be dressed in a Santa suit to disguise his identity. He is to be considered very dangerous.

Collins hears a knock at the door and realizes it must be the escaped
killer. She attempts to close all the blinds in the house as he peaks
through the windows in a Santa suit. She thinks of calling the police,
but realizes she cannot call them because the corpse of her husband lies on the living room floor. She pushes his body down the basement stairs to try and make it look as if he died of a fall.

Returning upstairs, she sees the door to her daughter’s bedroom open. She discovers her daughter is gone. Suddenly, from behind a curtain downstairs she hears her daughter say “He’s here Mommy! Santa is here!” Sure enough, it is the escaped killer in a Santa suit holding hands with her daughter. Collins runs for the fire poker, but the killer gets to her quickly and chokes her as she grabs for the poker in front of the fireplace.

Tales From The Crypt: “And All Through The House” HBO TV episode (1989)

This episode opens with actress Mary Ellen Trainor reaching for a fire poker in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve. Her husband asks for the poker so he can stir the fire. “Let me have it!” he says. Trainor whacks him over the head with the poker and says “Merry Christmas you son of a b*tch!”

She quickly sits her murdered husband back up in his chair and removes the poker from his head as her daughter comes down the stairs to say Santa will be there soon. Her daughter refers to the murdered man as Joseph, even though she is not aware he is dead. It’s obvious he is her stepfather.

Trainor escorts her daughter back to her bedroom and opens her window slightly because of the heat in the room. Her daughter asks her “What do you want for Christmas Mommy?” “I already got it sweetheart,” says Trainor.

Trainor calls someone on the phone to say she has killed her husband and that everything, including some money, is now theirs. She then drags her dead husband outside into the cold snow to throw him down a well as a news report on the radio informs listeners that a killer from a local mental ward has escaped in a Santa suit. Just as she is about to throw her husband down the water well, he grabs her. He is not dead yet. Trainor hits him one more time over the head, this time killing him for good.

The escaped killer in a Santa suit surprises her with an axe. She runs back into the house to call the police but realizes her murdered husband is still lying dead on the front lawn.

The phone rings as the killer throws a tire swing through the living
room window and once again attacks Trainor. She hits him in the head with the axe then answers the phone. The voice on the phone warns her of the escaped killer in a Santa suit, and tells her that police will be in her area in twenty minutes. The Santa killer lies unconscious and spread out in the snow on her front yard.

This gives Trainor the plan to make it look as if the Santa killer is
the person who killed her husband. She goes back outside to plunge the axe into the chest of her husband’s corpse a few times as the wind blows her front door shut, locking her out of the house.

To get back into the house, Trainor looks for some keys in her husband’s pocket. She finds them and goes back into the house to call the police to blame the murder of her husband on the Santa killer. The person on the phone tells her to find something to protect herself with, such as a gun.

While trying to find one of Joseph’s guns in an upstairs closet, Trainor accidentally locks herself in the closet. She sees the Santa killer climbing up a ladder to her daughter’s room through the closet window. She kicks open the door and runs to find her daughter in her room. She is not there.

Trainor runs down the stairs to see her daughter standing in the living
room holding hands with the Santa killer. “See, I told you Santa would come Mommy, and he didn’t even need to come down the chimney!” Trainor screams as the Santa says “Naughty or nice?” holding the bloody axe.

Both of these Tales From The Crypt episodes seem to work quite well and have many similarities. However, the 1989 version is better produced. The Santa killer in the 1989 episode is much more convincing as a killer because he appears to be more rough and menacing. The Santa in the 1972 version looks like a regular Santa standing on a street corner ringing a bell.

The 1989 episode also has a more sinister and foreboding feeling to it because the interior scenes inside the house are very dark, unlike the 1972 version where the interiors are well lit. The Joan Collins
character in the 1972 version also never has to go outside or fight with the Santa killer, unlike Trainor’s character in the 1989 version who fights with the Santa out in the cold.

Collins pushes her husband’s corpse down the basement  stairs, whereas Trainor drags her husband out into the snow to throw him into a well. This is the biggest difference of the two episodes.

The 1989 episode is also a real treat because it has the classic opening of the Crypt Keeper introducing the episode in a Santa suit. The crypt keeper in the 1972 version is a middle-aged British man dressed as though he is part of the Jedi council in Star Wars.

Let the Crypt Keeper guide you through your holiday entertainment this Christmas Season boys and ghouls! 

He’ll deck the halls with murder and mayhem!