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.

Doctor Dracula, another Al Adamson two-movie composite

Review by Doug Gibson

I mentioned "Doctor Dracula" in an earlier post. It's not much of a film and merits its very low rating on IMDB.com.

What makes the film marginally interesting is one, it's directed by schlock auteur, the late Al Adamson, two it's likely the only film in which Dracula meets Svengali, three, it has John Carradine (although what trashy '70s film doesn't) and four, it's another example of Adamson practicing film composites, in which he takes two thin films to make an even thinner film.

Adamson and his partner Sam Sherman got their hands on an unreleased film called "Lucifer's Women." They shot a vampire tale to mix with it and managed to get a few actors from the earlier film to create a plot that is deliciously nonsensical in the Adamson tradition.

The film commences with a vampire killing a woman who welcomes his bite. We then switch to an author and mystic named Wainwright (Larry Hankin) lecturing and hypnotizing an audience. He has a book about Svengali. In the audience is Carradine's character and a doctor, Gregorio, (Geoffrey Land) who is openly derisive of Wainwright.

Also in attendance is the daughter, Stephanie, of the woman slain in the opening scene. She's played by actress Susie Ewing, best known as the trucker "Hot Pants" in the film "Smokey and the Bandit."

Stephanie is desperate to find out why her mom died. She consults Wainwright but he's not helpful. She receives greater assistance from Gregorio but his help comes with a bite; more on that.

We also kick to dull scenes in a nightclub where a beautiful singer named Trilby (get it) is performing. Wainwright is falling in love with her. That's because he is turning into the reincarnation of Svengali. There's a whole cult of people, including Carradine, who worship the devil and are involved in the Svengali resurrection. Wainwright/Svengali doesn't want to kill Trilby but the devil cult has a more powerful pull on him and she eventually is readied to be sacrificed. More later.

Meanwhile, Gregorio is -- big surprise -- really Count Dracula. Occasionally he kills women including a somewhat amusing scene where he gives the bite to a tipsy floozy who loves being in a coffin, played by Adamson's wife, Regina Carroll.

In what is probably the sole scene that provides any chills, Gregorio/Dracula produces the undead mother of Stephanie. She has no human qualities left, and openly scorns her daughter.

Dracula has similar plans for Stephanie, and he begins a slow process of controlling her. She may have something to say or do about that later; more on that.

Eventually, the film leads to the sacrifice of Trilby, played by Jane Brunel-Cohen. She may be the worst actress I've seen in a film. Even as she's about to die, she's incapable of conveying emotion.

Dracula crashes the sacrifice and viewers expecting a battle royal between the bloodsucker and the Svengali cult will be disappointed. Spoiler alert: Dracula wins with barely an effort. Land, by the way, is not too bad as Dracula. He's far better than Zandor Vorkoff in "Dracula Versus Frankenstein" or Mitch Evans in "Gallery of Horrors."

There is an abrupt, mildly surprising ending involving Stephanie and Dracula that I won't give away in case you want to see the flick. I recommend it only to Adamson completists and fans of composite films, of which Adamson made several,

The history of the film is interesting. It was made in the late 1970s, in which Adamson's Independent International, and other indie schlock producers, were being moved out of the business. Bigger studios were either making their own shockers or buying better-produced low budget shockers and tidying them up for major releases.

To my knowledge, "Doctor Dracula" was only released to television, which may explain why it's very tame, with virtually no nudity. Rumor has it that it played VHS with Adamson's "Horror of the Blood Monsters" and it got a sole DVD release in 2002. The DVD has the trailer for "Lucifer's Women." A better idea would be for Sam Sherman to apply the entire Paul Aratow-directed film, Lucifer's Women," (if it still exists) as an extra to the DVD.