Eavesdropping At The Movies

In this first of our two-part discussion of the Rocky films, we look at the film that began the series almost 50 years ago. There's a lot about 1976's Rocky that... isn't that good. John G. Avildsen's direction is drab, the story basic, the themes rudimentary - but with that comes a roughness and a sincerity to the whole affair that might be just what makes it work after all. Sylvester Stallone's Rocky is a physical brute, softened by his unusual - and unusually pretty - features, his inability to avoid trying to befriend any animal that crosses his path, his demeanour that's at once confident and shy, and his intellectual simplicity. José argues that the boxing is a diversion, a Trojan horse within which to sneak Rocky and Adrian's love story. And we think about the character of Apollo Creed, his use as a substitute for Muhammad Ali, and why he couldn't have been white. Rocky was a phenomenon upon its release, an immediate cultural touchstone that contains images and scenes so iconic that, five decades on,