Bad film, great box office

Nicholas Barber has a BBC article about Rocky:

Rocky has to be the most successful bad film ever made. Released forty years ago this month, Sylvester Stallone’s underdog boxing phenomenon was nominated for ten Oscars. It went onto win three, including best picture, which meant that it beat All the President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver. It was also a box-office smash, taking $225 million internationally (equivalent to nearly a hundred million today) from a budget of a mere million. That, of course, was just the beginning. There have since been six sequels, the most recent of which, Creed, was so popular that there are bound to be more. But does any of that mean that Rocky is a classic film?
Yes, it has James Crabe’s superb Steadicam shots of Rocky Balboa mooching around the industrial sites and working-class neighborhoods of pre-gentrification Philadelphia. And, yes, it has Stallone’s heart-swelling sprint up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the accompaniment of Bill Conti’s irresistible funk-fanfare. But for every terrific moment you remember, there is another terrible one you may have forgotten. Take that training montage, for instance, which saddles Conti’s iconic theme with some toe-curlingly dreadful lyrics. Amazingly, they are credited to not one but two lyricists; one, presumably, who wrote “Trying hard now,” and the other who added, “It’s so hard now.” Eye of the Tiger it ain’t.
It’s only fair to acknowledge that the film’s director, John Avildsen, was effectively fighting with one hand tied behind his back. Stallone, who scripted Rocky as well as starred in it, was an unknown at the time, so Avildsen had to keep costs down, shooting the entire film in 28 days. The shortcuts and compromises are apparent. In the opening backstreet boxing match, it’s clear that most of the punches don’t connect, that is, you can see that the actors were deliberately missing each other, but there was no money for retakes. Much later, in the climactic championship bout, Avildsen resorts to very low lighting and tight framing to disguise the fact that a supposedly colossal showbiz event has about as many spectators as a high-school table-tennis tournament.
But even accounting for its shoestring budget, Rocky has plenty of rocky patches. The premise is that Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers), the Muhammad Ali-like world heavyweight champion, has scheduled a match in Philadelphia to coincide with the bicentennial celebrations. When his opponent pulls out due to injuries, and no other ranked contenders are available, Creed comes up with what he imagines to be a brilliant publicity stunt. He will fight an unknown local boxer, and he will market this David-vs-Goliath match as proof that America is still the land of opportunity.
“Apollo, I like it,” barks the promoter. “It’s very American.” “No, Jergens,” smarms Creed, “it’s very smart!” At this point the two men laugh and shake hands manically, looking for all the world like the Joker and the Penguin. It’s a wonder that Avildsen doesn’t have them turning to the camera and winking while he’s at it.
You don’t have to be a boxing aficionado to ask whether there is really anything “smart” about Creed’s scheme. If I’d bought tickets to see the world champion in a Bicentennial Super Battle with his highest-ranked challenger, I wouldn’t be too pleased to hear that he was going to pummel a lowly Philadelphia brawler instead. Nonetheless, the stunt goes ahead, with Creed choosing his opponent purely on the basis of his evocative nickname, The Italian Stallion.
There is nothing wrong with a bit of Cinderella-style wish-fulfilment, of course. But Stallone and Avildsen can’t seem to decide whether their film is the kind of ludicrous feel-good fantasy that would make Walt Disney blush, or whether it’s actually a gritty urban drama. On the one hand, Rocky has scenes that meander around without going anywhere in particular, and subplots that drift away into nothingness, both of which suggest that it’s an edgy low-key character study. But on the other hand, the very idea of the Creed-Balboa title fight is as cheesy as a Philly cheesesteak.
After one kiss from Balboa, Adrian magically never needs her granny glasses again
On the one hand, it has a hero who, as well as being a small-time club fighter, is a loan shark’s debt collector. But on the other hand, it assures us that the loan shark (played by Joe Spinell) is a fundamentally decent fellow who hands Balboa $500 for training expenses, and then graciously withdraws from his life.
On the one hand, the film has a chronically shy heroine, Adrian (played by Talia Shire), who is bullied into going on a date with Balboa by her abusive and parasitic brother Paulie (played by Burt Young, who was Oscar-nominated for the role). But on the other hand, Adrian not only falls in love with her hulking stalker, she has her eyesight magically improved by his attentions. After one kiss from Balboa, she never needs her granny glasses again.
This becomes a pattern. Again and again, Rocky gets close to the painful realities of life, only to hit the brakes and do a U-turn. For example, in the film’s most powerful scene, Mickey (played by Burgess Meredith, also nominated for an Oscar), the aged gym owner, delivers a long, croaky-voiced speech about how he, too, could have been a contender back in the 1920s, if only he hadn’t lacked the “management” he offers Balboa now. The grizzled old man debases himself, begging to be involved in the title fight, but Balboa rejects him because Mickey has never helped him in the past. It’s lump-in-the-throat stuff. Or it would be, but then Balboa spoils everything by changing his mind a moment later. The film doesn’t bother to explain why or how the boxer and his trainer reconciled. It just shows them being the best of friends immediately afterwards.
In general, the film’s tone reels all over the place like Balboa in his fifteenth round with Creed. But the long-awaited title fight should, in theory, be uplifting enough to vindicate everything that’s gone before. In fact, it’s a let-down. Rocky is often hailed as an inspiring fable about a little guy who beats the odds, but the reason Balboa manages to hold his own against the toughest boxer on the planet is simple: he does some exercise, while Creed sits in his office, discussing publicity budgets with his business managers.
That’s all there is to it. Balboa’s achievement, ultimately, has nothing to do with his self-respect, his love for Adrian, or Mickey’s negligible “management”. It’s all down to Creed’s lazy complacency, a quality which not only saps the film of tension, but also undermines the notion that our courageous hero has accomplished the impossible. Heretical as it may be to say it, Rocky II has both competitors training strenuously for the rematch, not just one of them, so its final fight is far more satisfying than the rushed and shapeless one that ends Rocky.
Still, in some ways the film’s shoddiness works in its favor. Rocky is, at heart, a simplistic fairy tale, much like its slicker, more cartoonish sequels. And yet its rickety construction, repetitive dialogue, and evident cheapness give it the rough-and-ready feel of an indie drama, which is why it garnered acclaim and Oscar nominations, as well as making a fortune and spawning a franchise. That may not have been what Stallone and Avildsen were intending, but, like Balboa, they had a lucky break. Is Rocky the most successful bad film ever? If so, it’s that very badness which made it a success.

Rico says he saw it first-run. It was bad, but we didn't care...