50 Stallone Movies Ranked From Best To Worst
42) PARADISE ALLEY
This movie was Sylvester Stallone’s directorial debut. It is a precursor to Rocky, insofar as it was written by Stallone and revolved around an aspiring wrestler and his manager, as opposed to an aspiring boxer and his manager. Rocky had depth, direction and character.
This movie though is forgettable, it’s tone deaf, humorless and drags endlessly even though it doesn’t quite hit two hours.
Stallone later said of the film;
I was very broke and I optioned the screenplay of PARADISE ALLEY to a real… how should I say this… maggot, who put his hooks in so deep I could never get it away from him. So the first time I went in to meet Chartoff and Winkler, I was there on an acting job. I didn’t get it, but on the way out I said, “I have this screenplay called PARADISE ALLEY.” They said to bring it over and I did. They wanted to make it, but the other cretin that I had optioned it to was so obnoxious, so overbearing, that the producers wanted nothing to do with me or the screenplay. So on the way out, they said, “If you have any ideas, we’d be happy to look at them.” That night I went home – even a fire extinguisher couldn’t cool the burning in my brain. The door of opportunity was wide open and I had nothing to carry over its threshold. That’s when I started to write ROCKY. So thank God for the maggot; otherwise I never would’ve written the story of Mr. Balboa.
It also features wreslters Ted DiBiase and Terry Funk.
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