Paradise Alley

Nobody loves the sound of a Stallone singing more than a Stallone.

Stallone singing is hilarious!

Deduction for the river and the stockings. Otherwise a great film. As far as Stallone goes, better than Rocky.

Paradise Alley is a great film both directed and written by a post-Rocky/pre-First Blood Sylvester Stallone. Basically, it's about three brothers trying to succeed in different ways. It has interesting characters, and it's fun to watch them interact with one another. Rather than finding a "masculinity-on-steroids personified" type Stallone character of the mid to late 80's, you will find a more down to earth and human character.

It works way better as a brothers' story than a wrestling sports drama, and first half seems more solid than the first -- at least in the acting side of things, I guess. Either way, it will always be underseen and unfavorably compared to Rocky -- which is evidently better, of course --, but it has its own earnest, old-fashioned New Hollywood qualities written all over it.

Good movie. Best Stallone movie

Stallone plays Cosmo an obnoxious Rocky clone without the charm. The acting isn't very good and there are way too many close-ups for my liking.

Sly's throwback tendencies were confirmed with his directorial debut, which has shades of Rocky, only it's set in the 1940's, with wrestling taking the place of boxing, but the sport doesn't drive the story. The effort put into recreating the era, filtered through the prism of 'filmic memory', is commendable, and Sly's corny theme song is not without charm. Unfortunately, he doesn't tie the plot threads together well, and the ending seems counterintuitive, a commercial concession.

It's easy to nag about a lot of things in this movie: more or less the complete cast was acting quite horribly and the plot doesn't have a lot to offer. However in Sly's directorial debut he succeeds in creating a very dark but vivid '40's atmosphere with a perfectly fitting jazzy/Tom Waitsy soundtrack (it even made me think about L'ascenseur pour l'échafaud!) and he even manages to crop in Tom Waits' screen debut!

I'M SENSITIVE!

Stallone has a voice of gold...of course Mumbles is to thank for it