Three Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's con-artist tactics to thwart a sleazy manager.
Sylvester Stallone Lee Canalito Armand Assante Frank McRae Anne Archer Kevin Conway Terry Funk Joyce Ingalls Joe Spinell Aimée Eccles Tom Waits Chick Casey James J. Casino Fredi O. Gordon Lydia Goya Michael Jeffers Max Leavitt Paul Mace Polli Magaro Pamela Des Barres John Monks Jr. Leo Nanas Frank Pesce Stuart K. Robinson Ray Sharkey Maria Smith Patricia Spann Frank Stallone Jr. Jeff Wald Show All…
Hell's Kitchen, A Taberna do Inferno, Cesta k ráji, La Taberna del infierno, Vorhof zum Paradies, Taverna paradiso, Адская Кухня, La Taverne de l'enfer, La cocina del infierno, Édenkert a sikátorban, סמטת גן עדן, Fedai, Райската алея, Райська алея, Aleea Paradisului, 챔피언, O Beco do Paraíso, 陋巷风云, Paradise Alley - helvetin kapakka, La taberna del infierno, La cuina de l’infern, Rajski vrt, Tæv for dollars
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Germany
Italy
USA
This is a movie in which Tom Waits and Sylvester Stallone have a conversation.
Fight! - Stallone v. Schwarzenegger: A Rivalry of Muscular Proportions
Stallone debuts as a director, but unfortunately, his first work behind the camera is nowhere near as great as his writing endeavors. In fact, in many ways, it feels like a mostly boring, uninspiring and poorly recycled version of Rocky without the charm, memorable scenes or characters. And a lot less boxing and more wrestling.
I guess you can say Stallone is putting up some effort, or at least trying to recoup the magic from his first iconic character. There are a few traces and some little charm, but not enough to save the picture that, as many have pointed out, would have probably served better someone else who could…
Sylvester Stallone has talked about how he was forced to edit a lot out of this movie by the studio. My question is why the hell did they not only let him keep the Sly-sung theme song in but also let it play over both the opening and closing credits?
"Paradise Alley" is a 1978 drama directed by Sylvester Stallone. Set in the 1940's (although for much of the film you could easily say it was earlier and I wouldn't know the difference), the film tells the story of three brothers and their struggle to survive within the atmosphere of New York's infamous neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. Stallone plays Cosmo Carboni, who is a bit of the grifting type of character, and he is joined by his brother Lenny (Armand Assante) who is more of the cautionary and collected type. Rounding out the trio is the youngest brother Victor (Lee Canalito) who is rather simple and gentle in demeanor, but a giant in terms of physical specimen. Going through the…
Posting here a piece I wrote on Stallone for a book that went unpublished. It's more a career-retrospective than a piece about this wonderful film (although it's in there), but I figured this was good a home as any. I don't necessarily agree with everything I wrote here, but I like the piece, and if you're an old Sly fan like myself, you may get something out of it.
The earnest nature of Sylvester Stallone’s work as a filmmaker belies a rather complicated, and curious, relationship with personae, as well as a persistent fascination with iconography. As a director and writer, Stallone is a self-professed storyteller: he writes what he feels are classical, character-driven narratives. This characteristic is irrefutable, but…
Stallone writes and directs the hell out of this sports dramedy about three scrappy Italian brothers (Stallone, Armand Assante, and actual boxer Lee Canalito), but it’s handicapped by so many weird and poor choices, most cripplingly the casting of Stallone himself as the hustling, motor mouthed Cosmo. The role needs a James Woods or a Mickey Rourke, Stallone can’t keep up with his own dialogue.
I do really like the final wrestling scene, Canalito and Terry Funk really sell it and are both athletes who can pull off serious moves. Actually, Canalito gets most of the good scenes, the fights, his climactic trip up the stairs with the ice block, his romance with Aimee Eccles.
But again, the bad choices:…
Preâmbulo:
após reproduzir e vulgarizar o que há de mais estanque no espólio da crítica francesa, tem gente querendo meter as mãos na ideia de crítica inclusiva do Frye para fazer ainda mais lambança.
Lembrando que:
"tudo" não significa "qualquer coisa";
"crítica inclusiva" não implica "aleatoriedade de gosto".
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Belíssimo exemplo de generosidade crítica e de crítica compreensiva, um primeiro passo inevitável para uma prática consequente de crítica inclusiva, centrando-se no que há de melhor e de essencial (eu ainda acrescentaria Oscar do Landis) na obra artística do Stallone.
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Sabemos o que Eustache achava de Rocky e o que Pialat achava de First Blood; podemos suspeitar igualmente o que Brisseau achava desses filmes.
Além de Carax e Daney, citados…
”you lose this fight, we’re finished. we’re garbage again, do you understand this?”
”i was never garbage.”
extra half star for cameos by Ted DiBiase, Dick Murdoch, Ray Stevens, and of course Terry Funk.
Based on Stallone's first draft of Rocky, before someone wisely asked, "Yo, Sly, shouldn't this be about the loveable, oafish bruiser with the heart o' gold instead of unscrupulous asshole promoters?"
Gotta respect the degree to which Stallone backs himself here, even this early in his career, writing, directing, starring, and in a brazen show of confidence, singing the theme (which somehow made me pine for his spectacularly terrible Rhinestone rendition of Tutti Frutti [does the organ make that farting sound around 1:07, or is it a Naked Gun-esque instance of a hot mic embarrassing someone?]). Unfortunately, though, this is pretty bad; besides the woefully misguided focus, the drama is extremely ham-handed and forced, manifest in Stallone's character repeatedly screaming,…
Although it bears plenty of similarities to ROCKY (wrestling in place of boxing tied to working class dreams; a storyline that builds to a big fight where the outcome is much less important than the personal stakes for the characters) this is very different from Stallone's other movies of the period (or his whole career, frankly). Almost qualifies as a candidate for my boss Scott Tobias' Departures column.
I'm not sure the wrestling component is entirely successful, and holy lord the Sylvester Stallone sung theme song is hilariously bad. But otherwise this a very solid period drama. A nice surprise.
As the opening credits began, I started to notice that the singing voice sounded familiar, yet out of place, and a trickle of sweat began to creep down my back, as I slowly realize Stallone was going for more than just the directing, writing, and acting credit.
Paradise Alley, feels like a made for TV movie, and was written, directed, and stars Sylvester Stallone. I thought I may need to turn on captions at the start but my ear settled in and I began to, like only a mother can with their toddler, process Sly's dialogue much quicker.
I wasn't particularly enthralled with the writing and the film featured dialogue that sounded exactly like I would expect it to, knowing…
