It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and carn Seo and JP Sorrows.
It's the LAPS Fans get all my ears and profectional wrestling like you never seen
anything like it. And it's the LAPS fan name by the one in the
ring up to get about the slatter with the real King of swing with the
bell goes name the kick like me prone in the corner with its rash like
stay even Jerry King, you could say, go off the crown, nodding
his head like hiss t low brown, which you get low down frock go
even high up, flip you on your head. But you know, Coo
driver you speaking more knowledge, Dragon spits fire, keeve you more shocked than
a head tree tires drop a more truth than the kind of snupber less you
with a cooking mut Roddy Piper a check at JP be like j y d
drop the cupcakes Ago the grain bar means the best podcast fun start to close,
rif y'all be a fast. Oh look, it's another relapse from the
LAPS Fan Wrestling podcast. It's too good to saying us appreciate you joining us
here in relapsed form. A few times this week. We're going to continue
and going just two more relapse until hopefully the co chairs are back in the
mix. Maybe a couple of days extra longer than that, but uh yeah,
just you know, doing what I can do on my side to grab
a few things. And on the last relapse we look back at ECW's barely
legal, paying homage. It's a late Terry Funk, and we're going to
continue paying homage to Terry Funk. This time we're gonna go into archives of
Under the Cinemat. You know all about TLF and the deep dives, right,
well, the TLF co chairs, they don't just do pro wrestling,
they deep dive cinema and other words that they cinema noir. I don't know
what any of that means. I don't know Paradise Alley. I don't know
anything about Paradise Alley, to be honest with you, I know from the
very little bit of synopsis that I read over on Patreon that this stars Terry
Funk and the million Dollars Man Ted d Bass, maybe among others. Not
exactly sure, but I love it because on Under the Cinemat, JP Sorrow
gets to kind of serve as the jack and Cardosio of the program, giving
you all those nitty gritty, fine, minuscule, micro level details that make
a film go from uh, you know, a concept and an idea to
actually playing out on the silver screen. It's interesting, to say the least.
So it's like a deep dive, but about a film. You know,
TLF is that cast deep dives are a blast. That's actually not how
that rhyme goes. Actually know what, I'm gonna hit it and then we're
gonna go under the cinemat. It's TLF on that cast nurse, it's this.
It's even Mother's had a bit. Okay, just cheer old the lapsed
fan presents under the cinemat. Yeah, I love to talk film. I
have come here to chew bubble gun and check at the break. You're going
nowhere under the cinemat rack give it out. I pick up guns. Bad
things happen to people I don't like. We have a movie to make.
Can we all pull together here? In between Rocky and Rocky three? It
could be suggested, if you ask me, that Sylvester Stallone went the way
of Vince McMahon in nineteen ninety three with a departure of Hulk Hogan Stallone thought
that he could basically use the same formula but in a different movie. So
if whole Coogan is Rocky, then Lex Luger is Paradise Alley. Wait a
minute, that would that would be like Luger coming first. Though, No,
Rocky came first. I can't deal with that. Rocky was released first,
Paradise Alley released afterwards. No, that doesn't match with my perception.
You're wrong either way. Paradise Alley is this week's crawl under the cinema.
You really you thought that I really did? Well, You're not wrong,
You're not completely wrong. Yeah, like I thought he wrote the script before
Rocky. You know, I thought. I thought Paradise Alley came out in
like seventy eight, and Rocky one came out in like eighty. O.
Rocky came out in seventy six. Oh my god, that's of course it
did. What am I saying? I can see it right now in my
mind's eye on the AFI Top one nineteen seventy six. Yeah, Rocky came
out in seventy six. And yeah, and so this this was his second
follow up really to Rocky, which we're gonna get into. We're gonna get
into the whole thing because you know, we we explored a little bit of
Stallone in when we did Rocky three in January, and we we kind of
saw him as this overnight success because he was he kind of came out of
nowhere, made this incredible movie, one best picture, and it set his
career, which was nothing on fire right after that. Now this is very
fascinating because we're looking at a right after Rocky is actually kind of a dark
time for Sylvester Stallone. And we saw him in Rocky three when he was
kind of coming out of that and kind of realizing what his path needs to
be. But here we're gonna have to get a look at at something else
that's a little bit darker, and I would really expect for someone who was
coming off of such a huge high with Rocky one. You are just already
completely blowing my mind because in my head, I'm like telling myself this story
of you know, Si Leicester Stallone landed on boxing as by dumb luck he
originally wanted, or at least he originally conceptualized a wrestling movie, and that
the wrestling movie. But now I have to think of Paradise Alley as coming
after as it actually being a response to Rocky as opposed to in inspiring,
and you're gonna and you're gonna you're gonna hate this even more. From what
I could tell and what I've read, Paradise Alley was originally a boxing movie.
Ladies and Gentlemen. Yeah, ladies and fucking gentlemen. That was the
original plan, was to make a boxing movie. And instead, well,
we're gonna get into it. We're gonna geto it. Don't worry about him.
So let's let's talk about parad Alley here. So Paradise Alley originally Have
you ever seen it before? Number one? I absolutely have. Yes,
you have seen it? Okay, all right, very good. This is
going to be interesting. This is the first one. No, we've seen
a couple before. I guess that we both. I actually had never seen
this one before until I am, until I watched it, thinking Ninja Turtles
two the only one. Yeah, maybe, but we both saw Jingle all
the way. But you weren't as familiar with its Yeah. Yeah, I
wouldn't consider myself having seen it exactly. Yeah, So okay, very interesting.
So it's kind of on the flip side because I had never never seen
it before, and it is uh, it's chock full of goodness, Yes,
it is so. Paradise Alley originally started out as an unpublished book,
all right, written by Stallone either can't do it? That so Stallone?
Wait a minute, Stallone was writing a novel. Yes, he wrote.
He did write Paradise Ally the book and it was called it was called that
healths Kitchen. It was called Hell's Kitchen originally, and it was both a
book and a movie. He wrote both side by side, and so he
had the book, he had the script, and they were both optioned by
a producer. So the the the producer purchased the option to produce the movie.
If he's so wanted, it's it's always a good deal, you know.
It's it's kind of a common story. A story that that that people
don't hear. Actually as much are the stories of people who sell movie ideas
or movie scripts but they never get made. They just get I mean,
we kind of heard about that with with What's His Butt? Who Who made
Hell Comes to Frogtown? He he talked about it in one of his interviews
where he says he would go to agent's office and see just these tons of
unproduced scripts, and it's like there's a even take with that, because sure
they might not get produced, but it got someone some money. I met
a guy. I met a guy one time. Flying back from la I
met a He was a director, a regular director on either Gilmore Girls or
Seventh Heaven, I don't remember which one. And I sat next to him
on the plane and we just kind of started chatting, and he was like,
yeah, you know, you don't need to just write a script.
You don't need to fucking have it get made. Don't don't be so attached
to it. Just sell it. He said, I made one hundred thousand
dollars in a script last year. I never got made, but I made
the money. Yeah, that's you know, that's interesting to me, Like,
because at a certain point it has to become your income. Right.
It's not exactly you don't judge success or failure based in whether it gets made.
It's that always blows me away about artists at a certain point in their
life. They have to just figure out who's willing to pay for my shit?
And like, I don't care what they do with it, right,
you have to really, I mean, if there's something that you're very attached
to don't sell it, but if you can sell stuff, do it and
that Kevin Nash, Yeah, sell, sell, sell sell Yeah. So,
uh, Stallone sold his script to a producer twenty five thousand dollars,
So not a bad fucking chunk of change. This is paradise, all script,
This is paradise ally you have the script in the book sold to to
a producer twenty five grand. So I mean again we're talking. I don't
know what that would actually translate, but that's that's pretty significant, you know,
especially in like today's money. So he was doing that, was that
was a good deal. And now around the same time here he actually he
got an audition that led to Rocky and I'll let actually let Stallone here finish
the story. This is from a two thousand and seven interview with Ain't a
Cool News, and I quote, I was very broke, you know,
I was very broken option screenplay at Paradise Sally to a real should I say
this? You know maggot who put his hook so deep I could never get
it away from him? Now, so that huh it's red hooks, Yeah
right, it's red hooks so deep in you know. So the first time
I wanted to meet chart Off in Winkler I was. I was there on
an acting job. I didn't get it. But on the way I said,
hey, I got the screenplay you know called Paradise Alley, which really
wasn't it was called Hell's Kitchen. You know, I said, bring it
over, and I did, you know, I want to make it.
But the other cretan that I had optioned through sob notches overbearing that the producers
wanted nothing to do with the other screenplay. So all the way out they
said, if you have any ideas, would have to look at him.
Then I went home. You know, even even even a fire extinguisher couldn't
cool the burn in my brain. The door of opportunity was wide open.
I had nothing to carry over the threshold. That's why I started writing Rocky.
So thank God for the maggot. Otherwise I would have never written the
story mister Balboa. So yeah, so this other producer, uh, the
other producer would not relinquish his rights to Paradise Alley back to Rocky to be
produced by Chardoff and Winkler, who and again slic Stallone wrote the Paradise Alley
script in book Before Rocky. Yes, so he was destitute, he was
desperate. He was not riding the high of Rocky one. No, not
yet, not yet. So but once Rocky came out, obviously there was
a huge turn of events for for stallone. Nobody thought he was gay.
Huh, nobody thought he was gay. No, Shane fun with this,
so uh, yep he was. Now. Now this is the funny thing
too, because you know, we think of Sylvester's alone as this eighties action
junkie, you know, with with kind of the the exploited Rocky movies and
the Rambo movies and all that shit like it all these you know, Cobra
and uh, you know, I can't think of but you know, just
a ton of demolition man, Cliffhanger, all these things. But here actually
is Sylvester Stallone, Oscar nominated Bankable movie star in people's minds. So it's
like, it's not time to to to find the Nietzche and and and just
kind of dig into it. Now it's time to broaden the horizons. Let's
make some fucking work. And he made. Between Rocky and Rocky two,
he made two movies. His first was this Jimmy Hoffa inspired movie called Fist
and then came Paradise Alley, but before even filming a frame. Actually,
that's not true. He filmed the whole movie, but I don't know.
I don't know when he was writing. That's kind of weird, small difference
between filming a frame and filming all the frames. That's true, It's very
true. Slow I wanted to publish his novel all right, and that he'd
started years earlier, and now that he had become successful, the other producer
was like, hey, let's make a movie, all right. See how
that fucking works. Let's make the movie. Now, this is a producer
who bought the script before Rocky won success, correct, exactly, now,
you know, so in the end, he's the smart one kind of well
yeah, I mean the truth is he, you know, he bought it
with the intent of making it before Rocky one, So he doesn't. Yeah,
I don't ding him for wanting to make it after Rocky won, you
know, No, not at all. I don't. I don't. Also,
I don't. I don't hold it against him for wanting to, you
know, hang onto it like he obviously thought it was a good script and
something worthwhile, Like I don't, you know, sorry, sorry, slide
that the guy doesn't want to fucking take your money. Guy's name sorry,
if you've already said it, this guy's name, we'll get into that now.
So he's holding in his hand, this, this purchaser a wrestling script.
Ultimately, well, yes, ultimately, yes, okay, yeah,
was it more to that or you don't Well, I just wanted because you
had made the point that it was originally conceptualized as a boxing movie. Yes,
but now with Rocky having been done, he wants to switch it around.
So he I couldn't really figure out you know, and and I didn't
really see why wrestling per se. Yeah, but I mean, obviously,
if you're going to do combat sport, that's kind of what you know,
both movies are based around. There's not really much you can do that's going
to be as exciting. Yeah, you need a ring, right, you
need to ring, You need fights, and and you know, mixed martial
arts really wasn't a thing, at least a mainstream thing back then. So
do we do you have the sense that it was Stallone's idea to change it
to wrestling or the guy who owned the script stallone. I definitely get the
vibe that it stallone, But but the script that this guy bought was a
boxing movie. Yeah, okay, got it. Continue from what I know,
I don't. I didn't get a complete fact on that, because people
call it different things, but I'm pretty sure that that originally. I've read
enough stuff to realize that Paradise Sally was initially basically Rocky was basically Rocky and
then and then they changed it after Rocky. This is from the Des Moines
Register. Oh, I needed to finish it off, so uh so slight.
But he wants to publish the novel that he started, and he also
wants the he said this, he wants the paparazzi to basically fuck off.
So again from the De Moines Register. As soon as they touched touched me
on my hand, my hand balls into first, says Rocky star Sylvesters alone,
who finds he doesn't care for the attention he gets as a star.
One of these days, some nozzles gonna have a knife, says the wary
novelist. That's right, some who some muscle, says the wary novelist.
That's right. His first novel, Paradise Alley, is coming soon, and
he may not care for the pawing uh. He admitted to US magazine that
nobody would have published him if it hadn't been for Rocky. It published my
parking tickets. Well, I couldn't find any proof of parking tickets being published,
or publishing of US toilet paper or anything like that. I did find,
however, this article from the Talisee Democrat, which give which gives?
Really? I think really? They provided some really intense observations on Saloon as
he was out promoting the book, So Stallone sat motion motionlessly eating his salad.
The spirit of piece of lettuce now and then in between Mines talked about
himself, I'm brevetted by this lettuce right right? Can you imagine there's I
didn't really include it because it didn't really make sense, but I can remember
the story he so you'll see me reference this this interview with Roger Ebert that
happened in the early eighties where he talks about a lot of stuff, and
in one of them, he talked about how because he lived he lived so
poorly as a child that his mom would make what he called mashed potato sandwiches
or broccoli sandwiches or cucumber sandwich is basically like anything between two slices of bread,
and he he he went on to say, you know, you know,
you know, I have enough stuff basically like food going to his like
going to his brain, like he didn't have enough nourishment as a kid,
that it kind of messed with his head. And he's all even all eat
anything now, all even eat dirt. Well you're about to eat shit,
sly, so we'll take a good look at that. And all the Brits
are wondering what's wrong with cucumbers between two pieces of bread? And what's wrong
with a couple of beans between two slices of bread bread toasted bread? Yeah?
Sure, beans and beans and tools. Although I think in fairness you
put it on top of the toast, not in between two slices of I
would be fine with a bean, a bean and bread sandwich. Gets your
act together, wigging, wigging out. It's like a smack bar and pe
wet while you're at it. Yeah uh. And in between bands, he
talked about himself, his new novel Paradise Sally, which he was in New
York promoting, and and and he talked about his concept of reality quote out
the wire and all the you start to believe what everyone writes about. You
know, they're relating to your thirty five foot image, your fictional sense.
You know I've gone you know, fifteen rounds l any one in my life.
I've never been beaten to a pulp. But everything is if if.
Really, you know, man, even even rocks are going through metamorphosis,
he said. I admire I don't envy the reporter's job trying to keep up
with those uh streams of consciousness and faithfully quote this man. Hopefully there was
a tape recorder running. Yeah, you keep that fucking thing running. You
get you get your reel to reel recorder and be changing reels as fast as
you can sign. So I need you to write your number down because afterwards
I'm gonna need to play this tape back to use. You can translate yourself
to me. Metamorphosis a strange word, this, especially when said with the
tough intonation contours of the street. But thirty one year old stallone, he's
thirty one, seem to like to make a sport of convincing everyone he really
was just a lucky bomb who played a character much nobler than I really am.
He smiled whenever he said something solemn like the high school football captain who
whose friends had just discovered reading poetry. Look that smile seemed to say,
I was only looking for the dirty pictures. I stillone looked around the room
constantly as he talked, first at his manager, then at the interviewer,
then back at the manager. He obviously enjoyed playing intellectual ping pong. He
talked about being an old He talked about being an old world person with ancient
values. He talked about women. Oh, the ugly Adrians are always more
interesting than the super pretty girls. He talked about justice and politics. His
voice rose only once, and that was when he described his secret desire to
be a benevolent dictator. You'll let me run the country for three months.
I want airbags, I want the steel companies to pay forty percent taxes,
and I'll tell Egypt you know about having all that oil. What are you
guys crazy? A bunch of sheep Order's gonna take over the world? No
way, man, Yeah, I know, seriously, I mean yeah.
They don't even draw as a tag team until they were a comedy team in
America. I mean, Jesus, they can take over the world if what
the world needs now or you know, forehead liquors, or if the if
they're going to do a you know, sell some autographs at the World in
New York City. Fuck me. He shifted in his seat and began a
discussion about quote bad guys unquote first alone, the bad guys are people who
have really no talent, but yet want to be supported by people who do.
He said that with the gravity of a man who has known what it
means to be talented and unemployed, and as a man who knows what it
now means to have long lost friends suddenly surface to try to inhale some of
his success. The celemnity, the solemn, celemnity, solemnity, thank you
was beginning to bore him, and he turned the conversation to something less lofty.
His sixty five pound dumbbells. He lifts them daily to keep in shape,
and a displayed himself for righting acting he could drop his pants. Sixty
five pound dumbbells. Dumbbells. That are those as assistants. I don't don't
understand. Cue the sound of fabric touching the carpet. Thank you. He
flexed his right arm, glanced down at his biclap, and then looked up
and overacted. He'll dake himselfs seriously, this business a nightmare, he said,
and smiled, And his smile was reflected by the glass of the table,
and reflected again by the walnut framed mirror. Okay, the wall,
and retransmitted through the suite until it was lost in the deep carpeting of the
room. Now do you mean to say that there was action of his weighty
metamorphosis? Man? Is that the last thing? That is the last fucking
I don't regret cutting that off at all. Look, he's sitting in the
same chair he was sitting in when the interview began, and he was talking
prosaically about, you know, the weather. Let's not act like there was
some magical moment where suddenly the setting and the scenery changed. You know,
you can't read the significance into the into an unchanged you know what I mean?
Environ't know what you're talking about. This was what happened here was was
was a miracle. I think I think we all owe a debt of gratitude
to the writer for being so perceptive about the fucking hotel room he did this
interview in. But can I say, you know, as as I researched
this thing. Now, I know I credited the Tallahassee Democrat. I don't
know who the fuck wrote this because you find the same goddamn article in so
many newspapers. Wow, I found this exact name, one word for word
in I don't know how many news Probably a wire it's probably a wire service.
Article happens all the time, Associated Press, Reuters, John's, Frantz
Press. You know. And who the fuck am I supposed to give credit
to? Well, if you look at the top, who's the author?
Doesn't say I don't know. I'm not saying wire service now that it probably
says wire services or something like that. It'll always say under the name.
But you know, aside from that, the Tallahassee Democrat aka someone who'll never
get elected governor. I know, we definitely know where this paper stands in
the in the political world. Rohn de Santis no fan of the Tallahassee Democrat.
Let me tell you one. But I put it on that one.
Brian Blair. Now, so uh, not much I could find about the
actual book of Paradise Salary. But the book it's was published by the Berkeley
Publishing Group, and it was officially on bookshelves October first, nineteen seventy eight,
a little less than two months shy of the opening of the movie.
So there were some reviews. However, the Shreveport Time said Sylvester Stallone,
who vaulted to fame and fortune with his film Rocky, is apparently not content
with his phenomenal triple success as a screenwriter, actor, and director. He
has now diverted as multiple talents to the writing of his first work of fiction,
Pad that was in the way, that was in the works before Rocky.
Yeah, but nobody really knew that. And also I think he rewrote
it if it was a boxing movie and a boxing story, he rewrote it
to be the wrestling thing because from from what I know, from what I've
read, the book very much goes, you know, word for word to
the movie. I see, it's a companion piece more than right. So
it's mostly Kraft did f after rock Yeah. I'm sure when he when he
wrote it, he was thinking just this, you know, like create a
book, you know, try to do you know, create the marketing,
create the franchising for it. Because how many movies, you know, especially
back in like the eighties and nineties, had a novelization. They all did
big ones, small ones. They all had a novelization of it, and
they were kind of fun sometimes because more often than not, the novelization because
it was being written around it was being written around the same time the movie
was being made, so the draft of the script that the authors were using
were usually older, you know, so they had different moments that that you
know, added a little bit of I don't know, a little bit of
depth to the story that you might have missed because they cut out that scene
or they cut it out of the script or when they were editing the movie.
You know, there's a lot, you know, I don't know about
this one because it I don't I can't think of many screenwriters who wrote their
own novelizations. But the novelization does not imply that the movie had been released
and then the novel was written. It implies it was being written at the
same time as the movie was being shot. Usually okay, because I can
picture, like, you know, a movie being a hit and then suddenly
you see a book about a book on the right on the shelves. It
usually comes out like right after or right before, depending on you know,
if you're looking forward or not. I remember, I remember one of the
weirdest ones that I found. It actually made me think that the movie was
based on a book. Do you remember the movie Insomnia with uh Alpaccino and
and what the fuck's his name? He's dead now? And good Will hunting
Robin will Williams, Robin Williams and he's the bad guy. It was like
a big thing. Oh. It was right after the one that we like,
the one hour, one Hour Photo, one hour Full two. Yeah,
so he did that one, and I think right after it, right
before, and I remember the summer after it came out, I was like,
I saw the book. I was like, oh shit, I didn't
realize that it was based on a book. I think I might get that.
I liked that movie, and then as I was reading, I was
like, this doesn't sound like a good book. This isn't real written.
This is kind of schlocky. And I looked around and I said, oh,
based on the movie. It's currently in theaters, Like oh fuck.
See that's what I When I think of novelization, I just think of a
strictly commercial attempt to find another way to sell the movie. And it wasn't
usually is it usually is this is different. The only, like I said,
the only benefit of that like is how the author is allowed. Is
the author allowed to kind of go in a different direction sometimes. Like The
novelization for the movie Halloween is amazing. I love it. It's different as
it has a couple different scenes while also having good descriptions of the regular stuff.
And I haven't read it. I own it, but I haven't finished
it, or even started it for that matter. But Halloween three, a
lot of people, not anyone who knows the Halloween franchise knows that generally,
Halloween three is considered the worst because it complete. It's a complete departure from
the formula of the first two movies, and it basically goes from the Michael
Myers story to something completely not connected whatsoever? I say, completely not connected.
And but I have heard that the novelization is actually and a lot of
people don't like it. I enjoyed. It's really stupid fun. But a
lot of people have said, I've read that the novelization is actually quite good.
Got it? So it all depends, It all depends. So book
reviews. Back to where we were? Where was I in this one?
He has Paradise Alley contains an array of stock characters that should contribute profitably to
its eventual future as a movie. It's cast includes the following, the innocent
who is tempted into self betrayal of his own decent instincts by greed, the
Judas brother who conceives the idea, the girl whose faith in the hero remains
unshaken, and the evil gang members who constitute the enemy. Stallone's language,
both in dialogue and exposition, is so economical as to be classified as parsimonious.
Correct well done. Staccato paragraphs and sharp bursts of prose are jarring,
if unusual. When he essays description the feature, the figures of speech arc
somewhat ah. The figures of speech are somewhat strained. The Courier post.
If you're expecting a great piece of literary art in this first novel by the
author and actor of Philadelphia's Rocky, you'll be quite disappointed for Stallone's performance.
This time leaves much to be desired, namely a level of writing beyond fifth
grade. If Stallone is relying on this novel for literary recognition or financial gains,
he had better forget it and get on with this story. For the
movie It Is Soon to Become, and the Tennesseean actually gave us a flavor
of Stallone's prose You're ready, Well, I think so, no one really
felt like moving. During the summer of forty six, old people with wrinkled
skin and gray hair that stuck to the nape of their sweaty necks leaned from
the tenement windows like wilted flowers and tried to fan themselves. It was not
worth it because it took too much effort and it did no good. Above
these wilted humans hung a maze of clothes lines that sagged and wove a pattern
five stores above the streets. So really incredible probing artistry there by Slot.
It's it's it's imagery, is what it is, and it's pasties. I
mean he's writing it is it is. I mean you have to think about
that and think about the different layers and levels there, you know with you
know, he's comparing old people to flowers who have lost their bloom you know
in him. Yeah, in the hot summer of nineteen forty six. So
uh, either way, a movie was already in the can when the book
came out, So it's not like the locomotive. Here was slowing down for
every for anybody. So I forgot this. This movie takes place in the
forties. Yeah, forty six. Okay, yeah, that picture taking place
in the seventies. Nineteen forty six wrestling. You're ready club wrestling. This
is this is right up Bruno's alleys. On the phone, somebody gets Stanislaus
on the phone. Hey, no, I would fight now. You know,
there's a whole slew of wrestling talent in this film, but one particular
who was our star for this episode, former NWA world champ Terry Funk.
Uh. So they filmed some behind the scenes footage which was featured in a
a non televised uh pilot for a TV show called Pro Wrestling Weekly with Less
Stature. Yeah, and it actually featured into it. Here we go listen.
In nineteen seventy eight, Stallone made a feature film called Narni's Alley,
which was about the pro mass sport during the nineteen forties. Flycast some twenty
grapplers in the production, and one of those feature roles went to the world
heavyweight champion Terry Funk. Let's go behind the scenes of the making of Paradise
Alley. We're on the Universal Studio set of the motion picture Paradise Alley,
starring Sylvester Stallone. He has created for the cameras a colorful nineteen forties fight
club called Paradise Alley, an authentic recreation with hundreds of costumed extras in the
Leaky room. Paradise Alley is the story of three brothers down on their luck
in New York City who try to meet their fortune by turning the youngest brother
into a professional wrestler. Kids So, the film's climax is a spectacular,
no holds barred battle for which the wrestlers have been rehearsing for several months.
Yes they have. Yeah, really, the priest of the White Striders them.
He's a former heavyweight world champion wrestler, like his brother and like his
father before him. Because of Amarilla Sessions, he is coming from the face
right. Aside from his acting role, he's also taken on the instead of
what you're teach you, Lee can't leave never wrestled in his life to become
a spcial wrestler. Oh yeah, sounds like men were bumping in the background.
Huh, sounds like men were working and umping. There is definitely some
bumping happening. I believe that W twos were being handed out right just to
be forced right, all regulations met. Now that what happened to voiceover guys
like that? Where did they go? How do we not? You know,
it's one thing to be a style of a time, but there is
no one alive that can do that voice. How does that happen? You
mean, like this, Sylvesters alone is here? We are visiting with sylvesterst
Alone on the set of his new movie Paradise Alley something like that. Yes,
but I could be wrong. I could be a mark for this,
But I felt like people who got voiceover work like that weren't putting it on
that That's actually how they talked. If you were to meet them in real
life, might be you know, maybe I'm just letting the pictures color my
I think there's always a little bit of embellishment and performance in it. Yeah,
well that's true. But I felt like if I walked the streets in
nineteen seventy eight or whenever that was filmed, there's seventy five, I would
have met a fair number of people who talked like that. You might have,
and now I would meet zero people because now I wouldn't have local fry.
You know, yeah, I can't, can't be can't be perceived as
caring about anything, God forbid. So let's talk about Terry Funk here.
And I think there's no better way to introduce mister fume K then by turning
to his book, The Terry Funk More Than what is it? Hardcore?
More than Hardcore, more than Hardcore, Top five wrestling book of all time
in my book such as it is? All right, Well, let's turn
to chapter fourteen, No business like show Business. I met silverstur Stallone in
nineteen seventy seven. I'm not gonna do the voice. After getting this crazy
letter that said Sylvester Stallone is doing a movie on pro wrestling and is looking
for a wrestler to play a lead in the movie. I think everybody else
who read it must have just thought it was a rib and threw it in
the trash. But I read it and sent a reply back to them.
They responded back and asked for a tape. I sent them a tape of
meat cutting a five minute promo once Stallone talking about him coming down from New
York City and just my normal bullshit, And you know Fortunately, he funk
himself tweeted a talk show segment that he was on where they aired part of
the clip there. I guess that's what he wanted, was a goop and
the nuts. So I went ahead and just kind of made this promo,
you know. And I hadn't talked to him yet, and I went ahead
and I said, John, I said, sly, you overbearing, obnoxious
egg ducking dog, I'm gonna go ahead and hit you over with ahead with
it. Lay a minute, brick until your eyeball. I think, I
think, give me a little too passive right now. It was more like
this. We got the tape, baby, look at it? Why you
overbaring obnoxious, perverted eggs second dog? How fucking money is it that the
audition tape lives? I I adore that is the right word, the egg
sucking dog, transcendent line that that will pop normal people. Eggs sucking dog.
Just tremendous shit, tremendous shit. Uh So back to the book.
He loved it. He brought me up there and I read for the part
he liked me. I guess because he told me I got the party.
That would mean he liked you their pal. He also needed someone to stage
the action scenes, so I choreographed those. He also wanted someone to teach
Lee Kenalito. How did what again? You what those horn wounds? Not
that you had a lot of practice. I mean, do you mean that
it's ballet terry exactly? Because when I think choreography, I think ballet person
I think I think two twos and you know ballet shoes and you know dancing
and leaping. So maybe maybe I misunderstood. He also wanted someone and I
did that shooting a movie was a lot different than performing in front of a
live crowd, more than I thought it would be, and that one I
was kind of in my element because I was playing a wrestler. But you
still have to watch for over acting most of the time. It's not easy
for a wrestler to be an actor, myself included, Nor is it easy
for an actor to be a wrestler. I don't know. I've ended pretty
well on my own, but that's sure. There aren't as many similarities between
the two professions as there might seem, and I found this to be true
and everything I did in Hollywood. The business side is also different. As
a wrestler, promoters would try to find me. In the entertainment industry,
I was having to find producers of TV and movies. Unlike in wrestling,
thement industry doesn't give a shit who you are. What matters that you do
a good job on the set. It's a profession of rejection. It would
be like it would be like playing piano. If I started when I was
three, By the time I was an adult, I might be able to
play concerto. Same thing with acting. If someone starts at age three,
they can go along and do great later on. But just walk out there
and think you can play a part of them in a movie with heavy dialogue
is like thinking you can play concerto the first time you sit down and play
the piano for the first time you and your tag team partner pick up steel
chairs. Exactly when you get in a dialogue, you'd better be pretty adept
at what you're doing. I've seen the Rocks movies, and he's good,
but they're all action movies. You're asking to play a role on a show
like Law and Order where it's ninety five percent dialogue, and he's going to
find out it's all very long, hectic and heavy. As far as I'm
concerned, the best actor to ever to come out of pro wrestling was Roddy
Piper. Wow, he was able to make the transition to acting and acting
well, you know who else turned in a pretty damn good performance, Andre
the Giant Sure in the Princess Bride Coming to Soon under the cinemat. I
was going to say there was less than zero percent chance that that will not
make it under the cinemat. Yes, yes, sooner than later, for
sure. And trust me, as you'll read later, I had plenty of
chances to study that performance. I'd ever went on later to faith to see
why. He had plenty of chance to study that performance. But I'm sure
it's a fascinating tale. Okay, enough, better to do, Terry.
Did you just buy the VHS cassette and washed a bunch of times? I'm
confused. Well, it's true he did have a lifetime's practice and studying performances.
True, the toughest thing in acting is to play yourself, and that's
truly what Andre did in that movie. A lot of people don't know this,
but Andre was a very smart guy. He spoke something like six different
languages. The first time I ever saw him, I was so in awe
of the sides of him that I didn't immediately noticed, the intelligent, how
the intelligent guy that he was. I certainly didn't assume he was a dummy.
I'm not a prejudice person, the kind of person who's going to assume
that a big guy must also be a dumb guy. Okay, calm down,
No one's coming after you. Tear. Yeah, you're kind of setting
up and knocking down your own boogeyman. If I dare say, vou dolt
protest too much, I do question. Maybe you are a prejudice person there,
Terry. Yeah, it sounds okay. You know, into your credit
you're you're fighting that prejudice, but it exists nonetheless. Clearly you're struggling with
it. I'm saying that you are prejudiced, sir, And you know what,
I don't know if you're fighting it, so eat that shit. Prove
to me you're not prejudiced. Yes, exactly, Yes, I'm waiting.
Oh and he goes and that, of course that's what he said. That
just makes it worse. Does anything not make it worse? No, he's
always it always gets worse. Okay, thank you. Drive through Funk's co
star Lee uh oh, Lee Candelino, This guy. Very fun of Funk's
performance lead to an interview on this fucking podcast, The Stallone Fanatic Podcast,
where he he shared some stories. One of them, uh this one,
you know, you take care of Funk plan the part Franks Amper. I
mean, wow, the head. They had a whole lot of restaurants that
was on the set. Yeah, different actions, but how many I got
to thank him? I got to look in and watch this. I watched
a few times and watch this character, and I mean, boy, what
a performance he put on for just a just a mean crazy character role,
you know. And he just played that part like I'm I'll tear up anything,
and I'm gonna beat this person up and I'm nobody's gonna mess with me.
You know. Well it's great because it's like he really it's almost like
he was playing his own wrestling character in that movie. Nice. Wait,
a cool story. Totally deflate the whole fucking thing. There, host,
that's what you get. It's your turn, that's right. So you know
is the guy huh no, please go ahead, is the is the guy
who plays the youngest, the guy who wrestles. He's the guy who wrestles,
who lowers himself to wrestling for the family. Yeah, which is kind
of funny. Like when you see the guy in the movie, you don't
think that he sounds like that. I mean the guy right if you if
you haven't seen it, the guy is a is kind of he kind of
looks like he could be Marlon Brando's brother. You know, he's a tall,
big guy. This guy sounds like a fucking farmer, you know,
the one that that just and he's from Texas originally, but you wouldn't know
that watching the movie. The guy looks just like, you know, a
fucking bodybuilder. It's it's it's pretty incredible. Cornette told the story as well,
which this story has gone down in legend, about how kind of coincides
with the Canalito and realizing that wrestlers aren't all bad, but Stallone standing up
for the phony athletes. The reason why Terry was involved there is because he
and Stallone had worked together. They did a number of things, but first
was Paradise Alley back in seventy eight. When Stallone did that, Terry obviously
had a major part, but he got to know a lot of the other
wrestlers. And Terry told me this is this is a firsthand antidote, a
funny story from Terry Funk, But it's it's been told when the stunt men
on the film, the regular Hollywood stunt men were over in the corner fucking
you know, talking about the phony wrestlers, and stallone came in and fucking
shut him down and said, Hey, I'd like to see any of you
fucking guys do what these guys do with the crowd on all four sides of
them lab in one take. So shut fuck up basically, and you know,
probably a few more words, but not necessarily any nicer. Yeah,
that's definitely a story that Jim Cornett would never forget. Absolutely a lot of
guys don't forget that one. We'll hear it a couple more times. I
think, yeah, all right, is this the same Lee Kennelito that's sentenced
to four years for drug dealing? I don't believe. So, No,
Okay, carry on. I believe it's a different one. I do not
see in the stuff that I read about him. I did not see anything
about drug dealing. This guy seems, believe it or not, like just
a he's just like a you know, like a like a decent Downer.
Sorry, yes, I shouldn't have spoke before I clicked through its middle name
Lee Kennelito. So we move forward now, but Texas. So but you
right there, you go back to Terry's book. So even though Stallone liked
me, Herb Nannis had his doubts. Herb was one of the executive producers
of Paradise Sally and was married to Helen Ready, the singer. Now I
had to look this up because I was like, I don't Herb Nannis.
I don't know what he did for the movie. He's not a producer,
he's not listed on a producer, and he's not even credited as having worked
on the movie on on IMDb. In the end credits of the movie,
he is listened under the special thanks section, which says to me that Herb
was probably just married to the singer and offered her services. I see,
Okay, besides that, I don't know unless he did something kind of whacky.
Maybe he got a I mean, I don't know, I got a
location that nobody else could or something. I don't know. But either way,
he was not a producer. I just drove Herb nuts. He hated
me by that time because I had gotten him with the old Japanese flyer trick
A couple of weeks before this is who talking, this is this is funk
got it? Canalito was there too, and I stood up a package of
cigarettes and had them on the edge of a table. The trick was to
stand about ten feet from the pack with your right arm facing them, So
Matt said, okay, so ten feet back from the pack with your right
arm facing them, with your hand at your side but one finger sticking straight
out to the right. Then you'd step sideways without looking at the pack,
but instead looking straight ahead. The object was to knock over the pack with
your extended finger. I told Herb this was how the Japanese qualified their pilots.
You have to pass this test before they'd even consider you for pilot training.
I told him, you have to pick yourself a spot before you look
away and concentrate on hitting that spot. I'll give fifty dollars if anyone can
do it. Canalito tried but couldn't do it. Herb said, hey,
let me try. I mean I can do that. Well, come on
then, Herb, but don't cheat, okay, I won't. Herb stood
sideways to the pack, of it on the table and started moving towards it
while looking straight ahead. He couldn't see me from that angle, so just
before he got to the table, I pulled my pants down and spread my
cheeks. Before you know what he was doing, he had stuck his finger
in my ass. I don't believe that. I believe it went up his
asshole. No way. I'm gonna guess that maybe he touched a cheek,
but I'm not gonna say that he had his finger up his anal cavity.
The next thing I know, my prostate was being activated and I was coming
without touching my dick. The next thing I knew, Herb had found a
chunk of shit in my ass that I've been trying to get out for two
weeks. The next thing I knew, I realized that wasn't Herb's finger.
The next thing I realized it was slies Cock. Kenni, Leo and I
were laughing, but Herb went over as ever went out of his ever loving
mind. He went absolutely nuts. He was convinced Stallone had brought a nut
onto the set. After that, he did he had, he did,
Yeah, and there's there's you know, there's there's accuracy to that seventy eight.
By the way, what what year is this? Seventy eight, seven,
seventy seven? Thank you. Cantalino also shared a pretty cool story about
a time when James Garner, actor who played Maverick of the TV series,
was on set during a wrestling scene that that Funk choreographs we're doing the scene
to Terry Funk. Men, we did the wrestling scene because he called me
Leasky. I said, I'm not polish, Emma. He says, Lesky.
Looks people looking at I want to let them get a real taste of
wrestling. I'm getting time to be and now it's not real. And o'kay,
terrible whatever you say, you know, you know, I mean he
would go ahead and wide opens. Oh my goodness, you know, and
wait, I said, all right, cutt, thank you bright. So
I met I met h Maverick. You know, I call it Maverick.
But it was so nice, super nice guy. He goes, doesn't that
hurt? Are you better know it? Terry, he's not playing today.
Now it doesn't actually hurt. No, it's it's fake. If it hurts,
you're doing it wrong, right. That's kind of the way that it
is. If you hurt somebody or you get hurt. I mean, it
just feels like a rough day at the office if you're a football player.
Correct, so Brett says, who said that, Brett Hart, that's simuch
chapters I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. Terry Funk also
did a pretty great prominent interview rather himself for that behind the scenes thing that
I played earlier that was aired on the Well it didn't air, but it
was featured on the Progress and Weekly that didn't air. Here we go.
The foulm is based on reality. In a nineteen forty six, forty seven,
forty eight they used to have club wrestling and now as in Los Angeles
to New York because the availability of transportation. But back then it was just
as far as a person could go or travel or the area that he was.
My father died while wrestling, and uh, I respect my support very
very much. And I'm an individual and I'm an athlete, and nobody tells
me what to do whenever I'm want to step into a wrestling ring. And
it's a very tough type of life. You're seeing movies where they knock it
and knock it. Well, this one isn't gonna knock it. Okay,
all right, So first of all, is he saying in the forties there
were no planes or trains? Well, I think I think what he's saying
is that people wouldn't necessarily travel out of town to go see wrestling. I
thought he meant travel out of town to go wrestle in another era. No,
I think he means. I think that's why it's the club where you
go to the club, because that's where the wrestlers are. That's pretty what
a great revelation here and under the cinemat we actually understand what the fuck Bruno
is talking about when he insisted on saying this the club. The club isn't
the club. It's the club, the Pittsburgh Club, the Brooklyn club with
Pastrami, I'd like the BLT club. Terry goes on to say Paradise Sally
went well then got great reviews. Sorry to burst that bubble there, Pal,
But but what was what was the one? Was it Suburban Commander?
What was the fib that like? Oh it made oh it made money?
Yeah right, yeah, it made money, Suburban Command I made money.
No, No, it didn't it. I mean people saw it, so
technically money was exchanged for the viewing of the movie, but it it never
broke that barrier that it needed a break. Let me put it do this
way. If made money, If the phrase made money means absolutely nothing,
then it made money. If the term made money is not actually a term
and doesn't really exist in the world, then yes, it made money.
And I thought, well, this is great. I'll just go home and
wait for another job. Another job didn't come. It took me a while
to figure out why. Who the hell was supposed to know me? How
the hell were they supposed to call me up. I didn't even have any
I didn't even know to have an agent. That's how ignorant I was.
I just happened to be at a friend's house in Amarilla. A few years
later, when Vicki called Vicky Is, she said, Arthur, Arthur Chabanian
had called the house looking for me. Vicki is his wife? Oh okay.
He was one of slic Stallone's best friends and associate producer of Paradise Alley.
He told me, we've we've fat people calling looking for you. He
told me about a part that was open on a new Western series called wild
Side for the ABC Network. Tom Green, who'd written episodes of the show's
night writer and Magnum Pi, among others, was the show's creator. Germanian
told me to send Green a tape, so I did. The tape I
sent Tom was a cornball thing with me telling some stupid five minute joke.
I filmed the right in front of a caboose on the ranch, a spot
where I filmed a lot of wrestling promos over the years. They had me
come out and do a reading and they offered me the part of Prometheus Jones,
a former outlaw and lasso expert. Green had really pushed for me with
the Disney people. I don't think Disney owned ABC back then. I know
they didn't, so sorry they're terry. Working on a series was difficult because
there's new dialogue to learn every day. It changes every week, just a
constant deal. You can't just walk out there unprepared. I thought the show
was a pretty good series and could have had a long life if not for
the competition. We were right up against the second season of The Cosby Show.
Cosby just smoked us. But we had a great cast. Meg Ryan,
Howard Rawlins, j Eddy Peck, Bill Smith, and John Diccino.
I thought I'd learned from my paradise Allie Lesson and stay in California for a
while this time, and I did pretty well. I ended up doing a
number of commercials, and I also realized I could get health insurance with membership
and the Screen Actors Guild. There it is again, that's like, you
know, that's real currency to a That is ejaculation right there. For a
wrestler, it was very beneficial because in wrestling it was hard to get insurance
at all. Every year I started going back just long enough to qualify for
my Screen Actors Guild insurance. You have to make a certain amount of money
through acting each year to be qualified member those back just enough. What does
he mean by go back like you'd go back to LA and work do something.
Okay, yeah, yeah, he just enough work that he could do
to earn insurance. I'm sure it was way less than what it is today.
It's actually it's actually quite a signifant amount of money you have to make
too to qualify for SAG insurance. It's like, I see, it's like,
okay, so you're not really here for the for everybody, you know,
You're we're just kind of funny because you think if you lowered it,
you'd get more people paying for it. But you know also also more people
that might contract catastrophic cancer and lead to a massive Still, yeah, I
suppose that is true. We are we are a dramatic folk. I didn't
catastrophic from an emotional outburst point of view. That's like a medical term.
It's there's more of an insurance term. Catastrophic claims can really bust a budget.
So Disney bought ABC in nineteen ninety six. For the record, just
around the time he was doing a show opposite The Cosby Show. Correct and
also very much worth noting. You know, this is just two years after
Funk became INNA world heavyweight champion. Yes, so he was like the top
dog and wrestling in the country at the time. He forgot that he had
just lost the belt I believe in February of seventy seven. Okay, I
believe, And then they started filming in November of seventy seven. Wow.
So yeah, not a lot of not a lot of time different he was.
He was also, I gotta tell you, this is one of those
weird moments for me where I'm watching the movie and I'm like, where's Terry
Funk. Where the fuck is Terry Funk? Oh? Yeah, he looked
way different. That He's not what I like, the Terry Funk that I
grew up as Chainsaw Charlie, you know, that's the Terry Funk that I
know, long hair, goat toe, looking like a fucking nutty old man.
So to me, that's how he's always looked, right, No,
not at all. I mean he was back when he actually looked like his
brother, you know. Yeah, really he really did like he does not.
I mean, he was huge, huge, huge. Terry Funk is
not a guy that I ever that I ever thought to be a huge bodybuilding
type man, but not a massive Yeah. Well, you know when you
put wrestlers next to normal folk, or at least you know, different cohorts
of people, it's it's amazing. Like, you know, they talk about
big guys in the business like if you met a big guy in the business
in person, which I'm sure many of you listen have, it's like they're
freaks of nature. Yeah, I've never seen anything so big. Like their
heads are just freakish, absolutely, Yeah, all of their proportions are just
way out of whack. So where was I hear, Oh, you have
to make sure money that those commercials did really well for me. I did
a one. I did one for Lipton's Cup of Soup and picked up forty
five thousand dollars and all I did was take a bite of a sandwich and
swallow a soup. They started shooting the commercial, and then they started shooting
the commercial, and then they realized that that was lunch. The actual commercial,
the Lipton commercial, Terry. I watched it. It has nothing of
you eating in it. I guess they weren't filming. Then the residuals worked
out to where I got thirty five dollars every time the commercial aired and was
playing on afternoon soap operas. I did a Wendy's commercials and a ton of
other ones. There was one thing that made acting completely different from professional wrestling,
the money fucking back. Working with Stallone was the best thing I could
have done, because I ended up some doing some stunt work on one of
this Rambo movies, Rambo three coming soon under the cinemat. I acted with
him again in nineteen eighty seven's Over the Top and was the stunt coordinator for
Rocky five, both coming soon to onto the cinemat. The whole time I
worked with him, Stallone never changed. He treated me even though he was
an even bigger star by now than he'd been when we were filming Paradise Alley.
Stallone is a good guy to me. And uh funk did a an
RF interview while back where he talked about at the start of his acting career
and some other kind of fun uh highlights. Is it thereness got a great
script at Disney's looking at now very seriously, that's a fucking guy's obsessed with
family. It's just, uh, it's just a wonderful script. Saw my
father and my mom. Basically, it's a story of their lives of boys
ranch and him wrestling. There's got a lot of wrestling in it, a
lot of amateur wrestling. It's great, great, great, wonderful script.
And hopefully somebody doesn't They don't, they don't. You know, how did
you get into the acting typecasting? I guess, yeah, it's a Stallone
when I haven't hired me a long time ago and set me for Paradise Alley,
and I thought it was so easy. I could do this easier and
quite another time. You know, actually, yeah, but Uh, yeah,
it worked out that way. Whereas I was in you know, as
I went, I turn did that and got lucky, got very lucky after
that and done several series and just done quite a bit of stuff out there.
You know, some of them I'm products. Some swamp thing isn't too
good. Swamp thing, swamp thing, yeah, I'm not too good.
There coming soon too, under the cit and half, Yes, coming soon.
Now, Dusty wants you to know that Terry's a worker and he's working
you. Right, He wasn't actually in swamp thing, So according to Dusty,
he's a worker. That's right. Oh my god. My favorite thing
in the whole world is when he we talked about it in the r of
War Games when he's doing that RF video shoot interview and whatever. It was
two thousand and one, and you know, he Dusty like was the kind
of guy who pretended he didn't hear people talking shit about him, but somehow
it always came up. You realized he like obsessed over every word that was
written or said about it. Very funk that you know, you're a worker.
I know he's great, but he's working you. He's a worker.
And he said said that he's always working your daddy, he's a worker.
He said it like it's a slur almost to call someone a worker in terms
of like not in the ring burn a Shoot interview. M hm, so
Terry Funk Wadies and gentlemen. One of the stars of Paradise Alley Now also,
uh, you know a few other wrestlers that I would like to feature
here. One another big name or really future big name made an appearance in
the movie The Million Dollar Man Ted dBase excuse me, oh yes, I'll
point him out when you see him. Deebs is in the motion picture Daddy
and Lee Canalito was very excited to see him when when he saw him on
set, Ted da was actually in that movie. Hey you remember Ted,
well, remember you remember tens. You know when he introduced l I said,
I've seen you wrestle? He said, where did you see me?
You know they was joking. I said, on TV he goes out a
boy. That's what I want to hear, you know, a big story,
you know on TV man he was he was a character, debas a
character and uh, you know Deebs did mention does mention it briefly in his
book? Uh, he says, here I was hired to make an appearance
in the movie Paradise Alley the Star Whistlevester Stallone. The plot involved three Italian
brothers living in Hell's Kitchen, New York during the nineteen forties. Each brother
used his personality to help the others in their wrestling careers. No, not
even close, Ted, But okay, well, this is a guy who
actually forgot the finer points of the nineteen eighty eight double Referee Double Heavener Angles.
All right, that's true. He was probably he's high. Remember it's
a good thing about Ted. He's he's high. He's like, he's like
a better version of Davy Boy high all the time. But he knows at
least some things were you. He knows he knows how to put one foot
in front of the other. Uh. Terry Funk was also featured in the
movie as the maniacal Frankie the Thumper. Besides myself, there were over a
dozen guys in there, including Dick Murdoch, Bob Rup, Gene Kiniski,
Ray Stevens, Dory Funk Junior, and Al Perez to name a few.
I had a partner only one scene in the entire movie, the montage If
you blinked you would miss me. It's very true. He's not wrong in
that it's a true blink in miss moment. Stallone was a nice guy and
treated me very well. Sly, I said, I believe that these professional
so were the best improvisational actors in the business. To be in the movie,
I had to get a Screen Actors Guild card and was paid five hundred
dollars a day, plus room and board. It was the easiest fifteen hundred
dollars I ever made. I also received royalties from the movie. For fifteen
years or so, I received a nominal check in my mailbox. I would
spend the fifteen or twenty dollars on toys for my kids. He goes on
a little further. He did an interview for a movie three hundred and fifty
Days or something. It was a documentary about life on the road. Yet
so I've found a clip that where he talks about, you know, being
on the movie a little bit. And I still remember the one movie that
I was in. It was Paradise, ally Sylvester Stallone's first movie after the
original Rocky Hell, and It's song in like Hell's Kitchen, New York and
It's Club wrestling type of thing. There were a lot of people making wise
cracks on the set, extras and what have you, and still don't stop
the whole thing. One day and he said, I don't want to hear
another wise crack about professional wrestling. He says, we're going to do something
here in three days that would take us six weeks ado with a bunch of
Hollywood stunt in it. He should. These guys are the best improv actors
I've ever seen. Okay, so when when Sylvester Stallone calls you a fucking
actor to your face, it's not a problem. No, no, of
course not. I also love how there is this need for wrestlers to always
be legitimized by, you know, people who really and if you're looking at
the the food chain of entertainment, are bigger than they and more important than
they. They need to get that, They need that recognition, that that
val the validation from. If a wrestler is ever in the same ring as
pardon me, ever in the same room Sylvester Stallone. You know about it
because they mentioned it even fifteen minutes right exactly, sparking a conversation with him.
But you know, fair play at Teddy Bias. I think it's just
hilarious that he writes in his own book and says in that interview professional wrestlers
are the best improvisational actors. And further, I thought that whole anecdote about
how how Sly stood up on the set for wrestling was told in confidence to
Jim Cornette from Terry Funk. I guess everyone was witnessed at the same conversation.
If it even ever fucking exactly right, that's that's the point. Is
it legend or is it is it truth or is there a little bit of
both in there? And is it that al Perez former world class heavyweight champion.
I mean, that's what that's a niety young in the business. There
are there are so many people who are in the movie. I mean,
the thing is there's so many There's a montage in the movie where all these
guys are featured, where you see Lee Canalito beat everybody, and like,
I couldn't recognize have I recognize DBAs because I know that to look for the
biting of the nose, And then I also I saw Ray Stevens. But
that's this his Wikipedia says Alperez started rest the Alper, as we know and
have talked about on the Lamentable Tragedy and other things, started in eighty two
in the business. So probably wasn't that Alparez a different Perez? Or maybe
so maybe in Ted's mind, maybe he was high and he thought he saw
al Perez could have been someone look like him. But the other day,
I'm just going about my business in boss Man drops this text bomb on me
that lists about forty wrestlers from the seventies. Do they have books? I'm
like, are you doing? Are you doing forty hundred the cinemats right now?
And he's like, no, they're all in Paradise Alley. I was
like, I can't handle the fact that Ray Stevens is in Paradise Alley yet.
Oh yeah, you'll see him. He's great too, He's gonna look
he does he does a good bomb. He does, he does, he
does the Shawn Michael's inside out in the Corner. Yes, yes, what
am I saying? I do remember that? Of course? What am I
thinking of though? That Bob Rupe like, well, what the fuck he's
in the movie. Get Ready, We're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit
about him, because uh, you know who else in the movie Donkronodal,
Don car Noodle is in the movie. Now there there's a funny story about
about Carondal that I didn't know about. You do you know? Do you
know how much you know about Don Krnodle. Do you know his debut against
Bob Roup in the Mid Atlantic? Do you know about Do you know the
story? I don't know that story. No, I know he was big
money tag team with Sergeant Slaughter. Right. Well, when I'll summarize,
so, at the time of Colonel's entering debut, Roup uh was doing a
bit where if you beat him in ten minutes, you won two thousand dollars
or if yeah, if you beat him in ten minutes, you want two
thousand dollars. And and Kronodal had not yet been smartened up to the business
when he arrived to the arena. He I forget what he said if he
if he he talked to somebody about getting about getting a chance, and so
he was told to come and and and get and bring ring gear and whatever.
And so he had no idea, and he saw he had a signed
this fucking waiver that basically said nobody was responsible if he got hurt, like
you know, a waiver, making him think that it's real, all right,
making him think that it's real. And he even stick him in the
room in the dressing room alone with with with Roupe, and you know,
he goes into the ring. He claims, this is what he says,
that he goes into the ring not smartened up and is prepared to actually wrestle
Bob Roup and try to beat him, and they nearly go the distance.
Bob Roup, I guess, was pretty much just putting on what did he
call his his his sleeper hold. He called it something sugar sugar hole,
the sugar hold, and so he, uh, he would basically, you
know, he'd put that on people and it was kind of done and supposedly,
I mean, Corondal made it seem like they were actually real people who
were going in and doing this, like like fucking fans and stuff. I
don't know, right, you know, but you always hear that with the
wrestlers, right. So they nearly go the bit to go the distance.
The distance almost lasted ten minutes and Rupe puts on a hold and carondal is
is is scared that he's going to have his neck broken, so he gives
up and supposedly again all the jit according to Cronodal, and then after that
he smartened up and in so this all comes from a two thousand and nine
interview that that that Crondal did for mid Atlantic the mid Atlantic Gateway, and
he shared this, uh, this story. So after he says, I
never saw Bob Rupe again until nineteen seventy nine. I was wrestling for Dorry
and Terry funking Amarilla, and Terry got me in the in in that movie
with Sylvester Alone Pardi Sally. I had done my part and I was sitting
on the bleachers there in that bar on the set and somebody came and tapped
me on the shoulder and I looked up and it was Roupe. Rupe says,
you look like that guy I wrestled in a rally that night. I
said, that's me. Rupe said, I want to tell you something.
If you'd lasted ten more seconds, you would have beat me. I was
gone, brother, I was out. I mean, I was exhausted.
I couldn't do anything. It was either give up or go to the hospital.
In the match, He's saying, I haven't seen Rupe since. Really,
wow, So you know, I don't. I'm just there's too many
wrestlers whose origin story involves them showing up to the building and not having been
smartened up and being put in the ring for an actual match before spectators.
Don't. I don't. I just can't believe that they any promoter would take
that risk, you know, I mean, I don't know. It sounds
like everyone was nuts in the early days. Sure, I mean, you
know, everybody in the stands knew it was fake. How does someone I
mean, but yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just like a thing
where you know, you know it's not real, but nobody ever tells you
how to go about making it look real, right, you know, You're
just like, I'm going in the ring. I know this guy isn't going
to actually try to hurt me, or is at least right, and maybe
you figure it out from there. But I'd love to see, like I'd
love to see an example on tape of one of these matches. And I
kept looking forward to I tried to find the Cornel Roup match. I couldn't
find anywhere. It was a TV taping too, he said. At least
Colonel said that it was a TV show. It was TV taping, but
I couldn't find it, so yeah, darn Colonel is in the movie.
Also in the movie Gene Kinisky and I found his biography by Steven Barrier,
which seems to be a a quality item. Jean Knisky, Canadian wrestling legend,
is the name of the book. Kiniski also made a couple appearances in
movies, though the most recognizable film in which Jean Kiniski is credited with appearing
is one he never appeared in at all. In nineteen seventy eight, after
achieving fame for writing and starring in Rocky so Thus Just Alone, followed up
with Paradise Alley, a film he wrote, directed, and starred in about
three New York brothers who entered the world of professional wrestling. Stallone, who
wrote the screept for Paradise Alley before hitting it big with Rocky, used a
collection of professional wrestlers in filming Paradise Alley. Among wrestlers credited with appearing in
the film, where Terry Funk playing a key role as wrestler Frankie the Thumper,
along with Dory Funk, Junior, Teddy Biassi, Don Leo, Jonathan
Dick Murdoch, Ray Stevens, Bob Roop, then his stamp, Rock Riddle,
Redge Parks, Larry Lane, Don Carnodle, and Jean Kiniski. But
while every list of Paradise Alley credits and almost every account of Jean Kiniski's life
listing him listening his film appearances seems to confirm that Canada's greatest athlete briefly appeared
in the film, Kelly Kiniski says that did not happen. This is his
son. Yes, A Kinisky did appear in Paradise Alley, Kelly says,
but it wasn't Gene. At the time Paradise Alley was filmed, Kelly Kiniski
was attending West Texas State and playing football. There After hearing the salone needed
wrestlers to appear in an upcoming movie, Kelly recalls, I really wanted to
do it. With onerous restrictions on amateur athletes, Kelly says he talked to
his football coaches about the possibility of appearing in the movie. They said,
you can't go. You're an amateur athlete. You can't get paid. Displaying
some of his father's doggedness, Kelly found a solution. I just used my
dad's name. FU yeah, I gave them my dad's social Security number.
Asked how he got away with passing himself off as Jean Kiniski despite his father's
reputation and an unmistakable face, Kelly explains, my part was like half a
second. It was so fast you wouldn't even know who it was. Despite
his brief appearance on camera, Kelly says he had to get a nineteen forties
style haircut to play his part in the film. I looked really strange,
he says. To explain his changed appearance to his coaches back at West Texas,
he said, I told him I lost a bet with my dad.
He made me get a haircut like this. I didn't know what else to
say. So not Gene Kiniski, but Kelly Kiniski. That's the kind of
thing you'll only find when you peak under the cinematic Damn fucking right. So
moving on. While we do have fictional fighters in the movie, they were
not the only combative competitors to make their way out of the silver screen.
As we have mentioned, we have hurt him a few times. We also
have boxer Lee Canalito cast as the third brother, Victor, who is the
who ends up being the guy who actually wrestles well. The film Rocky Slooster
Stallone, an actor, played the role of a boxer. For this film.
A boxer is being trained to be an actor. He's Lee Kenney,
though, a professional handled by Mohammad Ali's manager, Angelo Dundee. Angelo Dundee
called me and he asked me if I had any experience acting, and I
told him no, I didn't, And he said that I was be in
a movie. And I said, come on, Angelo, you gotta be
kid. And I said, who's our next opponent, and so he said
no, he was theirs. And so Sylvester Stallone call me the next day.
He asked me, how did I feel about being in a movie.
And I was very shocked when he called. And so our commuter he could
miss screen test. Then after that we're in the movies. You know.
I saw him on television. I said, there's a slightly gentleman and he
couldn't play my giant brother. Up until that point, I was panicking because
I thought I was gonna have to play this role. You could see that's
oil and water out there. Yeah. Slone just wants to wants no business
getting in the ring. I wonder which one he is oil or water.
Well, he's Italian, so I'd go with the oil. I'm glad you
said it. Uh Canelito was born in Houston, Texas, on November twenty
fourth, nineteen fifty three. He played football when he was younger because Texas,
and then turned to boxing, where he won the Houston Golden Gloves after
seven amateur fights. Is that football when he was younger because he didn't want
his father to wonder if he was a homosexual, right, I said,
because Texas, it's that's what you do. Like, yeah, I guess
that was. That's a shorter way of saying it. You're correct on the
right. If you're born in Texas, you play football. Doesn't matter your
your gender, sex, or how you identify. You play Texas. You
play fucking football, or you die right or you know, yeah exactly,
or you die right. So now, so he fought seven. I don't
know how, I don't know. I don't know boxing. The goal,
I know I've heard the goal gloves. I know Roddy Piper want a pair
of golden gloves or whatever the fuck it is? Is that impressive? No?
Oh, what is it? It's it's basically like a regional tournament.
It's not it doesn't it doesn't really denote much. It's something to say.
I mean, it's something to say beyond I boxed professionally and got paid three
or four times. You know, you want a tournament is what it means.
Basically, Okay, But yeah, it's always It's always held up by
people who end up in a world other than boxing, where people don't really
know boxing as an achievement. You'll always hear, you know, Johnny b
Bad was a Golden Gloves. I remember hearing yeah, and Piper and stuff.
I always I'm sure Baron Corbin and yeah, it's my mom won golden
gloves. You're not. I thought you want a golden globe. She has
a golden glove in the glove compartment, so to Jay. Yeah. Right.
So Cannelino made it his professional boxing debut you at the age of twenty
three on January twenty ninth, nineteen seventy seven, and his career, you
know, continued more or less until this happened. And on my fourth fight,
I guess I was finished with it. And so when I got home,
I guess I was finished. My dad said I had a long distance
phone call, and I said, I don't get too many of those.
I went in and everything, and they told me it was and Versus said,
this is fly and this is not. First I thought it was a
friend amount playing a joke, but after I got to talking to them,
wazo, I better behave myself here. But anyway, yeah, he told
me he was chanting a movie Paradise. All he's in a script to me,
he'd like the Universal will fly me out to Los Angeles for screen tests.
And I said, well, man, I was all excited us that
man serious, He was serious. So I said, wow, anyway,
we go there to a screen test and that was it. And after two
or three days he called and said, hey, we're going to go with
you and thank yous and and the phone was just so excited. I don't
know what to do because I never before. You know, it was my
first role, so his first role. So he's just a good old boy,
just a good old Texas boy. Imagine that, you know, like
if you're sliced alone, you have to hope the well, you don't have
to hope the person's home when you call. But it certainly helps these people.
These people all seem to be coming in from gardening and taking the taking
the call. It's like this accidental thing, like can you imagine, like
you know, nobody calls back in the seventies, like oh, mister God
not home, just gonna find somebody else. Yeah, like the Hogan George
Foreman Grill, Well, the same thing with Hogan and uh and and and
uh Rocky three, you know, right right, Yeah. I was gonna
say, you know, it's kind of shitty of Terry Funk in telling the
story of how Slice Alone got in touch with him that he left out the
part where Bill Aptor told him to really he should really take this phone call
in this letter. Seriously, I know, I know, Bill, I
did hear that. You know. The funny thing is, actually the shittier
part is that I don't know why Slice s Alone doesn't talk about how Bill
After actually wrote the story for Paradise Alley and Stallone adapted to the screenplay format
like the original. Yeah. And now that you say that the working title
was After's Alley, was it not? It was it was or it was
Paradise After, I don't know one of those two. Yeah, emphasis on
working title exactly. But here's a there's another another story of of Canalito's first
day on set. You know, when you first you know, I was
nervous. I don't know what. The first scenes were done out of there
in New York, right there while we were by the bay there throwing the
things in the water and on the waterfront. It looked like kind of on
the Waterfront movie. And that was I think the first thing that we did.
And I was shocked. I kept thinking, you know, you shoot
the first thing you read on the script because I was you know, I
was very an experience, and I said, how are you gonna play the
last part? But anyway, it was. It was funny. It was
like very good luck in November is freezing out there, but it was just
great. You know, when you start watching a set, how everyone is
working, getting ready to do a scene of people in the background, and
it's just so much work making a film, but it's a lot of fun.
You meet a lot of people and very nice people to talk to you
and joke around your different experiences they had how they got into business. So
when you're doing a film, you almost got to watch out and I get
lost in other characters. You know, people talking to you, right,
Okay, yeah, they said, Okay, we're ready to rehearse before we
shooting. Let's go and say, oh gosh, put it in. I
hope I don't drop a line. You know. It was kind of like
that at times. I was nervous. So that scene that he's talking about
is for clarification, it's at the end of the movie. It's near the
very very end, probably in the last third of the movie. So he
was very surprised that when you're shooting a movie, you kind of that you
don't have to shoot an order, and rarely do you ever shoot an order.
You shoot right, and whatever's the most efficient really for the most part,
is that what you do you or whatever's available. You know, you
kind of you you create your schedule based on on the availability of your talent,
your crew and your and your locations and stuff like that. So,
right, so if you're shooting you know, Santa Sleigh, yes, you
don't necessarily shoot James Kahn and friend Rusher on day one. You shoot them
whenever the fuck they're available. Yeah, or if you're like that movie,
you shoot him at the very end. Right, that's right that we talked
about, that's right, you know, you shoot him closely, but it
basically is you right, you you shoot them because that one scene had all
the had all the the stars, so to speak, like the name talent
in it. You find a day that they're all available and that's when you
shoot it, and you just fucking do it, you know, and then
you build around that. So yeah, like you don't it's rare unless it's
by choice. Usually you don't shoot in order. I know, I think
it was was an ET. Maybe it was ET where Spielberg chose to shoot
to shoot in order to keep to let the emotions build on the on the
kids who are in it. Right, So he showed he showed the shoot
in order, which is again not very common, but it does happen.
It certainly makes continuity easier, It certainly does. It certainly does you can
you know, when you're done with the scene, you can kind of say,
okay, that one is behind us, we're not coming back to that.
We don't have to worry about it. Now. That scene that he's
talking about has also sylvest It's the three brothers. So you have Canalito,
you have stallone, and then you have armand Assante as the brother And I
like that name yes. Indeed. Now, Armanda Sante is uh, he's
he's a fascinating individual. But this was early in his film career and he'd
been doing a lot of stage work at at the time. And here's just
a little, a little quick bit on on Armanda Sante and I want to
share with everybody your first film that you and for those of you who are
old enough to remember it was. It was a movie called The Lords of
Flatbush and it starred you know, Henry Winkler, Si Leicester Stalone. And
tell us about your part in that first film. I'm not in the film.
I was cast as an extra. I'm not even on screening, and
they even spelled my name wrong in the credits. But the point is that,
oddly enough, I went on many many many years later and I made
a wonderful film with that director Mary Davidson. So that was I was.
Actually I was working in the theater. I was doing Tennessee Wounds in the
theater when I made that project. But you know, it was years later,
in seventy seven when I made my first so Jordan to Los Angeles though
that Slone reached out to be based on him remembering and he said they don't
have a role for you. And that's where I made my debut was Salone
in seventy seven, and that was Paradise Alley. Yeah, and that was
Paradise Alley is a story of brothers who were a little little rough around the
edges, and you had that kind of family feels not about wrestling right now.
One of the roles that I think a lot of people remember in one
of your initial role is that you were the love interests, the handsome stranger
in Private Benjamin with with Goldie Hawn, which was a huge success and a
great thing. But I think that kind of exposed you to the wider audience
immediately, and they said, who who is this guy? So tell us
a little bit about Private Benjamin. I'm not in the film. I'm not
even on screening it. I added that, pardon, because I really wanted
I really really hit home runs, isn't he? Huh? This guy's really
hitting home runs. It sounds like I really wanted and I really wanted Armanda
Sant to say no, I actually wasn't in that one. He really wanted
him to say that. So I decided, you know what, I'm gonna
make it happen anyway, I'm not. I mean, I'm more teasing this
out. This might not be ready yet, this might not be fully baked,
but I'm almost prepared to say, ladies and gentlemen, Armanda Sante,
you might actually you know, he can because this is so I bring so,
I bring him up and I focus on him a little bit here because
well, talking about Lee Cantalina because uh, you know, you know it
says he as he said, Armanda Sante was a was a stage actor and
very intense, and he's very good in this. I'm not a huge Armanda
Sante fan. He's kind of just he's a guy. Yeah, oh yeah,
yeah, he'd be in that movie, wouldn't he. Yeah yeah,
you know he's he's always in like made to TV, made you direct to
video shit. And well, dude, I'm Google image searching, and he
was ready. He's ready to play Triple H as soon as the script is
ready, with this blonde haircut. Why don't he do that for Gody?
Oh my god? Probably yeah, probably forgot It seems to be coincident with
some of God he headlines, this guy looks exactly like Triple H after like
plastic surgery. Yeah, but you know he's Armando Sante is like a guy
who would be in all the made for TV mafia movies, like never a
good one. He's just being all the crappy ones, right. But at
the time he was a Broadway actor, very intense and we got a little
we got a little story here from from from Lee Cantelino. Uh about kind
of how focused and intense an actor. Armanda Sante. You know you take
care of your punk plan the part Frankie the Thumper. I mean, wow,
they had had they had a whole lot of restaurants that was on the
set. Yeah, different actions, but how many. I got to thank
him. I got to look in and watch this. I watched it a
few times and watch this character and now, I mean, by what a
performance he put on for just just mean crazy character. Now that's the wrong
one. Hold on a second here, Yeah, I was gonna say that
sounds familiar. Yeah, that's what did I do? Here? Hold on,
I gotta find it. Give me a second here. Yeah, we'll
do it. We'll get it. We'll get it done, Armanda Sante.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to say this is this is a revelation.
We spend some time here. Okay, this guy, what the f there?
You go? Here, you go, Oh, it's fine, that's
way that's screwed up. Here if I can play it through, can you
hear that? Yep? Wants to do lines. Yeah, who is this
talking again? It's Lee Cannelito of course, right, so yeah, so
I'm on the Sante calls up Lee Cannelito. At one in the morning.
We run I got a big scene in mark. We run some lines like
Jesus christ Man, I can't deal with this guy. This guy, this
guy might be everything you know what I mean? He might have it all
on a mom the Sunday. Yeah, including in the name for the fucking
ages. Good luck, get we find this fucking yeah. You know he's
Oh god, he's a guy that you know. It just it just never
really happened for him, is it? His face? Is that it's everything,
like everything about him never really happened for him. Oh shut up,
no, don't go this is this is a Garden State Film Festival. Uh,
he's a movie that he was promoting. Oh, I would agree with
that. Excuse me, what does it mean to not be I'm not It's
not something I'm not familiar with. So where does that leave us? Are
you familiar with it or not? Armanda Sante? I mean, look,
I I hesitated to make this point on this subject because you know what he's
talking about as a serious, serious matter. But why do actors always have
to talk about why now is the right time for this movie because they're in
it? Can't we just have a timeless story that doesn't have to tell itself
to the newspapers. Tis because I'm in it, And yeah, a lot
of we're holding a mirror up to whatever. Yeah, fuck off, dude,
Seriously, he talks about sly here, Oh he touches a woman like
oh, he's like trying to sniff or snatch or sounds like you during the
Omega Moxley match. Let me tell you, let me tell you this red
carpet. It is not a I mean, no one fucking there's no one
either, Like she pulled him aside to do this, Like this was not
a you know, we're walking, we're seeing people. This is like this
is like a I don't know, a pink carpet or something. I can't
It's a Creed movie, by the way, not a Rocky movie. It's
when he filmed one of the Creed Movies. No, no, you know
it's the capacity of Madison Square Garden. Oh fuck off, bullshit, I
will say, I will say in this movie, he's he's way better than
Stallone? Is he really? Oh he's fucking awesome. He's like he acts.
Stallone is such a fucking goof in this movie. He's so annoying.
Shut the fuck up. Like armand Assante gives a very like, subtle and
good performance like and you can tell the one thing I'll say, you can
tell that he is trying to translate his abilities into film acting. It's very
different. You know. Wow, here's one more that settles it. If
he if he outshines sly on the on the on the screen in this film,
Ladies and gentlemen, armand Assante. There it is. Uh, here
another one. Let's see here. This is him. Oh my god,
he looks like he's passed out. So it is mean again. Oh annoying.
Where is the time stamp? I want you to know this guy played
Nietzsche, Yes he did. This is from Kiss My Ash Radio. It's
Cigar TV. I mean, I can't make this ship up. This is
ridiculous. Then here we go. I need to see what this where they
started. Mm hmm, that's a no. Yeah that that's like, no,
I don't r mind. You don't have to pick up the phone to
send an email. This guy's fucking money. Oh takes a no do so
still a fum a FuMB. It's like he's trying to be Marlon Brando,
right exactly. He's like he almost like it almost seems like he taught himself
to talk that way, right right, because he doesn't tell me that in
the movie. It certainly doesn't. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe he had an
accident or something truly amazing. So there we go. We got fucking armand
a sumter and U Cannelito back to Cannilito because we're talking about him. He
uh. He says he gained a lot of respect for the wrestlers in the
film and the pro wrestling as a whole. All the guys, the wrestlers,
they were very very professional when he came to there. They take it
very serious. You know, people don't realize it like you do a scene.
We would do a scene and want to commentary, Look this year,
this whole here, we need to show this whole. This is a real,
true, basic hole that would have happened in that era, and I
surprise you would that, you h but it's his series, you know,
but you know, the choreographed it to where you know, the scenes how
an inexperienced restaurant like Victor Carboni would have been. He was just rough and
tough. He just went through whatever he could, you know, to get
through the match. But on Terry's characters gas so they had a choreograph more
professional looking holes or different scenes for him. Yeah. So again this boxer
gained a lot of appreciation for the business, which is really cool to see
now. He uh, he actually was a Cannelito was a pretty good boxer.
He never was full time. It wasn't a full time fighter, but
he went undefeated for his whole career. And I guess was ranked at one
point in the eighties as number nine in the world at one point, and
there was talk that if he had been full time, but he could have
been a contender for the title. Uh and even and during a portion of
his career in the eighties, guess who was Guess who was his manager?
His actual manager. His actual manager was Fred Blassie. That's all right,
let's go home. That is thank you everybody under the cinema, We'll see
you next week of the movie. No, so let's just Stallone. Stallone
was his actual boxing manager, hilarious one point in the eighties. Yeah,
I gotta say I really appreciate Stallone's loyalty to people. Absolutely, that's a
shoot. He really does find people and stick with them and use them again
and again and again. Even I'm Ondo Santing. I'm glad. I'm glad
he does. Because this guy is a revelation. I know you hate it.
I know you hate him, but I think I like this guy.
We'll see some more of him. Armando Santa. I'm sure. I'm sure
he's I'm sure his time is far from over here. What a name?
I know. Serious. Now, this all leads us to one more supporting
character in the movie, Tom Waits. What the Tom Waits are you?
Yes? So you're familiar with Tom Waits? Yes, Yeah, very renowned
singer songwriter, especially at the time he was kind of coming into his own
in the in the mid to late seventies. Although Lee Cannelino really supporting us
here this Week under the Cinemat had no idea who he was at the time.
I didn't know what a big star he was in the music industry.
I'm twenty three years old. I had just turned twenty three years old on
the day, you know, shooting, because my birthday is November twenty four.
When they introduced us, he was just very quiet, but with that
the character that he was a paradise found the way talking about you to come
over here ly and we'll show you a few things. When he's doing that,
you know, he's smoking his cigarette. I mean, it was like
I didn't know, you know, is that your character? Is that you?
And to me, you know, I wasn't a real knowledgeable about his
career, you know, because I'm now I was born and raised here in
US some Texas, and I had asked me, you know, you know,
what do you think of the film as a film? On Hey,
just like any other thing, you know, it's moving. Was like anything
else, it's moving. Devotees of the podcast will recall that when we first
launched Christmas in the Territories and did the very first A wa installment of said
series, I accepted Tom Waits's Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis. That's
amazing. I don't recall that, but I'm I'm amazed how familiar are you
with mister Waits. That's about the extent of it. Great, because we're
gonna have some fun here. This is so, this is from you Walk
in the Garden. Remember that this is from the Santa Barbara News and Review.
Tom Waits will make what is actually becoming his annual appearance in Santa Barbara
at the Arlington Theater on Tuesday, December twelfth. Now on tour to promote
his sixth album, Blue Valentines, Waits has made Seti progress professionally since his
earliest appearances in town at the Bluebird Cafe at twenty eight. He remembers very
clearly his own painful start in the business, coming up from San Diego on
the Greyhound, working as a doorman in clubs, living out his old fifty
five Cadillac he recently sold it in favor of his dream car, a sixty
four Tea Bird, before being signed by Herb Cohen after an appearance at Hollywood's
Troupadour Club, and then finally signing with Asylum Electra in nineteen seventy two.
That Waits has arrived as an established performer and songwriter is evidenced by his work
in Sylvester Stallone's new movie Paradise. Allly, I was really proud that Stallone
called me here at home, Waits told me recently, originally I should do
it. I was really proud that Stallone called me here at home Waits that
told me recently. Originally he was just going to have me write a song.
We ended up creating a part from me, a part character called Mumbles.
I can't do Tom Waits very well, so I'll keep on trying,
though. I Well, it's gonna you're gonna hear I do know. So,
Yeah, he plays a piano player. He's hardly in the fucking movie.
But apparently he wrote a couple of songs that were featured in the movie.
And uh, and again he plays this this drunk piano player. And
I was looking. I wanted to kind of because I read some stuff that
I want to talk about a little bit more. But I wanted to get
a broader sense of Tom Waits as an individual, because he is a fascinating
character. And after hearing what I'm going to play in a little bit,
I think you'll agree. The following text that I'm going to read is from
the New York Times. There's a schizophren equality to Tom Waits, but defines
both his artistry and his obscurity. It may sound strange to describe as obscure
someone who is so critically acclaimed and can sell out three shows at the fourteen
hundred seed Beverly Theater. Yet Waits is an artist, much like Randy Newman
before short People, whose talent deserves far more than the cult following it now
attracts. A problem is that Waits, an immensely gifted writer and wonderfully original
singer, seems as interested in being a character as writing about one. Yes,
this fascination with role may be limiting his range on stage. Anyone seeing
him for the first time Saturday Night at the Beverly would probably have been so
absorbed in waights offbeat persona that it would take a while to even begin focusing
on what he was saying in his richly detailed songs. Wearing a suit so
rumpled that it would require two passes through the cleaners to get it back in
shape, Waits attacked songs with the punk fury of Johnny Rotten, stomping the
stage and waving his arms in the air like a supercharged Elmer gantry. He
also machine gunned the words in a voice so gravelly that he must make his
oatmeal out of cement mix weights added to the color by twisting his body into
odd orangutang like positions and prowling the stage, sometimes flapping his arms like a
giant crow. Between songs. He kept the audience amused with rious sides and
plenty of tall tales about the people and his songs, including a pal whose
New Year's Eve fall from a twelve story window was broken by the confetti in
his hair. This exaggeration and part of Waits a game plan and charm.
By introducing us to larger than my figures, he can also treat his primary
themes losers with big dreams and dreamers with unlikely victories, on a large,
ambitious scale. Do you want to you want to hear the Tom Waits persona
that they're referring to. I think I do, all right? This is
the falling clip is from the Don Lane Show out of Australia nineteen seventy nine.
Now we come to the good pay your acting career. Ah, you
remember that your acting career? I'm moving to. Yes, we have a
clip here with Sylvester Stallone. You know sylvest know sylvest Stallone's not a normal
die sylvestus alone. Uh. Did this movie called Paradise Ellie in which you
had a part? Yes? Did you enjoy that doing that movie? Yes?
I was like about five weeks of work for about three lines of dialogue,
and it was interesting to see the bowels of the of the film industry.
Certainly glad you finished the sentence. YEA that I it was, uh,
totally new challenge for me. Do you let me ask you something?
Do you worry about achievement? Does it worry you or do you just do
your own worry about it or not? Oh? Yes? Oh? Uh
don't worry about achievement? Yeah, exactly. No, I worry about a
lot of things, but I don't worry about achievement. No, well,
I'll scratch achievement or than I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in heaven.
I worry primarily about these types of questions, this fucking ridiculous situation my
agent got me into. I worry primarily about where I'm going to be tonight.
You know, with a guy like Tom Waits, it's always hard for
me to accept that he's actually that weird, and there wasn't some point along
the line where he decided to become that weird. I am so glad you
said that, but hold on, I'm not there. Okay, okay,
fair enough. It is rumored if you hadn't noticed, if you hadn't guessed
that Heath Ledger used this interview and kind of early Tom Waits TV clips as
inspiration for his version of the Joker in the Dark Night coming soon to Under
the Cinemat. And then we also have this brief interview I wanted to play
from this is with Flow and Eddie and it was for the Canadian TV show
ninety Minutes Live and four progressives from watching Inmate. Actually, hey, you're
doing uh film score right? For not a score? Bore? A couple
of songs, A couple of songs for parano salities. All yeah, what
is that exactly? The story about three Italian brothers in the Hell's Kitchen in
New York and late forties scien for a beautiful story. It's kind of a
uh stallone's uh of a fantasy about what could have happened. I mean and
uh, It's about three brothers who was struggling to get out of the Hell's
kitchen and I moved to Miami. What's I play a drunk piano player?
How did they ever figure that one out? Nothing to it? Do you
write in a couple of songs that actually gonna act in the film? Yeah,
as I was, I walking on eggshells, I'm already done. Oh
it's in the cannon or the world for me. But I think they've been
all right. They could see in films. Yeah, yeah, can you
see yourself going into that sort of direction? Is it alright? I don't
know how, my bleeding man, I don't know. I mean, I
don't know. I can see that is a little Richard Dreyfuss in there behind
the tide over there, And I don't really know if I'm what the woman
of today wants and me m that is the question, isn't it? Is
he what the woman of today wants and needs? Here, let's just listen
to a little bit of of Tom Waite's music here. This is a song
called Eggs and Sausage. Okay, that's enough. I know, I know
what makes you cool to like him, But I pray not not tonight,
not tonight. A lot of I'm just scar and talk about things that make
my boner happen. Yeah, that see, Now you have my attention,
Tom, Tom, I just Tom wait, what please, I'm waiting.
I'm just gonna sit here and well I'm trying to find something that I can
do that'll cause me to bend over and put my hand between my legs.
Is that Jim Hurd. There's a little bit of hurd in there. And
so you mentioned something before, and you know, we we think we are
seeing Tom Waits here. But according to many folks, you know, you
hit it right on the nose, sir, that this is a performance,
a character, a fiction. According to music writer Tom Waits unofficial biographer Barry
Hoskins, the Tom Waits we see is a persona. The real Tom Waits
hides behind. Tom Waits portrays this hobotype and disheveled individual that is, according
to Hoskins, an ongoing experiment in performance art. Forgive me it's it's it's
fucking ridiculous as well. Yes, exactly. Waits his friends with film director
Jim Jarmish, which doesn't surprise me one fucking bit. What about Jim Jarmish
structural Oh oh my god, he he is so beyond structure. I mean
like just so beyond. He's such a you know, I hear this a
lot. You either like Jim Jarmish movies or you don't. I think I
know which of the two. There is no in between. I actually I
do like them. I think that they're kind of fun. I enjoyed he
made one about zombies. I haven't seen too many, but I like the
zombies one, so that was fun. But yeah, you either like Jim
Jarmish or you don't. He certainly got the hair, Yeah he does.
Jarmish has said that Waits is potentially violent if you're fucking with him, but
that also contradicts with him being also nice and kind and gentle. He's a
contradictory individual, and Waits supposedly had a very middle class upbringing and then created
this outsider gimmick that eventually overtook him, so to speak. When this is
funny. When Hoskins Berry Hoskins again, British music writer was writing his unofficial
biography of Tom Waits, Tom Waits literally told people to not talk to him,
Do not talk to Barry him. Hey it's Tom, and you're not
talking to Barry Hoskin about me. I'm not going to do that I don't
want him to know shit, and I guess he I think it's his current
wife who was who's kind of made him be very secluded and not approachable.
But Hoskins, I guess Keith Richards is a friend of Tom Waits, and
Hoskins reached out to Richards, and Richards was he Hoskins knew him. They
didn't. He'd interviewed him before for some other stuff, and Richards was going
to talk It was going to he was going to to answer questions and talk
about Tom Waits. But let's let's see here, well, well, let
Barry Hoskins sell the story. The Keiths was one of the first people that
I had interviewed Keith a couple of times, and you know, he initially
the word came back that he'd be happy to talk about weights. And then
I think, obviously, see everyone's terrified Waits, even Keith Richards is what
I love. Even Kate has to sort of basically get Tom's profession. So
where it comes like, I'm really sorry, I'd love to talk to you
about Tom, and you know, he just did the sort of perversity of
it to stop the greatest sort of rock and roll rhythm guitar player in the
history of music from from saying how great you are? But that's Wights,
that's Weights. Well, what's Weights again? That he that that that he
has the ability to tell, like you have the greatest you know, like
you said, the greatest rhythm guitar player of all time, you know in
any rock band. Keith Richards who is being asked, who say nice things
about you? And Weights has got these people tight around his fucking fingers so
much that he can tell he can command them to not do it. Wow,
that's Tom Waits, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, he something someone's getting
worked on the whole Tom Waits. And I don't think it's uh, I
think it might be Tom Waits. I think it might be fans. I
think it's Tom Waits is working himself. Yeah, maybe it doesn't know the
difference. At this point, he's like Vince McMahon. You know that no
one knows the real Tom Waits. He only exists between the time he gets
up in the time he looks in the mirror exactly. Well, this finally
brings us to the mastermind. Why we were, why we are here?
As I said we earlier, we did visit Stallone during his rocky days,
but they weren't nearly as rocky as they were between nineteen seventy six and nineteen
seventy eight. By the time Paradise Alley was rolling around, Stallone had been
labeled with the reputation of being an actor who likes to direct himself. That's
never a good thing. He had become a sort of one man Hollywood war
machine of sorts with it seems like he had a massive chip on his shoulders
as he was trying to do basically as much as he could faster than anybody
else, and everybody else he would brag about being able to finish things faster
than people, and like finish scripts faster. He published the fucking Paradise Alley
novel without any experience as a novelist. In essence, he was believing his
own hype and maybe getting a little paranoid. This was from a This is
from a Newsweek article. When you start getting successful in this town, says
one agent, people start rooting for your failure. First alone, the process
has already begun. He hears whispers of admit at the demands he makes,
and it's no wonder he brags about how fast he writes. He says he
wrote Rocky sequel in twenty nine hours. A few weeks look at point one
hour is fuck you. He fired Kubeck, the agent who made the Rocky
deal. He bocks at working with taller actors. He's five feet ten inches.
He made a contractual demand that a Porsche Turbo Carrera he wrote into Bodyguard
become his property at the end of the picture. He's super competitive, snipes
one of his colleagues. If Brando's getting three million, it won't be along
before Sly will be asking three million and ten cents more charitably. Talia Schier,
who was Adrian in the Rocky movie. He says he's got to define
himself. He's still an innocent ex agent. Kubeck says, what people don't
realize is that he was always Eric. Success hasn't changed him. He listens
to nobody. He's self contained. He will make it or fail on his
own abilities. Observers now wonder whether the very best directors will want to work
with an actor who justifiably feels he has the talent to dominate every story.
Shier feels that Stallone needs good teaching. Directors now to prove that his range
is not limited to proletarian losers. Nobody knows what he can do yet,
she says, unless he trusts a director he will resort to has proven Rocky
tricks. But if Stallone has his way, he'll be directing himself most of
the time. To judge from his philosophies, most of them formed retrospectively by
the success of Rocky, his future movies will be as commercial as possible.
N't the commercial hospical hand in hand, he says, Pcosto found mine,
Alice, Why Pacasto add a two hundred million dollars state where his other painters
are just as good, and they bury them in a gunny sackond in a
potter's field. They will also be resolutely uplifting salone as sure that the public
wants what he has to offer, a feeling for the little guy and an
eye for happy endings. It's very simple, right, a downer, he
saus, he just say the guy falls into the subways path and he's grounding
the chicken fat. But say he falls onto the track in a less second,
leaves beneath the train, or somehow slips between the rails and falls thirty
feet and lends on top of a bus, roll over and into the convertible
of a beautiful blonde and drives off. That's tough for right, and to
me it's enjoyable. But I'll never do another Rocky. It said once in
a lifetime trip. I can't think I'm on the top it with the next
one, with my next one, or I'll be a fool. I may
come close, but Rocky went the distance. Thank god I was around to
see. Well, you know what you're gonna do seven? You're gonna Rocky
seven more times? How does that sound? That's right? All right?
Yeah, fucking idiot. You know, we decide what you've done. That
that lives on. You don't decide yes, And you know what, honestly,
U, it's not simple to write a downer. It's hard to write
a downer because nobody expects a downer. You had, dumb ass, Yeah,
anyway, He's so. As I mentioned before, his immediate follow up
to Rocky was the movie Fist, and from what I read, Stallone made
some rewrites the script and had some pretty major clashes with the script with the
director Norm Jewison, who actually didn't necessarily want to cast Stallone. I read
an interview in the Telegraph Herald out of Iowa, Jewison had this to say
about his experience working with Stallone. My recollection is that I had to use
Sylvester Stallone in the picture simply because he had made Rocky and had become an
instant success. He was considered a big box office star and draw by United
artists, so they pushed very hard for him to do this film. It
was difficult at the beginning working with Sylvester because he was coming off a very
big success. I had to convince him that he wasn't playing Rocky anymore.
I think Stallone was against his character's demise in the film because I think he
was thinking again of Rocky. He wanted to end the film a winner in
some way. But that's not what happened. Joe Asterias and I had done
so much research into Jimmy Hoff's life, into the Teamsters. I was intent
on ending the picture the way I did. As I remembered, Sly was
a little peaked and upset that I decided to end it that way. So
again, Sly, Sly, not so Sly. No. No. When
it comes to his you know, throwing his weight around, well that's Okay,
we'll ought to throw your weight around too, said Hawk to Sylvester Stallone.
But you know, Stallone did make efforts to try to counter this image
while making Paradise Alley, as noted here in The Indiapolis Star. Still'ster Stallone
Rocky that is denied emphatically to me that he's turned Prima Donna, but tells
me that amateur photographers and some not so amateur have interfered with his movie making.
Here. Oh, someone's got to put a bag over from my face
and walk around with a couple of holes bunching its eyes so they won't get
pictures of me. Rocky confessed. No photographer gets banging around, he said,
But I don't. I don't like it when so many thirty guys you're
gonna jump up and start shooting at you without asking you permission. You know,
who are they to come to my territory and start stealing a piece of
me? Goddy sounds like a wrestling promoter. Yeah right, well you know
what I mean. I do. I don't understand why they are allowed to
come into my territory and uh, you know, and steal my piece.
You know, I wrestler inspired Paradise Alley, not the other way right,
exactly exactly, Yeah, yeah, he goes. Uh. He comments on
the on on having read that he won't use people bigger than me. I
rather that I won't use anybody taller on him. Well, they're all bigger,
referring to Funk and Canelito and and uh Frank McRae. That makes me
I'll be some called michelomaniac. So I gotta tell you, when I was
looking at and reading all these all these uh stories and news articles, it
was very stressful. Like he just seems I was absorbing his like insecurities.
I was like, it was so uncomfortable. I'm like, oh my god,
it was so stressful. It's like, you can't do that. This
is an important part here. Stallone's on schedule with his movie and took his
manager and co star Joyce Ingles to dinner at Georgios Saturday night. He was
headed for bed at eight thirty last night when I talked to him. That's
a kind of social life, a lady said. Now, I mentioned Joyce
Ingles for a reason because she has a very very important part to play off
camera. So in June of nineteen eighty two, New York Magazine published a
very in depth article at the struggles, the personal and professional struggles of to
Loan from Rocky until this point, and it's pretty it's pretty intense. Let
me see here. I don't want to read the whole thing, but I
do get to the place where it's all right. Here we go. I
lost whatever common sense I had, and all the people and all the strengths
I developed. No that got me where I was, recalls to Loan.
He talks in softer, more measured tones than he did six years ago.
No longer straining to impress. Is it opposed to Loan as new image as
mister sincerity. If he's acting, it's one of his better performances. You
know, I became a markable product and very shallow. He says. I
was in a hundred places at one time. You know, when when it
finally came down to doing films other than Rocky, I had you might say,
almost blown it. And a certain personality pervades in film. You can
see it on screen if an actor's falling apart or if he's happy. Something
comes to r And it wasn't a focus. It wasn't a focused period for
me. After the Rockies. I wanted to go out and live life the
fullest, you know, meaning wine, women in song, and I started
throwing rocks in my own image. It was weird, you know. I
would go on talk shows not to promote the films, but to promote myself.
It was flaunt. Stallone says that when the Prince began to accuse him
of being an egomaniac, he dismissed the criticism as jealousy and counterattacked by flaunting
his success even more. Yes, the death of his manager Lane Oliver in
nineteen seventy seven left him without a close professional he could trust to set him
straight, and he ignored the advice of one other person who meant most to
him, his wife, Sasha. It was funny how I didn't listen to
us, Stallone says. Now, I thought he what did shooting? You
know? I thought I couldn't do an it wrong like Rocky. I was
going to break down the barriers, go a distance and success is the most
dangerous and drugs. I've been pinned down, you know. Was going home
the same pattern every night, and I felt stifled. I thought that my
wife would change everything around. They would change, So why wasn't she more
vivacious, bigger than life too. I told her, I love you,
but I'm not happy with myself and I have to go out and find happiness.
Sounds like he lost his smile, So yeah, it sounds like I
don't know a bargain basement piece of shit. Yeah, well, it sounds
like he sounds like a guy who who is it's the liar and selfish and
realize that he had some stuff and he wants to he wants to get he
wants to play like a little like a little fucking baby. And guess what
he did. At the time, Salona's filming Paradise Alley, and he moved
to the Sheridan Universal, where he started to party of vengeance. Come on,
let's go. There were there were there not as many women as you
might think. You know, because I developed the fear of exploitation. I
knew the women were coming around because of the rocky image Italian Stallion. Among
the women he went out, but he didn't mean to go with women.
He did cheat on his wife. Among the women he went out with at
the times to lone mentions, Joyce Ingles absolutely one of his co stars in
Paradise Alley and Susan Anton, but he says Anton was the only one he
was with quote unquote extensively. Slone says he was ashamed of the way he
publicly embarrassed his wife, and he seems sincerely amazed at how she wrote out
his behavior. And when I first came Kornberg, my wife through let me
and he says, sure, should go on burnt your She said, you
know, you go on burn your camera at both ends. You come back
with you're my husband. I called the next morning to talk to Sasha.
I feel that if someone doesn't want to be with you, he has a
right, she says. I never really get angry. At the time.
Slide wasn't a very happy person to be around. I knew there was something
he had to work out. We were separated twice in three years. People
have a tendency to repeat patterns, some for a lifetime. I told them
I'll wait. He asked how he could be sure I'd wade, and I
told him he couldn't. My astrologist told me a couple of months after we'd
broken up that I'd meet the man of my dreams. On my birthday,
July seventeenth, I was supposed to be in Hawaii then, but Sly,
who was filming victory in Budapest, called and asked me to come there because
you thought we could work things out. I consulted the astrologists, gone should
I What do you think about this? Astrologist? Do you think it could
go? Oh? Let me look at the stars. Yes, I believe
you could go. You've come to the right place, a place that will
tell you what you want to hear. Yes, what is it you want
to have happened? Well, I'd liked to get back together my husband.
That's exactly what's going to happen. Allow me to reverse engineer that in the
stars. See the stars are lying in a way that are going to get
you your husband back in many ways. What's this I see in your future?
You will take a breath. Ah, Oh, you know I see
something else. I see that. I am going to charge you fifteen dollars
for this for this visit, saying it isn't so Shaman. I consulted the
astrologist and she said it was a destiny. Destiny move there. I was
in Budapest on the night of my birthday and I said to Sly, you
the night on the white charger. You where did you hide the horse?
Has he really changed as much as he says, from the day I arrived
in Budapest he was a dream, Sasha insists, and he still is.
He's fun. We laugh all the time. He sweeps me off my feet.
Yes. As a side note, they were divorced three years later after
the m sends a trend so as I was, you know, you're looking
back. You kind of hear the stories, and Stallone says that one of
his regrets is the hostility he created when he became a director as well as
an actor and a writer. In addition, you know, he oh,
this is part of the Yeah. So in addition to Paris, he directed
Rocky two, Rocky three. But he asks, don't you think of the
opportunity presents stuff? You should try him? And first time I go up
on hind camera, I was nervous, but I thought, God, there's
this opportunity. And I gotta understand why I turned people off. I didn't
approach it, pop, I just lunge into it. As An actor who
has worked with Stallone recalls that he once told a crew member not to speak
to him unless he spoke first. Don't use my name the actors, says,
I might have to work with the son of a bitch again. That's
that's Hollywood right there. That's right. So I mentioned before that that interview
with Roger Ebert I was around the same time, and he admits the disappointment
of the failure. You know, he's disapponent in the failure of Paradise Alley
and his general attitude after Rocky And you know what to me, it this
is a guy, this is a guy who had his bubble burst after his
big success. Yeah, you know, because the four follow up films to
Rocky, I mean, Rocky two did well, you know, it did
well, but Fifth Paradise Alley, they all and Rocky two and Nighthawks,
they all received poor to mixed reviews at best. I see the current average
on Metacritic for the four films is fifty six out of one hundred. That's
the average rating for by critics of those four movies. And care Sly,
Yeah they love Rocky, they don't love you, Sly exactly. And they'll
love Rambo, but they don't love you all right, remember that, Sly.
You're not enough. Yeah, no, you're not You're not. In
the interview, he's quoted as saying, I'm now working with John Houston.
I'm biting my lip to preeple with a given suggestion, and there's a misconception
I can't work with other directors. You know, with Houston he's still only
when he sits back, you know, you don't even think he's working.
He's so smooth. But all the time the incubation process has taken in.
And unless you come out, come, come them with import If they doesn't
like you suggestion, you get a single no and not sit and salone admits
now that he has that he has a reputation for having a large ego and
a low threshold of interest in other people's opinions about what decisions he should make.
So I believe it is safe to say that Sylvester Stallone was eating pie
and it was loaded with humble humbleness. Yes, thank you, Yes,
make him humble. I will make you humble. I needed a match with
with with an iron cheek. Oh my god, I'm really shiky. Isn't
in the movie. To tell the truth, It's true. I'll sit at
home watching Rustling one day and who comes this Uranian? How? How?
How you how you got a gut with abs, all right, what are
you hiding? You got you like kids heads and you and you go to
someone's going on man. So principal photography at about the two seventeen Mark Bitch
on November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy seven, and ran through February the following
year. I believe most of it. They definitely shot in a sound stage
for stuff in la but most of the rest of the filming occurred in on
location in New York. Now. Paradise Alley was produced by a man named
Edward Pressman, who has had a legendary career in the business. He's produced
such films as Wall Street, the first two Conan movies, Masters of the
Universe, American Psycho, and the TV movie Paternal, which I was up
for. Briefly, I was up for a part in the Paterno before being
shut out by Greg Grunberg. Fuck him, I agree. I was going
to play Scott Paternal. I mean I thought I was going to. I
read for Scott Paternal and that the casting director really liked me, and I
was really excited. I thought I'd get it. But the casting director really
like you, just like the guys who get fired from w W. We
think Vince really liked them, but that damn jay No, because I would
say that Barry Sonnenfeld was Vince and Vince didn't like me. I would say
that the casting director is more like the agents who go out scouting for wrestling
talent. Well, they made a mistake, I agree, But I mean
Greg Grunberg, he's he's he's a good actor. I like it, and
but fuck him, That's what I say. Just because he's a fat guy
doesn't mean you know, I have to work Hey, you never know,
you might have to work together again. Oh. I can see why it
came down to YouTube. Right. If I saw this guy walking down the
street, I do a double take. Yeah, it could be me.
He's he's great. And also you've seen him in a bunch of stuff.
He's a lot of fun. He's a lot of fun. Now I bring
up Pressman because guess what he is? The maggot he that option of the
story from Stallone before Rocky name again Edward Pressman. In the long run,
uh, you know, as we said before, in the long run,
stallone is is happy, you know, because you never would have made Rocky.
But he still holds a grudge as we saw in that interview, which
was decades after this movie get made, it seems as though, you know,
despite the kind of crappy way he treated Stallone regarding the script, that
Pressman may have changed along the way. And this is from an article in
The Only Times Well I established the context for the filmmaker to realize his vision.
Pressman says, sometimes I have to introduce a new filmmaker to the whole
process, help him find a cinematographer and so on. Other times the focus
is just on the script. As a producer, I functioned differently on different
projects. The hardest thing is to learn how not to be something The filmmaker
doesn't need the ideal partnership of the producer and the filmmaker. An actor friend
brought him a script about a boxer and his brothers called Hell's Kitchen, written
by another young actor named Stallone. Pressman option for twenty five thousand dollars,
a fair sum for a new firm. This is back when when he first
started out. He got these optioned. Hell's Kitchen's subsequence between optioning and buying
there is, yes, there is a difference because buying optioning the rights can
go back to you like you decide a certain amount of time or you know,
like if you don't, For example, the only one I can think
of is the best one I can think of, a Spider Man. So
Marvel owns Spider Man. But it's kind of a similar situation. It's a
little bit different. But they have licensed the character to be featured in too.
They license the character to Sony and Columbia Pictures to be used in movies.
Now Columbia basically has to make a Spider Man movie within a certain amount
of time. If they don't do that, then the rights go back to
got It. And it's kind of similar. I don't know if it's exactly
like that, but I but but from my knowledge, it's a similar situation
where I give you you know here you I've I've sold my script to you.
You have the right to make it for so many times and if you
know, if you made a good deal, you'll say, you know,
in a few years, if you don't make the movie, I want my
I want the rights back. Right. So option means it's kind of like
a stock option. You you have the right to buy it with it at
a certain price or within a certain time frame, right exactly you know,
so I didn't just buy it and think goodbye. It's it's yeah, got
it? Okay. Subsequent least alone sold another script, also involving a boxer,
to chart Off and Winkler. Pressman sued and one set who he sued
chart Off and Winkler because Rocky seemed to have a lot of similarities to Hell's
Kitchen. Think about that, hmm, but a friend said, but a
friend said, dummy, you could have had a piece of Rocky. The
earlier script, revised to make the boxer a wrestler, became Paradise Alley,
not a success. Still, Pressman takes credit, grinning shyly, for recognizing
early that Stallone was a talent. So that's great. One thing that is
absolutely wrestle crap worthy was, you know, because when you're making you know,
still think about it, we're basically making a Rocky two. What Stallone
is making with this before he made Rocky two? And what made Rocky a
success? You know, you had the story of the underdog overcoming the bad
guy blah blah blah blah blah blah. And one great part about Rocky was
a song. So there needed to be a song, right and you know
stallone. Again stuck within the family, he hired Bill Conti, who was
the who was the composer of Rocky and h But this time he decided to
uh to do to well. He decided to sing the song himself. Two
Clothes to ts and two Clothes to hear and so savens thirteen phrase, it's
too cheer. Hey. If I cut off Tom Waits, I gotta cut
him off to huh. If I cut off Tom wait I got to cut
him off. I mean, what the fuck is that? Oh God,
it's awful. But it's the theme song for a paradise alley. It's too
soon for two clothes for paradise? Too close to Hell? I don't know.
I think we're in hell, pal Yeah, I think we're close enough.
Yeah. So yeah, Now he you know, he films the movie.
You know, he wants to do it early because he's like, if
he's if he's young, then he can he can fail, and then he
can blame it on his youth and he can, you know, improve,
which is kind of exactly what happened, because he went on to direct movies
and still directs movies, and you know, he's pretty good at it.
You know, he knows. He's also come to terms with what he is
and what he can offer. And that's that's the important thing, is I
guess what, Pal you're not. You know, nobody wants to see you
as an actor. They want to see you as an action star or Rocky.
That's about it. And I bet you notice a correlation. Once he
came to terms with that, less and less comments about his arrogance. Yes,
the press exactly, this is what what in papers? This This is
the Globe and Mail. They said, they wrote this it. So that's
just alone. Came roaring in with Rocky. It was as if he was
saying to the moguls of Hollywood, Look, you can play your games,
but I know what this business is all really all about. In fact,
I am what this business is all about. No, I'm sorry, pal
uh. And And here's the biggest evidence of that. Because as the hours
drew closer to finishing the whole film, universal as studios do, as we
know, we've we've heard many tales so are about the interference of studios,
they decided to swoop it didn't make changes to the movie, which compromised the
picture. In Stallone's eyes, I guess the movie was really a lot longer.
But well, here I'll let Stallone. This is from that Roderbran interview.
He blames Stallone, blames himself for part of the Paradise's Alley Paradise Alley's
poor reception. I'll never forgive myself with the way I allowed myself to be
manipulated. During the editor of the film, he said, well, there
were a lot of scenes in a give the atmosphere and character, and they
wanted them out just to spewed things along. They were moved forty scenes together
altogether. I put tune of them back on the in for the version of
showing on TV. For example, the whole sequence of the soldier without legs
sitting on a bar eating peanuts. Yeah, I missed that scene. I
really do it, just man. Around the time of the making of the
movie, there were these fun this is this is something that's lost in today's
world, the writing to newspapers to ask just questions. Do you remember that?
You mean, like general curiosities like uh, like writing to the sports
columnist like who holds the all time home run record? Yeah? And then
publishing those things yeah yeah, yeah, I mean does that still happen No,
not really. I mean it's kind of like a million off shoots of
Dear Abbey, almost like vice columns slash looking for information. I heard that
this is true? Is this true? So here's one. This is this
was This was printed in the True in the Scranton Tribune. I've seen I've
seen the movie Rocky four times and it's fantastic. I just have to write
so selvester Stallone, can you please tell me his address? Sure? This
this Janine Williams Cooperville's Virginia Jane. I'll do you one better. I'll publish
it in the fucking page. Right, I'll make people realize what a fucking
indat you are. How about that, Janine? Well, they did respond,
is it? If you love Rocky that much, you'll be excited to
know that two more Stallone films are on the way. He recently completed Fist
for United Artists, a fictional account of of the labor union Federation of Interstate
Truckers. Salone is currently in New York filming Paradise Alley for Universal. It's
the only It's the story of three brothers growing up in Hell's kitchenary of New
York and guess what they don't give an address the fucking right to Alon.
Well, maybe she can look up the address for the filming location, right,
and yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. This one from
the Seguin Gazette Enterprise. Hop story journalism to have like you. You really
are not a world class publishing outfit if your name isn't the Gazette Enterprise.
Okay, I'm a big fan of Saves Stallon's and I love the movie Rocky.
I already was writing a sequel to a Rocky two. It's just true.
This is from Emma Marzo Kennor New York. As true as Rocky's left
jab, which is kind of ironic because it's that means it would be not
true because Rocky's a character, not a human being. It's a fictional account,
right. Stallone has plans for a sequel in which the Italian Stallion has
to cope with sudden fame. He says the ending will be sort of something
of a surprise, but that project's a long way off the moment. First,
Salone is gonna sell his new flick Fist, then his novel Paradise Alley,
about a bum wrestler from ELL's Kitchen, New York, which is just
released. That he's going to work on the film of Paradise Alley, So
you'll be seeing and hearing a lot from your main man, even if he's
not in the boxing ring. Thanks guys. Now, I'm all intrigued by
this Fist movie. I know Norm jewish In, the director. He likes
it. Actually, he likes it a lot. Interesting. He thinks it's
one of the more powerful movies that he's made. To me, sounds like
bullshit, But you know, I'm who am I? Who am I?
Here's a critics line on a poster here. The only recent American movie concomparable
to Fist is The Godfather. That's a that's a bold statement. A bold
statement, folks. So everything was said and done, and uh oh,
why do I think it was released November. I'm sorry, I made a
mistake here. Paradise Alley was released September twenty two, nineteen seventy eight,
a week before the novel came out. And that's my bad. I apologize.
That's about probably been people listening to the whole episode fucking screaming from the
top of the show that I got the fucking that I got the date wrong,
So just by a month, by month, though not by year,
right, No, by a week, by a couple of months. I
mean I said, I said it was I said it was November when it
came out, But it was September when it came out. You don't want
you don't want to know the listeners that won't let that go. I know
it's true. I know who it is. I know who it would be
like that too. So hold on, I'm gonna check something out quickly because
I feel like I did read it somewhere, and there's one other place.
Did you get worked? Did yeah? I did get worked? Yeah?
Because okay, so on, well let's see here I'm gonna get I'm gonna
get the bottom of this ship, right the fuck Now? We tend to
do that, do we not. I'm not fucking dicking around here. It
says here, so on, so on. On the Internet Movie Database it
says September twenty second, nineteen seventy eight. Yet on the Wikipedia it says
November two, nineteen seventy eight. Make up your minds, folks, Yep,
we need clarity. I haven't fucking got all day. But all right,
so it was so preferably resolve this by the time we're done recording.
Thank you. I don't just someone someone answer even though you know whatever.
So yeah, so there we go. It was released some time in the
fall of nineteen seventy eight. The movie gross seven million, one hundred and
eighty five thousand, five hundred and eighteen dollars on a budget of do I
have a budget. I don't have a budget. Oh, fortunately, but
I got word that it might have been. It should have been around six
million dollars. Okay, So it made money. Yeah, it made like
a mill. It actually it did make money compared to Suburban Commando. Didn't
make enough money. No, it did not. It did not end.
It never will and that's just the way it goes. Thanks for that.
I wasn't expecting you to go that far. Holla, hollallallalla, lying holler
if you hear me. And let's get to the reviews, because you know,
there's nothing, there's nothing like like reviews for this fucking for shit.
Paradise Alley lacks Rocky's primal simplicity. It's a parade of outrageous ploys that come
pelting at you from all angles, outrageous beginning at a girl's ankles. The
camera slides up the old Sadie Thompson pan to the worldly wise face of a
hooker. Outrageous, the super Hulk brother having his vocabulary expanded by his girl,
the daughter of a Chinese laundryman, outrageous, the ten Cents, a
dance girl who's also a sensitive sculptor. Animal power. Some of Stallone's outrageous
charm and real energy. Some are appalling mixtures of both of both, such
as the climactic Titanic rastle between Victor and the villainists, Monster Frankie the Thumper,
I'm forced a loone. As a performer, he has that rare treasure
animal power. As a filmmaker, he's engagingly arrogant, and he gives lots
of screen time to an army of appealing new performers. Stallone is real bull,
but he needs to learn that the function of a bull is not to
smash up a chimash shop. Okay, you know, subtle subtle there by,
I would like to have that job, watch movies and then be a
fuck face when I get back to the office. Oh that's the best little
watch entertainment, and then have people talk shit about it. Now, would
you want to watch a movie with a movie critic? No? Why would
you want to read? I mean, I am painting with a very broadbrush.
There were some movie critics I think are just lovely to read and who
really enhanced my enjoyment or understanding or appreciation of films. But for the most
part, it seems to be a sweepstakes to see who can turn the more
clever phrase then offer insight into the picture. And I do not support such
exercises. Wow, what do you know? Right? What the fuck do
you That's why you know, That's why you're not in the business. Son,
Well, we can talk. Where is it here? It says,
I'm sorry, and I think faded out there for a second. This is
a this is a long long review. I'm not gonna read the whole thing
from from New York magazine, but the uh, okay, here we go.
This is Paradise Alley has some moments of warmth and its portrayal of gaudy
neighborhood bars and dance halls, gangsters, bimbos, and hangers on, but
the movie is so hyperbolic and synthetic you don't believe a minute of it.
The principal interior set a nightclub with a wrestling ring is a bulbous fantasy land
in which each character, pinned by his tagline, sounds like someone out of
a garuless, anecdotal, fake, chummy old radio program. In the wrestling
scenes, Stallone redes the upbeat plot of Rocky even though wrestling is a phony
sellout sport. Let's get that fucking shit. Let's get Dutch ship. It's
a funny sell out sport. Wrestling is a phony sellout sport. That's what
the fucking movie boils down to, phony sull out port. That's correct.
The final bout, in which huge bodies go flying through the air and crash
into the floor for what seems like three hours, left some people in the
audience cheering for Lenny's victory. Our audience is so eager for upbeat ending endings,
they'll cheer anything. Was the seventies, I know, right? Oh
for sure, Oh for sure. It was art to not end the movies
on a happy note. Oh oh my god, he's kidding me. The
seventies is that's it? Like, that's that's that's where you fucking have all
the the harshest u endings of movies. People fucking literally starting with you know,
it started with two movies actually that really kind of usher then in Bonnie
and Clyde and easy Spoilerer for anybody on. But like, yeah, the
fucking lead characters get wasted in the end, totally easy, not drum.
They get fucking destroyed, spectacular crashing flames. Sure that one, sure and
that uh and that. It's like, well, Nixon, So we were
right, you know what I mean, like we were right to not celebrate
Axon. Yeah. See that's what it is. You know, you know
what is America? You know? Right? What is it? Wealth of
tom Kin? Man? Like me, every year we celebrate the birth of
what on the fourth of July. I mean, I don't know, man,
that just seems like a bunch of I think that's bullshit. Wait till
someone says imperial Countavill, someone says imperial someone's going to mention the CIA.
You know, that's the thing about it, you know, we we're talking
about an imperial force, you know, and you why, like why do
we need spies? You know, why can't we be open and honest about
things? Yeah, we've got the CIA like investigating everybody and their mom.
What kind of country are we living in where that's okay from the end times?
You know, I mean, I'm sorry, you know, if this
is this is the end of days, and fuck it, I'm I'm you
know, I'm going to celebrate and just get drunk high and fuck yeah.
Well, off to Time Square, you go. It's epidemic. The AIDS
epidemic had yet to rage, so there was no no. That's that's a
fucking that's a that's a hoax. You know, that's all a hoax that
was created by the government to to to just to stop me from having to
stop me from having clockwork orange three ways supposed. I want to go out
and have fun, and the government says, no, you can't do that,
and I say, fuck that, you know, I I listen.
I want to go out and do things that are against the law, that's
okay. I want to not shave my pubes. Look, I'm I'm going
to go out there and I'm going to take my cock out and whip it
around. And that is totally within the bounds of my rights. And you're
telling me, oh, there's a pandemic, I can't go out. You're
here's a modern day Okay. I thought we were still in the seventies.
I switched. He's kind of back and forth. Well, see know,
the difference is all of those things now, you know, dialed up.
Yet nobody thinks anything but happy ending, so appropriate, right, Yeah,
that's a difference. That's true. It gets it gets worse, yet we
run even harder to have get lost there. I'm sorry, well I got
lost. I guess I missed that that migration point there, But hey,
Roger Stone is involved in both decades. That's true. Good point though,
good point. So there is another a long passage from a book called Staying
Alive, which by Paul Raymaker. But I just want to cut to the
to the chase here at the end, where again, you know, he
kind of the movie the movie has. The legacy of the movie has changed
a bit. It's a little more celebrated then than it was when it was
first released. He writes, in most respects Paradise Alley must be counted as
a trial run at writing, directing, and starring. It is a film
of its era, partaking of the conventions of the nineteen seventies period piece and
self consciously paying homage to classical Hollywood. And it's a looking narrative. At
the same time, the kind of stylistic patterning scene in Paradise Alley would recur
in Stallone's films right through to Rocky Balboa, reaching in a A and a
puff fe apotheosis there it is apothiosis in the particulously designed montage is of Rocky
four. From Rocky Tew to Rocky Forest alone would develop a recognizable, even
influential approach to blockbuster form and style, fore grounding, melodramatic constructions and montage
sequences. If his films bear a signature, it is found in those areas.
I always love that if his yes, like, well, what if
they didn't, if there is one thing that is good right, what if
there's not right exactly? If if he were anything, it would be It's
like it's such a cop out, you know, it's like, say something
declarative. Don't like leave yourself this wiggle room to where if what you just
kind of this this flurry of assumption that you had about the phenomenon you're observing.
Don't give yourself this out to say, well, I said, you
know, if or he can be forgiven if he thought this, well,
did he think it or not? You know? Yeah, right. You
didn't ask that question, but you decided it was a good lead when you
go back to the office, so you just slap that on there. I
notice, I'm watching God damn it, and I notice, and then our
good friends at Kahier Ducinema wrote another essay on the movie again, kind of
more celebrating it in later years. I'll read in the final paragraph after his
victory and right before the closing credits, Victor embraces his brothers, exclaiming,
I like it better when we are brothers. This optimistic ending takes a lot
of nerve. Cosmo, Lenny, Victor. Each one has their turn to
be the quote unquote brain. Their union is the Horizon viet just like just
like the Enfant duplecle half Orphans, they share family and childhood secrets. Lenny
knows how to make Victor invincible by whispering a few words in his ear.
The only way to stay brothers is to bet on winning together, not to
fight a war, but for example, to have a wrestling match. And
it is the scene of the final match where Victor and Frankie the Thump are
fighting tensely, each one of their family, each for each one for their
family each of their two bodies take many hits, some of them right to
the face. The catch of the whole situation, just like it's with cinema,
is that it's rigged, and we know it. Stallone takes its pleasure,
a pleasure that its first child is to film this trick for what it
is. His film is a great film, it's semima, and if people
do not go to see it, they have lost a good opportunity to love
the semima. You know, I'll tell you there's no one that celebrates the
cinema more than those who make cinema. Yes, indeed, you have a
public here or is this a circle jerk? What's the I love the similar
I make semima I aren't create. It's so funny how these actors grow up
up like wanting to be Bogey. Yes, and so they eventually, once
they get big, they find themselves that they squirm their way into a project.
They've finagle their way into a project where they can dress up like nineteen
forties Hollywood stars again. And I notice, and I say thumbs down,
like stop stop trying to chase that clout, like be define your generation as
an actor, don't don't just like run back to being a classical person where
you know what what you pine for days when you had no accountability. You
know, basically you pine for a day when you know Matten a idol.
Movie stars could just act with impunity in every possible arena of their lives.
A variety would just consider it fun, good fun. It's just weird to
me. I don't know. I mean, it would be like someone coming
along today and trying to pattern themselves after Luthez. You s that wouldn't mean
money. Well, I'm not saying no one's tried it, but it's like,
it's not like every successful wrestler eventually gets to the point where they want
you to see them portrayed as the wrestlers of the forties or the fifties.
But that seems to happen with most Hollywood stars, and I eventually want a
little bit of that, a little bit of that. Sure, you know
who's the actress I'm looking for? Uh? Fuck? What's her name?
From Connecticut? Oh? Katherine Hepper Thank you, Katherine heppern, I remember
she's from Connecticut and not her fucking name. That happens. They want to
be Katherine Hepburn and they want to be Bogey and they want to be sure.
They want to be carry Grant, and they won't be. No,
that's not gonna happen. So, as we said, after the movie was
panned, Stallone blamed himself again. This from the Roger Ebert interview. And
I've got a lot of trouble with the first interviews. I started giving up
the walking Camo. He said. I kept some tapes of them, of
some of them, and I was listening to the other day. I'll come
over with the pretty big opinion of myself, and I staid a lot of
things I was supposed to be funny that weren't. I got the critics down
on me, and they're retaliated by attacking Paradise. Alley call it insatiable retribution.
So he blames his own personal flaws on the public platform for being the
reason the critics didn't like the movie. I say, they don't like the
movie because it's not a very good movie. But that's just me. Yeah,
it sounds like he's at a very defensive position on this, and he's
preparing a menu of excuses that have nothing to do with meditating on the relative
merit of his work. Indeed, and the legend of the name Paradise Alley
continues today from four one one Mania. Paradise Alley. Pro Wrestling, which
is run by former W and WCW superstar Paul Roma and former enhancement talent Mario
Mancini, has been hit with a seasoned assist letter after being deemed adult entertainment.
PAPW released the details of the situation on Twitter, stating that the company
needs its fans to help fight back against the Town of east Haven after being
given the pornography label. PAPW has been given a season desist order by the
Town of east Haven and we have been labeled as adult entertainment pornography. Please
help us in this fight. We love all our fans and want to continue
creating shows that create memories for you. How about creating moments as well,
the company wrote on Twitter. The letter from the city includes that it was
made aware of an event on August twenty seven that violated the rules in place
on adult oriented business and entertainment establishments. Due to that, the city has
warned PAPW to stop all wrestling activity or face potential finds and criminal charges.
PAPW currently has thirty days to appeal the city's decision. If the company takes
no further action, the city will consider it an admission of being liable of
violating the zoning law. Wrestling. Wrestling is for children, await The commissioner
says, yeah, child pornography. Yeah, that's not what you mean,
commission. Come on, have take a break. Let me let me cover
you up at the cape. Like James, I saw it, They fucking
take to take the kids out. They quote unquote entertain the children commission.
That hasn't been the case for many, many years. There was I saw
it with my own eyes. Children in a porn house. Oh, the
famous porn houses, House of Pornography. It's like my son's bedroom. Yeah,
I wonder why the city had a problem with that business locating right next
to the Barnes and Noble House of Pornography. What imagine I invite you to
imagine opening, you know, a typical five and ten, you know,
just like an old style, down home variety store, you know, with
a soda fountains and penny candies and apothecary and greeting cards. And you call
it house of pornography. And I'm with the House of porn mob What do
you want but here's the but here's the thing. The owner said, we
don't carry any pornography. Like he really is upset that. I just thought
it'd be a clever title of a of an for a for a business.
Even better that he refuses. Every time he's asked, well, why and
the fuck did you name the place the house of pornography? The owner always
talks right past the question, or you know, well why not? Doesn't
matter? No, he doesn't, he doesn't, He does not acknowledge it.
He just simply says, well, what's the We do not carry any
pornography, so what's the problem. I could see if we had pornography here?
Like, he never answers the question of why. It's almost as if
he's been forced, through some silent agreements, ask me, okay, well
sorry, I simply have to ask. And it looks like you're running a
very wholesome operation. We are, we are. We have a very very
clean establishment, and we like to keep it that way. I mean,
wouldn't life be so much easier if you just renamed the store? Why do
you have to call this place the house of pornography? But we don't have
any pornography? Yes? No, I certainly understand that I see it with
my own team the lack. Then why do you ask the question? Well,
I just it seems that all of the trouble that's being heaped upon your
shoulders by the city and all this negative publicity just to ass back to the
fact that you have a name that doesn't at all match the content and the
character of your store. Well, I don't understand what that means. Can
you please explain yourself? Well, I mean, I mean to say that
if you're not carrying pornography, why would you call your store house of pornography
but we don't carry it. I don't understand why you have to ask the
question when it's very obvious that we don't carry pornography. What's so hard to
understand? Fine, I'll rename the store two weeks later, dissolved to the
new sign we don't carry pornography as the name of the store. He still
doesn't get the point that you've got to take the word pornography out of the
name. He calls it House of kunt Yes, calls it, calls it
Splooge World, the House of conne Lingus. No, he renames the store
from a House of pornography too. I just came and it got with like
an with like a drawing of like of a cock that's coming. He puts
right exactly, He puts actual like artwork up there of the exact depiction that
he's trying to run away from. And you go inside and it looks like
the pharmacy that young Jimmy Stewart works in. Mister collar, Oh, myster
car, why why why? Why is it? The house have come?
Mister goll you like coconuts? Bitch? Yeah, bitch, do you like
coconuts? I'm gonna I fucking break this coconfrat you out him? Hand up?
Dog all right, dog in your ash. Moving on with Paradise Alley
the cinemat uh and to close, like we have discovered countless times uh over
the course of the laps fan and under the cinemat uh the earliest of times,
as early times we can find pro wrestling having happened and occurred. People
have known the outcome was predetermined, And even in promoting this movie, Sylvester
Stallone knows that outcomes are predetermined, and only one person knows the outcome of
this brawl. And I ain't. Wow, that's awesome. That's great.
Now, are you ready to feel the thunder in Paradise Alley? Let's see
that, Kirsty. Here we go. Are we're gonna crack this puppy open?
Oh, let's fucking watch this motion picture event. I man, here
we go. It's time to deep dive under the cinemat and roll the projector
and three two one play. Yes, we have text, we have of
a spinning globe. We have black and white imagery. We have we have
universal a universal art. Does doctor Strange love or Paradise Alley? A cat
mews in an alley in Hell's Kitchen? That's right, that's the way that
that's this is what Hell's Kitchen was like in the in the forties. For
truth, it's a period period piece. Indeed, how nineteen seventies is that
faun? Huh? Oh my god? They glows too, It's like,
okay, the glowing New York City nineteen forty six looks like the typeface of
a Mels Diner. I don't write seriously now. I was wondering, actually,
what what Hulk Cogan would think about this movie, and and Stallone's directing.
This is what he said. Actually, I don't think he was ready
that was the problem. Brother. Yeah, So like here we establish the
this this weird betting. You know he Stallone's character is a is a get
rich quick kind of guy, right, and so he's always looking for quick
ways to make a buck, including this race coming up here. Yes,
dressed like news like a goonies here, so fucking weird? Is that Urmand?
Send them on their way? No, no, no, no,
no, that's the bad guy. And here we're gonna get listen for the
dulcet tones. Oh m hmmm. Two clothes to Hell. Yeah, I
don't know. I don't think you're too close to Hell. I think you're
fucking balls deep in it. Right, they're doing track and field and street
clothes in the forty right, I have no fucking idea. It almost looks
like that they're running off of roofs and jumping off roofs and stuff and get
it, like what but what are they doing? Like did that just say
introducing Armando Sante? It did? It was his first movie, so usually
you get the introducing credit. Oh yeah, oh yeah, he's all over.
I guess they are jumping roofs. Yeah, they are there. It
is so weird. Step no, oh god, Frank Stallone's in this movie.
Wow. Yeah, he plays a singer in the club Terry Fun.
That Frankie Muniz Malcolm in the middle looks like him. Terry Funk just appearing
in the credits. There there it is my name. Yeah. I think
Hollywood should have known they had a headcase on their hands when he insisted on
singing the title track to his second movie, God the Running, Stop it,
that's what he has always blinking clothes Stallone's blinking Joy singles. Oh jeez,
two closing stops two closed. He Mary is Tom Waits Tom waiting for
his real identity, Right, I'm waiting for Tom Waits for No One Bill
Conti Ladies and Gentlemen music by Bill Conti, Eve Newman, our editor,
poor woman. But he looks like Franky Muniz right there. I'm sorry that
is not in the middle, although he's off to the right more than the
middle. Well, you know, I get the conceit of this opening montage,
but that's about enough. Yes, I've been watching these guys jump buildings
and slow motion and oh, I'm so bored like dress like newsboys for about
fifteen minutes. Now. Now, I asked you if you saw this movie.
But I didn't ask you if you liked this movie. I don't remember
feeling one way I was watching. It really is like a wrestling artifact.
Sure, to be honest with you, Yeah, I hear you on that.
Oh listen, he's fucking yeah them Paradise. The difference is too hard
to tell between Paradise and Hell. I'm still watching these guys run. It's
the same thing over the middle is stressing. It's like the Randy Orton bray
Wyatt storyline, the same fucking thing visuals that are supposed to make an impression
upon us, but they insist on running them dry. You make an impression.
I am not impressed, sir, thinking an impression on my forehead as
it crinkles and besmirchment. Oh oh, Malcolm missed it. She's fall into
his she's taking a bump. Is he dead? Oh no, it's just
funny games. God, what a strange get you, grease ball. Look
at Angle. This is so his brother the sky that fell camera Angle.
So the guy that fell between the buildings grabbed onto a clothes line after about
thirty story fall and it is fine, of course cool, I mean,
and of course the clothes line didn't break or anything. They couldn't wait till
the wrestlers got to the ring for the clothes lines written directed starring. I'll
look at that. See they did with the money. They fucked him.
They fucked him with the money while they give him fake money. Well,
they gave him real money. But it was all it was. He couldn't
it was all ripped up. Well, he was so close to paradise,
but he was just as close to hell as it turned out. That's yeah,
who would have known? That? Got not much of a difference in
either one o those nineteen forties New York streets look inviting. Oh god,
like there is a place I never want to live in a time I never
want to live in. It's like this depression era New York. Yea loading
the legless veteran into the model t here is this gentleman. Who's this guy?
That's that's Victor, Yes, and that ain't no veteran, the veteran
of the ring hustling. Yeah, what a guy can't make peanuts pretending he's
a cripple. The world's going to hell? How might you stop pretending?
Maybe that's step one? Yeah, that exactly, stop pretending. So Victor's
the brother. Then, yes, Victor, that that's that's Lee Cantelino,
right from Texas. Yes, the oh oh, he sees him. He
sees a looker from Dame in the sidewalk. His cot slies eye. Nice
ear ring, by the way, in nineteen forty six, right, who
fucking wears an earring? And like nineteen forty get arrested in nineteen forty six
for being a guy wearing a hoop ear ring? Right, because it meant
that you liked cock or at least the authorities may suspect as much. Right,
that's an archer. The actor there, she's She's been in a bunch
of stuff, I would say, most notably as uh as uh what's uh
huh as uh Harrison Ford's wife in the Jack Ryan movies. She plays missus
Ryan. That's a little sum in my head. So to make me stand
down on the crowd, you know, like he's acting like Rocky. Oh
yeah, that's why I thought this movie came first. I thought Rocky was
just like an adaptation of this guy. No, like Rocky is this guy?
Shit? What's the character's name again? Uh? Cosmo? Okay,
great, Cosmo CARBONI fuck me are you serious. Cosmo Lenny and Victor our
bony. There's Victor. The movie about a guy named Cosmo Carboni. Hey,
Hey, I was looking about Hey the movie is a boy, a
guy named Cosmo Carboni. You know he's got a brother, little Victor.
He's got another Blenny. Oh why are they screaming at this old man?
This is a dick. That big block of ice that guy. Oh look
at that hallway. Man, it's the old days. Man fucking gonna bring
a block of ice to people, could deliver ice. You imagine that that
you needed to have a giant block of ice to survive. And there he
is our momba something. Wow, yeah, what is he? That fucking
cadavers in there? What is this like a laboratory? I don't know.
I think he's Is he a corner? I don't know. It's corny.
Yeah, it is wearing a hat like that fucking idiot. God stop it
scowy cap almost hanging off the side of his head. I know, so
annoying. It's like that hat is just too close to paradise and too close
to hell at the same time. And Armando Sande is like the love child
of of Adam Scott and uh, Melissa McCarthy's husband. What's again? Oh
wait, they're in this movie. Hey, this guy does not look like
the guy who's talking in those interviews, Carol cap Canalito. You know,
like he does not sound like that. Like when I I guess here's my
point. When I listen to those interviews, I don't picture a guy looking
like this in the least Slide just said. This place is starting to annoy
me. And I think we sure nothing in common. Lenny's a cripple.
Oh we just Charlie Chaplin for his brother. It's funny, it's clever because
victors of What an Idiot? So is what an idiot? So? Victor
is Armanda Santees No, Lenny is Armanda Sante. No, no, pardon,
Victor is Armanda Sante's brother. Yes, you got three. Those are
the three brothers brothers. Okay, yeah, I thought Slide was not related
for a second. This is very Scorsese. I have to say, like,
that is definitely a that that that that shot up clothes with the red
vibes and then pulling out like that. I'm like the lapse fan that's gonna
say, yeah, Scorsese. He's known for pulling out. Huh. I
don't know about that, not from what I've heard. I don't get which.
I guess she's a hooker, but she doesn't fuck anybody. Oh yeah,
it seems like that guy in the navy costume or whatever the fuck he's
wearing paid her to dance. And they're all in a line here next to
the jukebox. What a quarter in there via PayPal? Why don't you that's
right? I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't pay for
the dance. I pay for putting something else in the slot. Jesus Christ,
Oh badly, here he comes. Don't get the customers to hard time.
You're fucking wars guy the general manager, Yes, yes that is.
I don't know who's the general manager for all these days? Nobody? What's
her name? An archer? Twenty bucks for a good time. That's what
it went, four and forty six. That's all you needed, man,
twenty bucks, twenty marks get you a good time. Two dollars dollars Because
she's a whore. Imagine that, two dollars and that's like an actual acceptable
bid yep for pussy. I can buy a twat for two dollars. Did
he just say get out of here, you know, see little perfect,
or I'm gonna slap you, silly, get out of here, a little
perfect. I'm gonna slap your selling tremendous Mahan's bar, Macmahan's Bar. Yeah,
this is definitely. This is definitely where Jimmy Stewart was gonna get by
left as a chasa or no is what is it? I'll slip you on
my left as a convince. That's what it is. I think they're Bartender's
right there. Actually I see him. Oh my god, it was so
brown, you know what I mean? Earth tones. That's such a very
that's a very like seventies portrayal of this era. You know, there's a
lot of vibes in the movie of not only some some Scorsese stuff, but
also like Scorsese want to be stuff, but also like I gotta vibes of
Once upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone as well. Like that.
They're just a lot of weird. The film doesn't know what it wants to
be. It's really the case. That's that's the problem. It doesn't know
what it wants to be, and that's rarely ever a good thing. It's
if it knows it doesn't. If it knows that it doesn't know what it's
want to be, that's a whole different story then that. That's like almost
a creation of satire right there, but very very Funk with a monkey on
his shoulder. Ye, he's had a monkey in his back in his whole
life. Look at him, look at the Funk or he does not look
like the ECW Terry Funk No, or Chain saw Yeah, or even the
the nineteen eighty nine Rick Flair feud. Terry Funk No. Easy to forget
that well, of course, always associated with West Texas in the Double Cross
Rancher Amarillo. Terry Funk actually born in Indiana. His face looks like it,
I mean he does. His face does look flat and like pudgy.
So Slide is gonna step to Terry Funk because that was gonna know to mahone,
the borrower to the it's his names Skags or whatever, what's his name,
Stitch Stitch, Stitch sideburns stitch, yeah, right, Stitch Jones the
place. So he's gonna make it bet Terry Funky and we walk by.
You can go shoot ash someplace outside your fucking piece of shit he's avoiding wops.
Who avoiding wops? I know what you mean. This neighborhood's crawling with
degenerate fire and his Yeah, I agree. There is Funk steps up your
side show looking freak at that. So I recognizes him as a great wrestler.
That is Terry Funk. Frank the Fumpo do m. He's making fun
of his brother. Say, his brother can haul four hundred and fifty pounds
of ice, So can your wrestler boy do that? Frankie the thumper steps
forward? What about four hundred and fifty pounds of ice? Train? It
was funny how Sylvester salone outside of his outside of his Hall of Fame appearance
for Hogan, He's never really done anything with w WA. No, not
really he has and he hasn't done like a guest appearance or a an angle
or anything like that. Yeah, it seems kind of weird, like he
seems to be very heavily involved and a fan of using the clowns. Yeah.
Remember he used Hogan before he was Hogan, you know, yeah,
right, you'd think Hogan would have brought him in. Yeah, especially in
the rock and Wrestling era, you know, totally or even more so in
his early WCW rain when Stallone also was on his down swing. Don't forget
we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I think it's library ninety
four now. On the set of What Was It? Demolition Man, Jesse
was able to Stallone to do a interview with Eric Bischoff for Saturday Night.
Right, it's about it though, it's life famously put on a WCW baseball
cap. What's he trying to convince his brother to do here? Arm wrestle,
Terry Funkle, arm wrestle? Okay, yeah, yeah, it takes
about forty minutes to get into the fucking wrestling club. Is this where Scott
in the arm wrestling part? Yes, Like it's a weird fucking thing that
takes so long to to get into the wrestling Like, that's what it's supposed
to be about. Those bare knuckled Bob, I guess about the brothers really
and all that horseshit. The portraits of the bare knuckled boxers on the wall
of this pub would on the cage called Armanda Sante a gimp, powerful,
powerful Fermanda Sante. I would agree that'll love the frill around lamps in the
forties. Do you know what I mean? I mean, we're talking a
Christmas story prime shit here. Oh Funk just called Victor puke and spit in
his face. He reminds me a stand Hanson and holds barred right now.
He does, he does. There's a lot of stand Hans in here.
I just you know, it's funny seeing a lot like how bulky he was
there. He goes like, I don't. I can't picture Terry Funk having
arms like that. I think of him as rather spelt right. He looks
like an absolute beefy beast right now, and like I wouldn't want to ever
come near him. Victor Sly's brother and Terry Funk now and raptured in an
arm wrestling contest in this bar Frank and Victor, what's moving? No one's
budging. You're ready for them, You're ready for the longest arm wrestling match
of all time. Yeah, I'm still waiting. It's just to be over.
Yeah, it's it's they ain't well, they ain't getting over, and
it ain't gonna be what I'm saying. Yeah, jeez, Terry Funk's eyes
are rolling up in the back of his head. Something going on under the
table as well, well, something going on under the cinemat that I can
tell you. Schools will be take yeah, pretty much. Come on,
this guy fucking still going bartender holding the bat slow dissolved to everybody in the
bar, like so they're basically insinuating that this. There's Tom Waits, look
at on by his affect. Mamba Sunday. Absolutely, he definitely like he
qualifies having his name said like that. Autommba Someday. Oh yeah, it
was made to be pronounced as such. There's the monkey eating some bar peanuts,
Like, what the fuck is going on? Like, I've like,
I've never heard of of a of a arm wrestling fight. Take him this
long? This is a curious directorial decision here. Yes, who directed this
again? They'll be that man right there, thank you. Now, Victor
has not changed the expression on his face at all. But fucking fucking Funk's
juicing from the nose, leading from the nose. That's how hard he's arm
wrestling right now. Yeah, it's sick of watching this. He told Armando
Sante to do something now, or do something more. Funk is very close
to winning here, but Victor is just not conceding, refusing to go that
last inch. Victor been doing this, you can win this. It's weird
because Funk's winning, but he's Funks the ones showing all the stress on his
face. I know, right, that's the funny thing about like I'm sweaty.
He is. Oh, I think we've got to come back, coming
here, time for Victor's shine spot. It's totally true. He's hulking up.
Did you didn't thank you for that? Holder? Come on, Vick.
It's like brock there a little bit too. Yeah, totally Funk.
Right, that's a great example of what you were saying. Who would ever
say Terry Funk resembles brock Lesner, right exactly. Oh my god, Victor's
turning the tides on the Funker. He's expression is so simple, like taking
huge shit. Like Schwarzenegger too. They're both taking huge sit shits. Victor's
Victor. Wow, Victor does it? She's a fuck An hour and a
half later, huh, I know, right? Like, have you ever
I mean, I don't know how many arm wrestling matches you've witnessed. I
haven't really witnessed too many, but like, like I just don't get it,
Like I don't think I've ever seen an arm wrestling match. Take that
take that long? To me, that doesn't seem possible. No, Yeah,
everybody's going back to listening to piano music and wearing Fedora's right, you
know, being happy, and it's like it's the forties, you're gonna dance.
No slide just ripped. I don't know what happened to his nose.
I don't know. We're supposed to what happened to Frank immuniss to happen when
he fell down a fucking skyscraper. At least he tweaked that bridge of his
nose a bit. Now, he told the name Knife just lies throat,
Victor Gorilla press slams and look at this. This is also a no holds
barred that's right from Dome like Daniel LaRusso is Victor. Yeah, I'm right,
the love child of fucking Ralph Macchio and still and and and Schwarzenegger's brando.
Yeah yeah, absolutely, Branda with the white T shirt and on the
waterfront. Yeah yeah. He said, you know, you saw some stylings
that made you think want to be Scorsese. What was the state of Scorsese
in nineteen seventies seven seventy seven, he would have been probably he would have
made taxi driver by then, right, I believe. Let me see if
they can find that still stillone just declared nature a funny, funny thing,
and now he's asking nature is funny thing? I want to buy a monkey?
You're gonna buy my ass? Huh? Victors enjoying his treat. It's
an ice cream cone for winning the fucking arm wrestling match. That's right,
the ice man with the ice with the ice cream. Just Christ the terry
funk joined the Black Panthers or something. Maybe the hell he's dressed like stokely
car Michael right now, right, Jesus cheated my boy. This lead heel
looks like a like almost like a miscast gangster, you know, like,
yes, exactly an Italian. But he's just some like Swedish guy. Sorry,
pale, you don't fit Wait gone, huhm? Is this guy a
promoter or what is he just he's a gangster of sorts right, Like he's
not really I don't know, he's not really anything really important. No,
he's not. We have a Victor has a flame here he does All walls
are brick In nineteen forty whatever. Oh absolutely, uh yeah, he would
have done taxi driver, mean streets by this point would have been scars sase,
so he would have his style would have been out there. You know,
it could have been very it could have been influential already. That's what
he'd done done New York, New York, Allison. No, yeah,
he didn't done a lot of his his movies. Okay, Victor's girlfriend assuring
him that we'll be out of here soon. I guess it's his girlfriend,
right, Yeah, yeah, well it's she. I mean she's her.
Her stare is creepy, like when she opens her eyes wide and it's like
she's gonna kill him. Susan. Okay, Susan. Victor loves Susan.
Yeah. H is that a foreign tongue? Fourign tongue summoning her supposed to
be like immigrant central Oh, miss child, I mean her, You're right,
Chinese, Chinese laundry guy. Any kind of stereotype they can fucking mustard.
Uh. Stallone wants to fuck an archer. Stallone wants to shove his
cock in her paradise alley or grandson Lance doing well in a w wow here?
I am well, I like this song. Take a shot him.
I think that's him. That's a gross and it's like that is the that
is the most unattractive drinking, Like just take a sip, man, like,
don't fucking drink the whole thing's dribbling down his chin for what reason?
Armand doesn't it h armand casting a drunken eye on Sticky's ballroom? The fuck
goes on in that place? Do do do doo? She kind of reminds
me of of of Shiv and Succession. Totally an archer, Yeah, a
little less Stephanie McMahon though, then ship is Stephanie McMahon. Yeah, she
really isn't she? And Kendall is shade. I mean, let's be honest.
Poor Kendall, poor k dog, k dog, the real k dog.
Not that fucking Conan sounds gold, sounds good. I'm sure Conan would
think Kendall it's a cranberry. I'm sure he would. Hey, buddy,
your doctor because you don't fuck it? No whatever. Oh, she just
left him hanging on a that's right, make out request. I want to
fuck you right, I want to eat your pussy, you know, I
want to get down on that ship. Hey, what the hell you taste.
I won't know if you see if you taste like my grandmother's meat ball.
You know, it looks like Armanda Sante is retreated to the cobwebs for
a nap. I like that. You're reading a book and still dressed,
and like, you know, that's such a Hollywood movie thing where where people
fall asleep in their clothes. Have you ever done that, Like, just
been so tired that you went into your into your into your bed and just
fell asleep wearing whatever you were wearing, my clothes and whatever Victor's wearing.
That's true. The onesie thing is definitely not a good look. It's like,
looks like fucking Scrooge in that thing. Yeah, I know what you
mean. No one else I always notice, probably because just practicality, when
people fall asleep at night in bedrooms on film, it's always they're always well
illuminated. Oh of course by the moonlight. No one ever fucking closes their
blinds or sometimes even more than the moonlight. Like, it's actually been striking
to me across movies and TV, like, yeah, it's like an accepted
conceit that you can just it's about atmosphere. Yeah, you know, we
can't see anybody if they're all in the fucking up. There goes the light.
Was that you'd better start counting the lives, because weren't not of the
MacAllister was here. Yeah, shut up, Victor. Is he supposed to
be like a man child? Basically? I suppose he's supposed to be like
what's his name? And of mice and men? Or I guess in this
one it's of cockroaches and men. Shit that it's gross. What is it?
What does he see? Cockroaches? Oh? I see? Okay right
there twitching that sly scrapped a baseball back to destroy this roach. I'll tell
you it's like that movie we made in college, right when he took the
gun to shoot a fly fly? Oh did he hit it? No?
They're still moving? No? Did I get it? Yeah? Are you
like it? Yeah? Jack m Victor likes his birdie. Yeah, Victor's
coming off. You know what? You know that? Uh? You know
why Sylvester Delone has his weird lip look and he and his slur. Oh
I don't hold on, look at this monkey's tied up? Was Yeah,
the monkey is tied up? Now? Was the the the Watchmen call it?
Actually, I should look that up. What do they call what the
animal thing? Monkey? Now? The the Association that protects animals? And
oh the ASPCA, yeah or Peter, No, it's the one that that
that that qualifies films. You know what people know? Armando Sante making that
long walk. I feel like this is that Denzel movie American Gangster too A
little bit yep. Everyone everybody's at a top coat. Everyone's got smoke coming
off their breath while they walked the streets. You know it's always winter,
ohn't she's a sculptor. Yes, that's right, the whore who sculps opever
to the ice facility. Victor is scraping down cubes. H hear that?
Yeah, dancing monkey. He said to him, you were going to be
the gimmick of a lifetime. Oh I didn't hear that part. Pick the
right film. A high heels has stepped in all the time to some heavy
saxophone. Ah, listen, guess who this is? Ah? There she
is? Say her name is? Oh? Fuck, Jane, can't think
of it? Angles singles, singles, Jane ship where to go get my
sheet back? That would be the fuck's her name? What's her name?
Fucking fucking stallone? He's asking joy singles, Joy singles, thank you j
asking stallone? If he's coming by tonight in the movie and in real life,
and in real life he's coming by, he's coming hard, He's coming
everywhere, Sasha would soon find out. Yeah, not very nice to this
monkey. It's not very nice, no, I said tonight. So he
just goes door to door to look in cubes. Huh, that's right,
someone's gonna do it. I still don't understand why this house looks like a
laboratory. I guess because they all have animals. And is he a corner
a corner? I guess they just bring carcasses up to walk up apartments.
And he's an undertaker. Yeah, there's not the undertaker, but an undertaker,
right, this movie is quite an undertaking, that's true. Victor accusing
sliced alone of swiping from the deceased. I regret that cigarette from the dead
man. That's right. Shut up. He just keeps talking. What a
massive tattoo has chest? It says chest on the tattoo. There's another stallone,
right there? Is that? Right? That Frank? That'd be Frank
just put a cigarette out of the night. The real singer, the real
fucking musician. Absolutely, okay, so of stallone is now dancing with Anne
Archer. Of course, the whole scene is flooded with red light to show
passion and lust, and well, the color red is a character in the
film. It's really right, Oh will you shore? The corner of red
is really a character in the film. And what we try to do with
the color, you know, trying to make the color gil because a lot
of colors washed out most of the movie. On what we're thinking is we
had the color red and these specific scenes of grades a sense of passion and
you know, and and and longing between the two characters. You know,
it's it's done as a as a as a motif getting stuck up, Oh,
trash can't lift. That's the twenty four seven champion who knews fucking whales
on him, fucking sick? What is the sunny corleone? Jesus Christ.
How he's gone into the hotel with an Archer and he's shirtless under his suspenders.
Are you sure it's Anna Archer? Actually no, it's not. It's
Joyce Ingles. Look at the twists. What a fucking swerve. Fucking I
think Vince Russeter just watched this fucking movie all the time. Yeah, we
have Jesset Bells and everything, Joyce Joyce singles. Look, it's weird.
He wants Anne Archer, but he's been dating Joyce ingles. I don't know
what the fuck she's been he's been doing. Sounds like SLID's real life wife.
Yeah, very See. That's why under the cinemat is such magic,
because I can now watch this scene knowing that they pounded like he had.
He had her ankles behind her ears. Oh yeah, on that bed.
Probably they probably came back after a rap one night. You know, they
fucking changed with for everyone else to leave, and he fucking ravaged her on
that bed, hard, relentless sex and she loved it. Let's be clear
about that, all right. That's that's the thing right there. She wanted
it hard, she needed it hard, and stallone was there to paradise and
halfway to hell. Right, that's right. Times the difference is too close
to tell, that's right, says That's that's exactly it, because you know
she's on the verge of pain, but she can't help feel the pleasure close
to paradise, too close to hell. Yeah, they're all going to like
the secret club where you have to give a password at the door. I
wonder what kind of club this could be, Probably a jazz oh a club.
Is it a club or is it duck club? See greasy haired grapplers
on the wall Classic wrestling pictures. There a guy on the on the left.
That's the sound I think he makes. So in the forties they just
not clean cobwebs, which just not a thing, of course not it's a
four. Yeah, you know, I'll look at this. There's craps tables,
there's gambling. It's a full hub of illegal activity. Ice. And
in the background, underneath the paradise alleys sign a wrestling ring where Rocky Johnson
looking motherfucker is throwing knees and shoves. It was a bearcat. Guys were
in a fucking tuxedo or a suit or whatever. Has he taken on all
comers? Who is this guy? Yeah, it's one of those Ronald's fights.
You get a you know whoever. You know, I understand what,
I understand what it's portraying, But who is that wrestler? He's not a
wrestler. Yeah, that's got to be a wrestler in real life. He's
an actor. Okay, I know he's he was in that fucking movie.
Uh, hold on, you have a carnival Barker here with the literal clown
knows, inviting one to come one, come all and take on their champion,
the NFL player Frank McCray. Oh, thank you, thanks very much
for that, Frank McCray. And he also plays he plays the Boss and
last Action Hero. Okay, yeah, coming soon to under the cinement.
Wow, actually have an illuminated sign that flashes above the ring after somebody else
is defeated, that says another bum. Do you get that sign for our
podcast studio? I know we don't change another ass. That's what it is.
Look at Amanda Sante. Look at he's fucking hanging Yeah, you know,
doing his thing with fucking subtle also kind of looks like a Uni.
It's like Dante and fucking Clarks. Yes, he's a Dante d Armanda Dante,
a Dante Asante Ashanti Ashanti, a Dante Sante ah Armando Landro Estrada.
What's in trouble we're doing? Sly is trying to get Victoria like just ditches.
The girl lies says, his brother's in trouble. See that taxidermy hanging
on the wall there did kfe Victor told him his brother was in trouble,
but he's just trying to get him down a paradise alley. It's right.
If you can't get him in the ring to take on old Frank McCray,
all you could do, says stinking ring Armond goes, he's not a wrestler.
Yeah, like like Stallone's excuse, that's kind of funny. I wonder
if that was a jab at people, and now, knowing what we know
now, Stallone says that the reason he's not going in there to fight McCary
on his own is because he's he's a couple inches too taller than him.
Oh wow, and he people said that he would that he apparently complained about
he wouldn't cast people taller than him. That's kind of funny, sly slide
being slide, Yeah, I'll say they apparently they would have minstrel shows in
the ring between matches. Don't trying to figure out why this guy has a
clown nose. Here comes Terry Funk because he's the he's the clowns because he's
the fucking promoter. Yeah right, that's what he is. So how long
do they announce that this thing is called the Battle of the Tough Guys.
I mean, really, I think no holds barred ripped this this off.
Yeah, and I mean, what's kids? Kids? Salamis his name,
kids, Salammy Kids, Salami avendous his fucking overalls with this. Maw's such
a fucking oaf that Dexter loomis in the ring and this is this is a
movie that has the best kind of wrestling where there's no pinfalls. It's like
a weird knockout type of format. You never really know what it takes actually
win a match, but people win when the bell rings the Battle of the
Tough Guys. You have to knock a guy off a balcony with a double
sledge and he falls through the floor and then it's over. Terry Funk screams
moron at Victor and they're pe peppering him with trash, like, oh,
look ahead, sucking an egg in the head. Victor just took an egg
in the head. I mean, I know he's had egg on his face
his whole life, but it's true. He's ready. What a what a
clean ring that is? They got a devil's head in the middle of it.
The word carnival. The ropes are like candy cane pattern red and white.
Interesting. Cray backing up Victor significantly to the strands. Victor getting his
jaw jacked here as he covers up, and he lifted the stern and puts
him through the ropes to then, what are you supposed to do? The
guy's never been in the ring before. Yeah, well yeah, slide goes
there ain't no law against fighting. Back Victor, shut up Stalan. The
other brother wants to get out of here, but Sly is embarrassed, so
back in. Victor goes. Fight. Be a man. If your brother
wants for the clown knows. Promoter tells Fred McCray, this guy's easy.
To the center. They come. McCray snatches his side headlock on the left
side. Must have been trained, very snug side headlock. Well done,
strangler Lewis style. Pushed to the corner. Look at this multiple shoulder shoulders
in the fucking corner there. Victor over under a clinch, snatched up by
McCray, but he shoved back. Victor good at getting out of the clinch.
Get those he's doing those uh Batista style brock Yeah, oh, big
overhand rights. Look at Victor just haul off with closed fists. So much
for the book. Huh oh, and concern etched on the face of McCray
as he hits the canvas. I think this thing's over. Like, that's
what is this? Judo? You throw a guy and you win. Now,
this is this is Stilone not knowing how wrestling actually works. Aarently he
could have just asked Terry Funk. Yeah. So this is harkening back to
a day when even though everyone knew it was a work, they still like
to gamble on the outcome. It was still associated with I didn't know who
was going to win, right, just because they know keep the match going
to spark gambling interest. You turn the tides right to make it more intriguing,
to put more money on the line, as if the underdog's gonna win.
But Victor took hold Tacoma Cool Benjamin in nineteen forty two. That's not
I don't know change, No, it is not. I don't know what
she does. I mean like she right, she and at some point just
kind of disappears the girlfriend. I mean, never break up, I don't
think, but she just disappears. It's bizarre. I mean, it's just
it's not bizarre, it''s not thought out. Maybe it's one of the eighteen
thousand scenes that Universal caught, probably in the movie. Okay, I don't
think he was ready. I agreet Terry so yes, Delane saying he sees
this is a one way ticket out of this neighborhood. Someone was going to
say it eventually, big argument with the other brother, Armanda Sante whatever Artemanda
some bank you and introducing and introducing Armanda Sante. I knew he would be
the ladies and gentlemen of this episode as soon as you said that name.
And I think he's good in this movie. He's doing great, fan,
but I think he's pretty solid and like shut up Stilone, like Jesus Christ,
insufferable, keeps talking and talking and talking and talking. You know,
something tells me he's more Cosmo than Rocky in real life. I yes,
I agree. Back to red lighting and Trump the saxophones, And it's very
much like we just keep going back and forth back and plays like Jesus like
we already saw this scene basically, yeah, with different people, different time.
Oh yeah I didn't. Oh yeah, yeah, he's in halfa is
Automond the sante Uh with Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito. That's a weird fucking
movie. Sure, sure is weird fucking case. That is true. Stay
there and artresses to sunting. What are you coming around for after three years?
You want to talk? You don't make it all better, do we?
Nobody's sorry for looking He's so The The story here is that they were
together, right, they were together. He went out to the war,
he came back with a limp, and he feels sorry for himself, and
so he let his relationship with her go. Poor lieutenant on their bat.
Now he's back and he's like, you know what I need that tang poor
Lieutenant Dan Forest, correct Mary Sineeze, Ladies and gentlemen. Oh it's Tom
wake Tom wa and I fast forward. It's like someone went to Emerson with
he probably did. He looks drunk and high, and like every he looks
like he's every tendition we went to drunk college. He looks like he's pretending
to be drunken high, right, exactly, much like all the kids we
wanted to call the musicians we went to college with, right pretending he doesn't
want the attention of girls. But right, right, but it's all part
of trying to get But pretending he doesn't want their attention is part of getting
their attention. Jesus Sante is such a creep. He's still following again.
Archer down the street doesn't want anything to do with you. Man. Oh
but this is there's no me too happening here. It's correct. There's the
forties, it's it's the men saying me too. Please Yet me next is
more like a nest me now. I don't want to be forgotten again,
an archer says, with her powdered red lips. That's exactly what Shiv said
to Logan Roy. Shiv's fucking Greg ganya bitch ass boyfriend. Oh my god,
he's totally Greg. Oh shit, that is fucking fun of us,
Nelly Minnesotan, He's he's insufferable. That fucking correct. It's like an archer
might be warming to or Monday Sunday. She needs the Sunday. She needs
to be the infernomo of on Amma Sunday. Thank you for that. Another
they're making out all of a sudden. I don't know that, he said,
but it worked. Get in there, Get in there. Mmm,
I'll tell you feel it. I didn't appreciate that this movie was so it
features wrestling and Terry Funk prominently, but it's really only twenty five percent of
the movie. Oh it's nothing, it's fucking Nothing's kind of annoyed by it.
Yeah, it is annoyed. I don't care about the story. I
wanted to see more wrestling. That's kind of what I was saying when you
asked me, you know if I watched this, It's like, yeah,
I watched it, but I kind of just watched the wrestling scenes. I
didn't really sit sit down and try to take it in as a movie an
intertality. Wrestling is actually a very pretty small part of this movie, and
I remember it being a much larger part. Yeah, I mean well,
because they also make it like it's it's promoted as being a big part of
the movie, but it's not at all. Right, Oh, the other
Creeper brother a fire escape. Watch this, this is great. The window
is absolutely clear, right, completely clear. But he's kind of fucking wipe
it down. No, that was bad. It is crystal fucking clear.
Basically looks like there's no window there. Right, You couldn't right, that's
the thing. But he knows Old Lenny has been sticking his cane in ann
archer. Oh that's an archer's window. Oh yeah, he likes to go
up there sometimes help steps from mound to Sunday adjusting his tie. Must have
had success last night. Does it ever not rain in Hell's kitchen every fucking
day? Not forty six? Man? God damn. Also, look for
the fucking main. Look at the bus there. That is definitely a modern
bus. Good call, good catch. I saw a bunch of these things,
like because they get these cars. I was like, how do they
you know? I wanted to look to see if there are any flubs.
Look, that's definitely modern cars driving by. Yeah, yeah, you're right,
modern tax season stuff. Yeah. Oh well, not so good with
the lockdown of the streets. Guys didn't pull permits right, Oh, must
be on the paradise side and they're on the hillside. I would say,
so, justn't have a front door, Sly, you have to go up
the fire escape and bang on her window. He's a creeper. He's quizzing
an archer about what he did with his brother, what she did with my
brother Johnny. No, don't tell me that you by smoke you with everybody.
If Linda were alive, you take two planes to get across it.
Yeah, this is the time of the year. I get really sad when
Christmas comes up because it's so far away. Oh we got nine months,
Bell, nine months. If a baby can happen between now and Christmas.
This woman who lives below Ann Archer was trying to call out Slict alone for
harassing her, and she said, I'll call the cops, and he goes,
oh, break your face now, sly, she's really going to call
the cops just grounds now, Yeah right, I mean threat, and Archer
closes her conspicuously crystal clear window. I know, like, I mean,
just stay there, watch your change. I mean, you're that's what you're
doing anyway, you creep in her fucking nighty, he says, I'm sensitive.
Laugh. I think these are all kind of jabs to critics from Rocky
one. Yeah no, not from Rocky one, but who the critics who?
Who? Who kind of jump on his ass after Rocky fascinating? Like
it just this makes sense. Why is she with him? Why is why
is Joyce and Ingles with Stallone when he's trying to fuck the other woman.
I don't get it. Yeah, there's just like a coin falls on the
street and she walks into the frame and we're asked to insert her into the
narrative with no guidance. Well, she's nice enough to meet sliced alone on
a fucking roof somewhere, right, This fucking baby of a man, he's
he's rather detestable as a character. He absolutely is gonna get out of this
place, et cetera, et cetera. Meanwhile, don't understand. Meanwhile,
somebody and uh in Westchester County's like, I gotta get out of this town.
I gotta go to New York City. Yeah, yeah, right,
exactly exactly. You don't understand, You don't want stand Now did you cover
this? Did Joyce Ingles meet him on this set? I believe so?
Yeah? Did that happen once before? Under this cemt A Trist on screen?
You see a Trist on a screen saying with muscles, no jingle all
the way, No, no, no, no, yeah, Goldberg is
that's what it was, goldbrig and his strip her wife. Oh yeah,
right right right, Goldberg met his wife right with his head between her legs.
That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but they didn't fuck on on like during shooting though. What about Shelley
Daval She didn't have relations with somebody in the cast. She had been dumped
by by Kubrick. No, no, no, she wasn't dating Kubrick.
She was dating Paul Simon. Oh sorry, and he dumped it right before
she went on there, right, Kubrick totally psychologically tortured her. But yes,
yes, and I mean we also had the girl in uh, the
the woman in A Night in the City who plays the girlfriend of the lead
guy, but they didn't again have it. There was nothing having on set,
but she had the relationship with jfk yep. So we had to watch
joy singles and SLI make out with absolutely no emotional investment of the characters,
just emotional investment in themselves. Now they can still see their breath if you
keep keeping track. Yeah, yeah, okay, So I said something offensive
about her his Chinese girlfriend. He's shoved slide and said, hey, then
she's Chinese. I don't know because he called her Sue. Your name is
Susan. He called her Sue. See, oh it isn't like se isn't
chop suey American American. I mean, I don't. I mean, but
it's there. I mean, I don't know wrestling can be a passport out
of this town. Look at the cobblestone streets with the the streetcar rail still
visible. They filmed in Iowa. By the way, this film, you
know, none of this was filmed in There was some Stuft film in New
York, but a lot of it also filmed in Iowa. A lot of
these older buildings they get to film in Iowa only. Shit, really,
yeah, something like that. I believe I read how long have you been
an ice man? Sly asks Victor val Kilmer is not in this movie.
I don't know what you're talking about, right since I was twelve, all
right, So don't be wasting your time looking for something that ain't there.
Victor Sly says, it is. It is Chinese, but it's also American,
Chinese, Philippine, Chinese, Canadian, Chinese, German, Chinese,
Indian, Chinese. Oh that's clear. Yeah, I don't This is definitely
an Iowa seen by how bundled up they are. Yeah, Victor going into
his work at the Knickerbocker Ice Company. There we go. Yeah, but
it's new York Sat. You have they do that shit? The fucking that's
the devil's face from the Wrestling Matter, isn't it? Okay? We're back
at Paradise, Sally though it's empty, must not be bar hours slides coming
in with Victor inquiring about promoter. I think very much like uh, Don
Carndal, very much like it. N Canoe Ling. Yeah, whoo?
Who are the rats everywhere? That's that's the that's the world we live in
here. Absolutely rats around every fucking corner. Fans the guy who fucking beat
you, you fans. Let's see her checking out the friend McCray asking how
good is it to be a wrestler? We want to know we're checking out
m hm hm as long as he's been saving. He also kind of reminds
me of he's got the he u uh Victor, he's got the vocal quality
and delivery of a young what's his name? Oh fucking christis in friends?
Vettie Coyle, Uh, you know, bald guy. I can't think of
his name. He's on Raymond too. Everyone loves Raymond, Brad Garrett,
Oh, Peter Boyle, Peter Boyle. Yeah, it kind of reminds me
Peter Boyle. Yeah, there's but he's telling him, you need you need
a handler, someone you can handle. So this is where he stays.
He stays in a dingy fucking right, that's what wrestlers do, engine room
somewhere. They just put him in a fucking corner with a correct bed and
a couple of portraits on the wall because he's a wrestler's fucking cattle. Okay,
So slies handling to the Victor's handler. We need handlers, and I'm
not talking about Chelsea. Well, they may be in Chelsea. They could
be in Chelsea. It is true. The run us on this true in
the lab Coat and that one. I thought they didn't take a war all
black, old school glass milk jug there on a. Sunte's I'm sorry,
this movie isn't fucking film. Then I mistook it. It's not this film,
it's a it's the fucking fist movie that was filmed in Iowa. Okay,
So we're looking at New York then forcing myself to see Iowa in these
scenes and it's not working away. So I'm sorry Ducane and Ducane for fucking
fist of ball's going. Victor's saying, h you are Amanda Sante, you
would be a good handler. You are Amando Sun's exactly you, Amanda,
You are Amanda Sunthing. You are a champion handler. Fucking love it.
I wonder if something happened to him made his voice sound funny. Oh,
it sounds totally different. Now. Yeah, let's see. Let's see what
happened to him in his personal life. If you had cancer or something,
and I'm to see, I'm not sure Assante wants to coach Victor or be
his handler rather, not yet, not yet. Look at this this guy
telling I bought an electric ice box. It works very very well. No
more ice customer for you. It's right, it's over, now, it's
over. He's running a video rental store in twenty twenty one. The ice
box took your job. Go train and go learn how to code, Victor,
Yeah, exactly, go fucking I guess what you've just been taking away
by a computer, daddy. That's what's happening, baby. The computer is
going to deliver the ice now, daddy. How ironic you perspire like a
motherfucker pulling a block of ice on it right stairs, melting. Oh,
look at that, it's sucking, pouring out like someone fucking gig. The
damn thing, the boom bow bare bert no ice today, something fucking puts
a sign up there? Could you put it at the bottom of the stairs
next time? Right? Oh? In considering watch this, watch this slow
motion. Here we go, Yo, he just throws the block of ice
down the stairs. He is pissed off for it. Wait for it,
lucky shot here. I'll tell you that boom fucking thing explode. That's incredible.
I mean, I don't know if they planned in some kind of a
squib underneath it when it hit, But this is the first thing they shot
in the movie. By the way. Oh, that's the scene he was
talking about, can't, can't whatever his name is, Victor, Victor,
Victor when in his in his in that interview, Can you bend a pipe
like that? No? Oh, I guess it depends what it's made of.
Yeah, it's made of a fucking styrophum. I can do it.
Great. It's made out of the same thing that you make straws out of.
Maybe yeah, and then I can totally bend it. Why did you
just throw an old toilet in the ocean. This is how he's working out
to prepare for his matches. Cough with this ship. Not joking, this
is it, this is so yeah. He run up the stare manage the
guy huh right up the stairs of the public library or something. No,
no, but that mom can someday can just wagle around with his cane.
Ah, that's right, I can do that. I am armand a Sunday.
I knew it. Get ready, I have come. They'll take over
armand a Sunday Enterprises. So sly and Armand continue to Oh my god,
he's doing very well. He's got like one, say, one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, ten movies either completed or in post production? Does Armanda Sante and
I don't think any of them matter? Sounds about right? Yeah? Oh
shit, I said, I'm in this just for the money, all right,
And our mind comes back with aren't you always you always act a paradise
alley empty ring? Hey, that's Don Carnotle behind the bar. What yep?
Really almost positive? Don car Noodle? How do they have? Just
absolute embarrassment? That's poor guy put to work sweeping the floor of the club,
Like here's your main eventor that's different. Man, You were just a
fucking circus animal. You just you weren't a main eventor you were just you
were a flavor of the mom the guy most likely to be able to beat
up anybody off the street and take their money. And now we get somebody
else who do the thing. Apparently good nicest guy's voice. See here,
he does look familiar. Council guy who's in the Godfather. But I don't
know if that's him or not. A lot of long cigarette drags in this
movie. Oh yeah, yeah, all right, Victor is back in the
ring, now shirtless this time. Get this. They're calling his secret move
the ice clamp. There you go, bell sounds. We're underway here at
Paradise Alley. And that is who is that? I recognize him? Is
that? I don't know? I don't know. Here, watch we'll watch
for it. I'll tell you when it happens for DBA at least watch watches
the face. Oh yeah, there is money, money, money biting the
nose. Here comes Calondal. I think into the buckle. Right hand is
Antoni and Noki power slam Stakiniski. That is that was that Kelly? That
was Kelly Kiniski? Yea till it's a whirl. I meant that Harley no,
that a rope in vertil he takes off might be Bob root up.
Looks like is that Rick Dogginson or something? And I can't tell you kick
off take the big bump. Wow, he looks like a real pro with
those kneepads. Yep, front facelock work in the front headlock. Now is
Victor? His opponent lifts him up northern light souplex style deposits and face first
in the canvas. Hand raised Victor Winstor Victors again, kids salam me armand
has an idea for him to actually wear a Salammi around his neck. Yeah,
he's a salammis Ray Stevens right, Yep? I don't know that's kick
Murdock. No no, yeahs Murdoch. Ray Stevens is coming up that roope.
No no, no, I don't know what roope looks like. I've
never seen him before. I can call them Monday getting shoved to the can
another bomb, all these scrapplers getting moments in the sun. Hi back body
drop nicely, it's hip toss. I'm gonna give your hip towels. So
it's a montage of Victor running through the comp talent. HI backbody drop Terry
Funk watching on menacingly from the audience. Ice Clamp put it on. So
it's like a nerve hold, nerve hold, little classy deep crotch lifting slam
and little hip towels. That's right, they're doing. They're doing the proper
slams. Some good training. I look at that clean to the hand,
the hands on the hips. Yeah, this is good stuff. So the
block take down another bomb yep, blood splattered face of victors. He drives
olders into the gut, hauls off of the right hand, peeling off the
Benjamin's form on that fucking pay days guy, Captain mcgate, get that pay
that's right. This was all about the payday. And it is hard to
keep up with who these wrestlers are. Oh, I know, because they
don't show their faces. They just show their bodies. They hardly. Yeah,
it's like like Deep said, it's kind of blinking your messing moments.
Wow. They keep peeling off the bills here. That's right. That victors
are drawn. It's like Peter Dinklage, what was it now, I don't
know, big right fire spat rabs whoever that is by the hair the gallet
rather action. This is fucking not down, drag out, fucking full your
eyes out battling the The last match is actually, you know, for for
film wrestling sequences is pretty good, right, I think somebody fun it's under
the cinemat develops. You know what are the best most Stevens watch him,
watch him, big forearms, below fore arms, his Victor's trapped corner to
corners on that fucking silver screen, you bitch, that's how you show them
that you can go inside out in the corner turn buckle, yes, show
them that you can reach a higher level of spectacle and that squared circle.
Ray Stevens backstage now Victor bloodied, sweaty, but victorious, with salami all
over him. You see that's right? Yeah, he's he's a Sammy made
him a fucking shawl of salami to wear to the ring. I should you
not? That's what you do say. Armand is getting a little uh,
he's liking this. Yea, he's gonna he's getting a little vincent him as
he looks like him. You don't like to sign a blood kid. You're
on the wrong racket, he tells his own brother. That's right as it
regards the exploits of their mutual brother. He's only he's nobody. He didn't
fucking matter. Hey, it's fucking Slide's fault. Armand knew he didn't want
to get into this. We're seeing why now because he can't get out.
He is in Victor is correct, man, that's Joe. Okay, okay,
home on Victor reporting that he's feeling a little disoriented. Might might as
well go through the concussion protocol. Where's doctor Black? Yeah? Oh yeah,
all right? Oh fuck yes. So the guy who plays the clown
right, all right? That is u Joe Spinnell. And I thought it
might be him. I don't know him by name, but he's in The
Godfather and Godfather Part two. He plays will Chee Chee. He's also in
He's in Rocky and Rocky two playing Gottso he's in Taxi Driver. This guy
is, he's in. He's in a bunch of Stallone used him up for
a bunch of shit. We got Nighthawks. I guess that might be one
of the last ones with Stallone. But still, yeah, history solved.
Armano Spinell he's dead, yeah, eighty nine, age of fifty two.
So Armand just told him he's going to take him up for cheesecake to celebrate.
Now this tap dancer boy delivered the towels. Is this supposed to be
Christmas Eves? Is this a Christmas movie? Tom Waite's showing its true colors
here? Oh yeah, So this is the guy the no Terry Funk's mob
handler. Wherever the fuck he is, Stitch Stitch, thank you not my
list, and steps Terry Funk in a box of robe. Look at that
fucking robe. It's a pretty wild fucking rob he's gout on. I know
it really is got look at it. Look at the fucking slashes. Look
at the fucking caverns in his head. Oh yeah, he's cutt and strutton.
He's trying on a fit. Shame yes, Sarah, fake teeth.
Is Terry Funk? Frankie? Do I look any older to you than I
did last year? He looks like Whitey Boulger. This guy Frank Kevin Conway.
And that's definitely a Ladies and Gentlemen. It's not the Ladies and Gentlemen
for Paradise Alley, but it's a Ladies and Gentlemen Harry Christmas, what what
a what a depressing way to spend Christmas Frank hanging around. I was like
my aunt Dolly. Actually, yeah, does Kevin Conway stitch hanging around the
same fucking weasels you hang around all the time on Christmas Eve, guy,
that's what I do. That's just me. Or a sly dressed like Santa.
He is dressed like Santa. Oh he's getting hot, He's gonna have
a fucking fight. Oh he stole a mazy Santa Costumey's on the back of
his jacket. Oh that's awesome. That's fantastic to beat those two guys up
with his sack. I think they're trying to rip them off though, So
it's okay, no, sure convenient. Oh, Armanda Sunday just presented.
My name is Armanda Sunday, and I plan on asking you to marry me,
and I expect you to say yes. There is no option. We
don't say no, do artumum Sunday. That beautiful little tree she has?
How forties? Is that? Oh yeah, Charlie Brown tree before it was
a punchline. Yep, she's made him. She has made a clay bust
of Armanda Suntay has an archer. She Catherine O'Hara and Beetleja. So Sly
is stopped by the home of Joyce ingles given her a gifting a little bit
like Chloris Leachman here. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. Indeed, it's perfume.
Oh. When I think about these decades, I think about people who
showered like once a week and for the rest of the week put perfume all
over themselves, you know exactly they covered up. Yes, there is no
like, there's no actual uh yeah, it's all dirty masking scent. Right,
would have been a great time to launch AT's body spray. Indeed,
so they are all exchanging gifts because it's Christmas Eve right, dis avoided Joyce
invited. He singles to Paradise Alley that sliced alone. You won't go.
You won't go, go Paracel, you won't go. Maybe I can go
paras Alle, you know, but come between your lay you know. Oh
Cosmo, So he's saying to in Archer, the name of the game is
momentum. This being armand Sunday, armand the Sunday. Yes, the King
of Momentum. Make it sound like it's like Armanda Sunday for Calvin Klein.
Armanda Sunday for Calvin Klein, Armanda Sunday uses Kaiser permanente. These two are
like living embodiments of the baby It's cold outside song. Oh sure, she's
she's the lead female vocalist on that track and he's the other half. So
she's telling him if he leaves, don't come back. He says, to
where I'm climbing now, and you don't like heights? Hey get that?
Just like that, Armanta Sante see gets the glint in his eye. Oh
look at that. Well, I do believe that, Yes, that Armanta
Sante has the right idea. He is becoming an up and coming talent and
understanding different ways. You know that that's the thing we realize as promoters and
and as entrepreneurs entertainments, entertainment. We are entertainment providers, entertainment promoters,
entertainment creators, and well the thing about that is, yeah, we uh,
you understand there's more to life than family instead exactly exactly, I have
a lot of pussy. So uh sliced alone's paying a visit to Bearcat right
here again. Brought him some wine? Or this guy just lives in fucking
filth. Jesus Christ, look at the man. It just nobody lives well
here. So I guess Paradise is kind of Wasn't there a new deal happening?
Dude? This is forties? Yeah? Yeah, I thought, you
know, a new deal is like thirties. I thought it was like end
of the war. It was through the war. It was too through the
war. It was to create employment for people who are left behind. Yeah,
thirties, so was it was? Was the huh? It was over
by nineteen forty, so was it? The country? Was the ships again
in the forties, I wouldn't say in the ships now? And why is
everyone in this fucking world like living miserable? I mean they're in Hell's kitchen,
it's I guess it's true. It's kind of a it's not the hip
place to live like it is now. No, No, it's just a
haven for for immigrants, for dirt poor immigrants, first generation. Okay.
Now, for some are destroying property. I mean sliced alone. Just recruited
McCray to run a truck right through fucking Paradise alley. And they're drunk,
drunk a skunks. They're laughing their ass off and they're okay, and they
have no fear of getting their fucking throats cut for acting like this or or
you know, going to jail for property damage, massive property damage. A
Christmas friend, McCray says to Stitch, and now he's gonna moon them the
original kiss my ass club here, boss. I guess so Terry Funk is
confused, is nonplussed? He really seemed very molested by this. Okay,
so it still the first time I've seen a man's eye. Stitch takes it
out on the nearest woman, grabbing her by the neck. Back on the
docks, Cray's still talking that mess, drunk as a skunk. I guess
it's nice of stallone to keep McCray company on Christmas Eve, of course.
I mean it's very generous. I would agree, he says to Stallone.
You know, I ain't no big deal no more. I've been thinking about
this for a long time in my mind. Figure out at the words,
all them things that made me feel good. Yeah, I've been a long
time ago. Okay, Okay, Randy the ram him and what he's like
the mickey of this fucking movie. Really, come on, rock I just
rastle for Room and Board. It's a T shirt. I just I'm writing
that that's going in there. You can put like Fred McCray on the bottom
like it's a quote you make I put his character down. Can you make
a t shirt look like a nighty that someone would that's Clement Moore would have
worn to bed. Ah. I just I just rastle for room, for
room and board, and that I feel's happy. McCray proclaims this big glory,
this is real, it's his character's name. Okay, big A drunk
Stallone says, let's drive this stupid truck some more. But McCray thinks him
or being a buddy, Oh, trying to make me feel bad that my
brothers and the first guy to bit you beat you. And McCray says,
your brother to beat me. I just don't want no more. That's what
it is. That's that's it right there, That's that's that's it. Craig
just took his coat off and slapped a piece of paper and it sliced Alone's
hands. He's now make his way towards the ocean. Whatever. Yeah,
you take care of Santa Claus. He says, just jumped in the water.
Now I'm done. Man. Did he jump with the water? I
think so? Oh? No, he landed. Oh he's in the trash
pile of fucking garbage. Wait down, in a hundred years, it's still
ain't gonna matter none. And then he just jumped in the day and damn
thing sly stands there and watches him drown. Hm, he's no Jimmy Stewart
making the dive, just making them say no, he's he's that's very seven.
He's okay with sing like that before the dissolve. Okay, instead of
trying to save him, just go right back to the docks, like this
is so boring. Well, instead of trying to save the guy, he
just sat on the docks all night next to his drowning site. Apparently.
But it's also just like this movie just does the same thing over and over
and over again. Such a good point. That's one of those things that
once you say it, you can't unsee it. You can't. Let's beak
Christmas morning. I guess so. I don't know all your thinks, Victor,
but I am on a mum with some day I come afore it all.
I have come for the victory. I am art mom a Sunday.
Okay, looks like they're saying big argument here among the brothers or manse.
I want to see you rich, I want to see you with your house
about. Yeah, it's one match. We're going to be some real success.
Yeah. Well, who's he's got a wrestle? That's right. I
think we both know who he's got a wrestle. Boss, I think we
absolutely know who he has to wrestle. There's only one person to wrestle.
That's Frankie the Thumper. I'm gonna beat him. Goozle me Vic. That's
a house boat so badly. Guys like us, we don't live in house
boats. Slice says to his brother, his star star crossed brother on the
dock, so depressing. The atmosphere is moveful team. He had to talk
business, so let's talk, all right. So they're across the table from
Frankie the Thumper and Stitch and they're negotiating terms. Frankie Mune is wondering why
he's in the middle or in the movie right, take a fucking ballerina back
there. It's like still pissed about his window getting broken. We have character
development mm hm. We have text poignancy, art arrested development mm hmm.
Thousand dollars, and we also have Automobson very much. Ah was the wager
eight thousand or nine grand? Nine grand? Overbearing function city tears mother's face
for nine grand. It's overbearing, lovely mother. Yes. Meanwhile, back
on the double Cross Ranch, m Victor's telling himand I think nothing I can
win. You can't win. That's not the booking. Roan says, you
lose this fight. We're finished. I didn't book your damn to win.
Yeah, that's the thing, Amand you kind of have some control over this.
This is I have the wimer as automobous sunday, I we win the
match. Wow, when do you want to set this match? He says,
tonight. No time for advertisement, no time for promotion. And this
is not about selling tickets. This is not putting. This is not about
putting fans and stands. This is about the the action in the ring.
Look at all those umbrellas huddled outside parade. We'd certainly got out there a
short, a short promo. Look at that. Oh the ring is a
puddle. Apparently paradise alley leak in the roof. Yeah, the fucking Salami's
attacked. It looks like it looks like fucking uh Brando here look at him.
Oh yeah, total attempt at that comes Michael Hayes. Ha ha ha
ha Salami tonight, you gotta look like cook Salami. Oh, how fucking
witty. It's got a buzzer in his hand too, like a fucking forties
clown sense of foreboding in the locker room a Victor h cosmo armand boom.
Hey you mean man, you me. Look at all those people cramming to
get into Paradise Alley, the same people from before. Nobody's been, no
one made a move an inch. There comes Salami boy, like a fucking
moron, this stupid salami links hanging off his body. Sli goes, why
should I be proud? Vict goes, you started everything and it's true.
I mean you see there Terry Funk wearing the original bron Stroman mask from the
Wyatt family days, which might have must have just been a horrifying sight to
see in the forties. Oh my god, I can't imagine talking trash.
Here's Funk you. I'm gonna eat you. I need the chicken. Take
I need the chicken. It is pouring rain through the electric lights. I
don't know how this hasn't already started an electrical fund. It's a fantastic bow.
Do you agree with that? And I don't know it means to be
seen, that's true, told no rules will prevail by our announcer, the
clown man. Look at the old gimmick yep at Terry Funk rip yellow pages
and half I remember whose gimmick that was. I think he u the biker
bar. He wore that Helmont at the biker bar. Dude, this is
exactly what Stan Hanson looks like. A no holds barre the absolutely I mean
again, I just can't believe how fucking big Terry Funk is here getting the
How many wins do you say I missed it? I think it's like seventy
four wins NINUS qualifications. Pressive record for Frankie the Thumper, who's introduced to
the Paradise Alley Faithful here handled exclusively by Mistress Stitch Mahones. So Mahone owns
the Mahon's Bar, Yes, he owns everything. He's just the local little
He's a he's a poor, scrawny version of you know of uh mister Potter.
Yes, that's what he is, a boy who got to start here
in Paradise Alley. Victor Ken Kids Salami Kabani. That's right, wherever it
is, Salami Kurbani. Let's get it going. Get ready, Sly given
Vicin out if he wants it before the contest. Yep, they've switched places.
He and He and Money, Paradise Alley and counter well. Sean,
you know, Sean, the very interesting fact about this is you've got a
rookie sensation out of Victor Carborni the Salami Glammy, and then you've got Terry
Funk, Frank the thunder Man, and really intense brawling going to happen.
Look at that off the coll Ronaldo a single eCos and he goes to work
in the five big atomic drop. Victor bounces right back up and drives those
shoulders into the gup. We saw that earlier. Boss and player Matches likes
to go to the well. He's very effective in the corner. Deep European
uppercuts straight from Italy. Indeed, they are definitely from the Sicilian coast.
Top wristlocked by Funk is countered by the hammerlock tossed him out of the ring.
Victor just tossed him into the front row. Is that it? That's
it? Bell's ringing? What does this fucking bill wats wc W whoa oh
it flies in with a drop kit, clipping Victor right in the mush,
front headlock, digging elbows to the back of the head, vicious shuts left
European upper. Look at this, he's just he's he's hammerings. You're trying
to leverage a backdrop over the ropes. The lights are flickering and mix the
rainfall here is finally these two no to turn his back to the funk or
and he got waylaid for it. Ring now filling up and splashing. I
mean, if I dare say this is real wrestling, absolutely, it's like
a wrestling on a slipping slide out in the backyard. Oh my god.
Yeah, now we're hearing a bell. Not much in the way of anacation,
are there rounds? I think rounds do develop over the course of the
match. That would be very club wrestling at the club. And they're definitely
being cornered by their respective handlers between rounds. Here, like the record to
show that's what the bell was for for the round ending. Yes, Like
the record to show that Stitch wears a gold ring over his black leather glove
from the headlock to the standing hammerlock, goes Funk deep to the single lake
pick That's kind of where Flair got the idea, Hu Man, nothing more
funker than a single lake pickup. Yep, turns it round and digs in
the end of the toe hold. Splashing on the canvas. Are both men
up to a dominal stretch in the lights are going out? Here? Is
is the ECW arena? What's happening? That's true? Has there ever been
a wrestling arena with a leaky roof before? There's been outdoor shows in the
rain, but not like this. So Victor frees himself from the abdominal stretch
of the hip toss, but Terry Funk remains on him with a series of
knee lifts. Irish whip pulls him into the knee of the gut. And
we're losing power here, folks. We can only convey so much to you
if we're even still on the air. That's right. Wow wows the lights
flicker back on. I believe the bell has sounded, signaling the gain of
round number two. Victor spent up against those ropes slides alone, complaining about
fowls by Terry Funk. Fowls should be should be initiated here. They'll have
to check with the Championship Committee on whether sanctions are forthcoming. So both men
cornering their respective I think if we just heard Terry Funk say I'm going to
smash him back to the center, they go, the bell sounds back to
slower, the Rocky montage. Yeah, it's like the fight sequences and the
original contenders. Oh Jesus back suplex by Funk. Oh to counter the side
headlock, beautifully done right in the fucking water Fireman's carry Victor to the Boston
crab. Wow, Funk with a push up to flip Victor forward to break
the crab. And now it's double arm underhooks, big butterfly sup fox by
Victor. That's vintage stuff and it's great, great great spots here. Oh,
make a splash Russian lake. Sweet. It was a white rush the
ropes Victor who kind of combined clashing there in their shoulder block. Shoulder block
there, Funk work in the arm, pardon the pun reins down, an
elbow to the shoulder of the canvas, hi knee left coming off the ropes
down goes kind of the Daniel Bryan me, oh, yes, we have
a flying head scissors because we're fuck him here textbook seventies offense by the Funker,
whoa blood flying from the mouth of Terry Funk on the descent. I
wonder what they came up with the idea to do this whole match and splashy
rain. It's very interesting. Fireman's carry got wrench suplex. Fireman's carry Jesus
got rench suplex. These guys are just throwing everything but the kitchen sink at
each other, and that's a big back body drop. Look at the height
that the Funker gets there, high and tuck. Beautiful, what are round?
Funk retreats to his corner, as does Victor. Both men blooded and
spent big debate going on between two of the brothers of Victor in the corner,
a heated and passionate discussion about whether he should be allowed to continue.
Bloody up like Jesus, very rocky esque. The between rounds drama side headlock
now by the Funkers mean age and round number four. I think of Regulations
four. I'm sure vis to the ribs breaks the headlock, but now the
funk are just hauling off with two massive left hands. He is just hauling
off here he is, indeed, Jesus overhands are landing sliced alone has to
look away, but backdrop to the apron goes. Funk brought in with the
backdrop side said flip. No referee to count the pinfall. Funk just converted
to a pin cover off the sunset fliped. No, no one counting pinfalls
in this environment, fans, this is paradise alley. Ooh, vicious elbow
drop on a prone Victor. And I believe because qualification has been declared,
we have some fights breaking out and the stands as well. Yep, this
synandric a lotta fight. Oh man, why was it disqualification called? I
don't really know. Stitch talking shit to the Carboni brothers. Everyone is soaking
wet and the pouring rain. By the way, Oh it's a fucking mess.
Oh it's a miracle. These guys didn't pull an ankle and twist a
knee. Oh Victor, Oh, funk office, but away play's into him
off the whip kind of a side hip throw, deep arm drag textbook stuff
by Victor. Here these are the great throws deep hip toss. Funk are
bumping over and over again. Jesus Harley Race wanted this this role. I
want a damn thing. I want to bump. I wanted to paradise Alley,
come out of you, side of a bitch, bump the fuck out
of me. Jesus, wonderful girl. Press slam by Victor. Yeah,
this is such a more prolonged wrestling action scene than you'd see. Yes,
and the slam determines the winner. Apparently it does. I believe Victor has
been declared the victor. Another closing in an old stitch, and that's classic
wrestling heat get the advantage, all right. They just ripped his pants off
and he's wearing lingerie stockings and yeah, he's got women's joke. They're not
mine. It's a joke. What is He's such a fucking what happened exactly
the Bobby He's in the Bobby heen and weasel suit, is it? Yeah,
he's wearing women's stockings and underwear. I believe Victor is one. Doesn't
he look like Vince now armand with his hair down like that? Yeah?
Right, what are you? What are you doing? You're throwing the match?
Mhm. If you were going to lose, why did you wait to
the twenty second round I was born, so he threw the match. What
happened? He won, but the fun was going to throw the match,
but he changed his mind. Celebration for the our bony brothers. Think they
made a fortune that they can blow in a year. As Victor has hoisted
up by his brothers in victory, and we freeze frame did we do?
Let's go back to the beginning whom Let's see the list say, we get
to listen to the cast members here. We got Terry Funk right there as
we do, Tom waits his mumbles. Uh, let's see here, barroom
hooker. In case you were wondering, Freddy Freddy your own corner, it's
actually was just one of the wrestlers. Sorry, yeah, or we are
wrestlers. John Eyres, Roland Bass, Jean ted d Bias, Vincent Albert
in the movie, Dorry Funk, Jr. Leo, Don Carnodle, gen
Kiniski, Larry Lane, Ready Moorese Dick Murdoch, We saw him, Reggie
Parks, Alex Perez, so it's Alex Press Rock Riddle, Rube Doug,
this is Ryan, Don slat Smith and Stamp, Johnny Starr, Ray Stevens
Tongo Yosiato, Jay York and John Zenda. Good luck identifying positively? Yeah
right at this wrestling wrestling choreography by Terrence Fulk correct. Love it well,
that is a rap once again here under the cinemat. We will see you
all next week and we will see you at the movies. But it was
a succes production of the Lapps Entertainment Group. It's content is intended for private
use. Hopey understand you don't understand