Rocky 7

In 1976 a little known actor wrote and filmed a movie about an under dog boxer in Philadelphia. The rest of the story if rather famous, Stallone’s star rose quickly winning an Oscar and many sequels followed. In fact there have been new Rocky movies for four decades. I personally enjoy the first one the best, though most of them are fun. I really don’t care a lot for the fifth movie, but the new one that came out this year, though it lacked Talia Shire, was really good also. Of course I still need to get my wife to see the fourth one. Then maybe she will understand how crazy Americans are when they make a decision to be against something (the cold war/Russia). Even though the villain isn’t played by a Russian and the fight scenes, while entertaining, are completely bogus.

What I found was really amusing this week while I was in Philly was the story of Rocky’s statue. For those who do not know the movies, in the third story line Rocky is Heavy Weight Champ of the World – sorry about spoiling a 25 year old movie – and the city of Philadelphia presents Rocky a bronze statue and puts at the top of the stairs to the city’s art museum. Well in Real life the movie prop was a real bronze statue and it was left at the top of the Philadelphia museum and became a small local attraction. As the years went on the Rocky legend from the movies faded. The directors of the art museum never though of the statue as art so they had it moved to the spectrum a sports facility in South Philly. It was moved back to the Art museum for the filming of several movies and always went back to the spectrum. Well after the latest movie came out in 2006, thirty years after the original, the debate of the statue was renewed and it was moved back to the art museum.

However this time the statues new home is at the bottom of the stairs along the sidewalk instead at the top of the stairs. What really amazed me about the statue in real life is how BIG of an attraction it actually is. I spent all of Sunday in Old City Philadelphia where the founding fathers literally designed the country and saw all of the sites there. That night I found the Museum around 8pm. There was just as long of a line for people to get their photo by the statue of Rocky at 8pm as there was to get their photos taken with the liberty bell in the middle of the afternoon! And on top of that most of these people were from around the world. It is absolutely amazing that a statue of a fictional character is such a huge draw even at 8pm on a Sunday. Looking online I have also found a ton of information about the statue, people really get into this thing, though people from Philly are split down the middle over whether they like it or not.

Another interesting thing I found out is that besides the Rocky movies the statue has cameos in several other films. These include “Philadelphia”, “Trading Spaces”, and “Mannequin”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Steps
http://www.ushistory.org/oddities/rocky.htm
http://philadelphia.about.com/od/uniquelyphiladelphia/l/blrocky_statue.htm
http:// www.rockysculpture.com