Paradise Alley

1978
PG
1h 47m

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

6.3K

YOUR RATING

Sylvester Stallone in Paradise Alley (1978)

Play trailer1:37

1 Video

54 Photos

Drama

Three Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's ... Read allThree Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's con-artist tactics to thwart a sleazy manager.Three Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's con-artist tactics to thwart a sleazy manager.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

6.3K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations

Trivia
Sylvester Stallone actually wrote this before Rocky (1976) and tried to sell it to producers for years, to no avail. Once Rocky (1976) became a smash hit, producers were willing to look at the script, and Universal Pictures green-lit the production due to the overwhelming success of Rocky (1976).

Goofs
When Cosmo drives Victor's ice truck up on the curb, the back panels fall of before they crash through the window. As the drive away, the wood panels are still on the truck.

Quotes
Lenny: I promise you fifty wins before Christmas.
Burp: Your man gets IN THE RING forty of fifty times before Christmas he won't have enough brains left to tie his shoelaces. And then you'll have two cripples in the family.

Crazy credits
Opening credits use the 1940s Universal logo.

Alternate versions
All UK versions are cut by 42 secs by the BBFC to remove shots of a tethered and gagged monkey in Cosmo's closet.

Connections
Featured in Sneak Previews: Paradise Alley, Magic, Midnight Express, Watership Down, Comes a Horseman (1978)

Soundtracks
Too Close to Paradise
Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager and Bruce Roberts
Music by Bill Conti
Performed by Sylvester Stallone

User reviews46

Review

Featured review

A Depression-Era "Rocky"

Stallone made this film between "Rocky" and "Rocky II" and it shares alot of similarities with those films. It's the story of three brothers who dream of busting out of the poverty of Hell's Kitchen in New York during the mid-1940's.

Sly plays Cosmo Carboni, the street-wise hustler with no visible means of support but a head full of get-rich-quick schemes who hatches a plan to promote his brutish but gentle-natured brother (who's job is hauling giant blocks of ice all over the city) as a professional wrestler. Armand Assante plays his other brother, a cynical war veteran who was wounded in combat and now works as a mortician.

The story is peppered with colorful Damon Runyon-esque characters and a nicely balanced combination of humor and drama. Stallone writes and directs well, getting good performances from all his actors, and the film has a rich flavor and feeling for the period.

One of Stallone's least-known and least appreciated films, but it's well worth seeking out. Nicely done and entertaining.

G-Man-25
Jul 13, 1999
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