Rocky IV

I received a call last night from Bry. It sounded like he was in a bar. It also sounded like one of his friends hadn't scene "Rocky IV" in about ten years because he was convinced that "The Final Countdown" appeared in the film and was also on the soundtrack. In light of this, I feel obliged to share some recent insights into the film that I gleened from a viewing with the man who edited the movie.

These past couple of weeks have been pretty relaxed. Last Wednesday, we took 91 minutes out of our day to watch “Rocky IV.” It was awesome. Our editor, Don, kept telling me all sorts of insider information about the film and the actors. He still has the cut-outs of Apollo and Drago (seen before the fight at the MGM Grand) at his house in Bel-Air. Rocky’s house in the fourth installment was actually the real-life home of Muhammad Ali at the time. The training scenes in Russia really took place in Montana. Pauley’s robot kept dying during the shoots. Burt Young (the actor who played Pauley) used to be a boxer, and he was reportedly very tough. Everyone remembers the scene from Rocky III when Apollo and Rock race along the beach in Santa Monica and then give each other a Mark & Tony-like embrace in the ocean… well apparently Carl Weathers is a whole lot faster than Sylvester Stallone and they were having a hard time making it look as if the race were even close (it would look weird if they just asked Weathers to slow down a whole lot). On a similar note, Carl Weathers could positively whoop Stallone in a real boxing match, but to his credit, Sly does excel at the speed bag. Eight cameras were used to film each fight scene.

I even got to hear about my favorite montage ever: The one with the song “There’s No Easy Way Out,” where Rocky races off in his sports car after Apollo’s death, while remembering all the great scenes from the previous movies. The song was picked ahead of time and then Don was given free license to grab whatever clips he wanted from 1, 2, 3, and 4… the result is pure genius and that’s why it anchors the third minute of MPH.