Rocky (1976)
John Avildsen's 1976 boxing underdog launcher. Began the franchise that defined boxing cinema.
Actor: Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith was a leading man in the 1930s, in Of Mice and Men, before being blacklisted in the 1950s, which effectively removed a decade from his career.
He returned through television, most famously as the Penguin in Batman, and then received two Academy Award nominations in his sixties, for The Day of the Locust and Rocky.
Mickey in Rocky is the role that lasts, and the performance is built on exhaustion and a refusal to be sentimental about a fighter’s chances.
