Paradise Alley

Nominally set in 1946, in the poverty-trap of Hell's Kitchen, but pitched waveringly between Rocky, Guys and Dolls, and some prototype Warner Brothers Depression drama of the preceding decade, Stallone's hit-and-miss directorial debut (he also writes, stars and sings the theme song) maps the classic escape route via the ring (wrestling this time) with a unique style of baroque excess. The plot (Stallone scheming himself and his two brothers uptown on the tails of ambitious gimmickry) is shot full of sentimental holes; but the creation of a floridly fantasticated netherworld of low-life high-rollers and their inevitably multi-coloured circumlocutions is irresistible.