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The Lord's of Flatbush (1974)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
11/04, 10/06, 1/25
10/06:
Short on brains, The Lord's of Flatbush is a ridiculous atavistic picture about a primitive gang of
leather-jacket wearers in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Perry King looks stupid playing a character who's desperate in the attempt of getting into the pants of some girl.
Henry Winkler (this is before he was the Fonz in Happy Days) and Paul Mace (who's the biggest wimp if
I ever saw one) are forgettable.
The award for the worst acting performance goes to Sylvester Stallone. It's obvious that he was pretending to be
Terry Malloy while thinking himself as the second coming of Marlon Brando. The pigeon cage scene is downright
bad. At first, Sylvester Stallone was outside of it. Then, he went inside to yell after Perry King. Why
couldn't he go after him and have it out?
All in all, the four clowns in The Lord's of Flatbush need to grow up and get a real job.
1/25:
Time has now been kind to The Lord's of Flatbush.
Just think of it as a slice-of-life movie. Notice the misplaced apostrophe in the film title; that's because these four
guys in the "social athletic club" are idiots. Funnily enough, Perry King and Henry Winkler graduated from
Yale University. One of the two directors didn't know that until midway through the shooting when they told him
what's up.
Naturally, Sylvester Stallone and Perry King dominate the show while
Henry Winkler and Paul Mace have little character development. Henry Winkler used the basis of Sylvester Stallone's
character to create the Fonz for Happy Days. On the other hand, this is the film that started a lifelong feud
between Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere, who was eventually replaced by Perry King, for failing to get along.
Between Stanley and Chico, who won? I'm going with the latter because Perry King is so good and likeable
that I might have had him pegged as the most likely actor to break through big time if I saw it in 1974. But we know
how it came out at the end. As a matter of fact, there wasn't much footage on Sylvester Stallone prior to the making
of Rocky, and this is the one that sealed the deal to give him the go-ahead even though the studio execs were
mistakenly excited to see Perry King in the role of Rocky Balboa.
There are plenty of memorable scenes in The Lord's of Flatbush, and the best one is Stanley with two women
at the jewelry store which was actually thought up and written by Sylvester Stallone.
However, the pigeon scene is absolutely the worst and most nonsensical with cheesy lines coming out of
his mouth. Just hilariously bad. Maybe that's meant to be keeping in line with these four idiots.
All in all, before there were Happy Days and Grease, there was
The Lord's of Flatbush.