Cinema: Winner and Still Champion

Rocky III is a box-office knockout and a homecoming for "Sly" Stallone

An actor is an athlete of the heart.

—Antonin Artaud

Heavyweight Challenger Gerry Cooney quotes its lines with fervor. Olympic Figure Skater David Santee trained to its triumphant sound-track music. Its plot is adapted by feature writers and by coaches for locker-room pep talks. At V.F.W. halls, in cocktail lounges, and surgical scrub rooms, Americans on any occasion of victory or defeat, no matter how evanescent, are liable to exclaim, "It's just like Rocky!" The story of the virtuous and vulnerable heavyweight,...

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