Thursday, April 26, 2007

Edgar Allan Poe, Muse of Rocky III?

A little known fact is that Sylvester Stallone is a longtime admirer of Edgar Allan Poe. Stallone's dearest unrealized project might be his movie about Poe.

On this note, I recently came across the following passage in Jeffrey Meyers' biography of Poe, about a fight Mr. Masque of the Red Death had when he was a teenager:

...he got into a fight with a heavier boy and was vigorously beaten for some time, before turning the tables and giving him a sound whipping. When asked why he had allowed the boy to beat his head for so long, Edgar explained that he was waiting for him to lose his breath before administering the final defeat! As always, Edgar offered an ingenious explanation of his strange behavior.

Now compare Poe's fight with the climax of Rocky III. Balboa encourages Clubber "I Pity The Fool" Lang to get piñata on him to fatigue the champion. (He earlier lost the title to Lang.) The tactic works, and by the end of round three Lang's getting the piñata treatment.

I don't know if Stallone read about Poe's fight in an earlier biography (Meyers' came out ten years after Rocky III), but it's a cool commonality in any case.

2 comments:

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