CUT PRICE ROCKY

Back in the days when Video Recorders first started to make inroads into private homes, when the outcome of the VHS V Betamax battle was still uncertain, there were enterprising individuals who used to rent pirate video tapes from their own front rooms. In my home village we didn't have a video shop but what we did have was a woman up the street who had hundreds upon hundreds of tapes - I think we used to pay 50p a night. These tapes made no pretence of being genuine - they were just blank tapes with the title scrawled on the sticky label.

Sometimes the picture quality was crap but then, in those days, TV's were not exactly high definition so that didn't matter. And the fact that we were able to see these films, most of which would never show locally or appear on TV, was really exciting. Think how great a video recorder was in those days - we only had three TV channels and they would close down at the end of the night. Video recorders seemed like the best invention ever.

You know I can still remember the first video tapes I ever rented - The Blues Brothers and Enter the Dragon.

Man, that was a long time ago - of course horror films were very popular then, and action movies, small scale cult movies and even the odd blue movie - the latter could only be viewed when your parents were out. I think this would have been about 1980 or thereabouts. I remember chatting to friends in my last year of school about films I had hired from Joycey, she being the local video pirate hire woman.

Anyway I remember hiring this boxing film all those years ago and when I recently saw it as a freebie with DVD World Magazine I had to pick it up. I remember loving it then, better than Rocky I probably thought. I was easily impressed in those days.

It was made in 1979 so it's too late for the blaxpolitation boom, but it clearly belongs in the genre. With its mostly black cast made up of stereotypes. It tells the tale of a young man wrongly sent to the slammer and finding his skills with his fists enable him to survive. It's extremely violent but still stands up as perfect viewing in a culty kind of way. I enjoyed this little trip down memory lane.

Checking up on the film on the Internet I found that it had spawned several sequels - I actually think I saw the second, and has something of a cult following. Indeed there are rumours of a remake. But forget all that - it's a silly little film with stereotype characters and a predicatable plot, but it's acted well and the story is told in a straightforward manner. It's good fun - a perfect guys only movie.