{"id":40122,"date":"2018-02-05T15:58:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T22:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=40122"},"modified":"2021-02-03T15:49:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T22:49:18","slug":"lords-of-flatbush-the-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=40122","title":{"rendered":"Lords of Flatbush, The (1974)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Don&#8217;t ever tell me what to do and what not to do. You understand me?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Poster-190x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"190\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-40123\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Poster-190x300.jpg 190w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Poster-81x128.jpg 81w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Poster.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA group of leather-clad friends (Sylvester Stallone, Perry King, Henry Winkler, and Paul Mace) hang out and wreak mild havoc while King ditches his girlfriend (Renee Paris) for a new blonde (Susan Blakely) in school, and Stallone learns his pregnant girlfriend (Maria Smith) is desperate to put a ring on it.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Friendship<\/li>\n<li>Juvenile Delinquents<\/li>\n<li>Sylvester Stallone Films<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary\u2019s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nPeary only seems to include this &#8220;unexceptional, uninvolving film about four leather-jacketed high-school buddies in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn in the mid-fifties&#8221; because it &#8220;became a surprise commercial hit&#8221;. As he points out, its success was certainly not due to the &#8220;skimpy and trite&#8221; storyline or the &#8220;bad&#8221; sound quality, but rather because &#8220;its youth audience recognized the star quality of the unknown leads&#8230; who were&#8230; destined for stardom&#8221;. I agree with Peary that &#8220;Stallone is particularly good, playing a tough talker who&#8217;s pushed into marriage by his pregnant girlfriend&#8221; &#8212; but the problem is, not a single one of these characters is likable, and their actions are uniformly ill-advised. Blakeley&#8217;s (underdeveloped) &#8220;Jane&#8221; is right to be ambivalent about &#8220;Chico&#8221; (King), and Smith seems destined for a lifetime of dominance by chauvanist Stallone. A scene of Stallone in a rooftop pigeon coop seems to want to remind audiences of Terry Malloy in <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2971\"><em>On the Waterfront<\/em><\/a> &#8212; but it simply made me want to rewatch that classic instead. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Evidence of early star power<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Stallone.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Stallone.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"624\" height=\"352\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40124\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Stallone.png 624w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Stallone-128x72.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Lords-of-Flatbush-Stallone-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNope; definitely feel free to skip this clunker. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0071772\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tvguide.com\/movies\/the-lords-of-flatbush\/review\/104657\/\">TV Guide Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t ever tell me what to do and what not to do. You understand me?&#8221; Synopsis: A group of leather-clad friends (Sylvester Stallone, Perry King, Henry Winkler, and Paul Mace) hang out and wreak mild havoc while King ditches his girlfriend (Renee Paris) for a new blonde (Susan Blakely) in school, and Stallone learns his pregnant girlfriend (Maria Smith) is desperate to put a ring on it. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Friendship Juvenile Delinquents Sylvester Stallone Films Response to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=40122\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-responses-to-peary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68368,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40122\/revisions\/68368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}