Back in the summer of 1979, Philadelphia was the host city for the World Premiere of Rocky II.
We did not have any tickets to the movie premiere, but my future wife and one of my best friends thought it would still be fun to go down into the city and see all the stars on the red carpet.
While we were waiting for them to emerge from the movie theater, we heard that the after-party (or whatever it’s called) was going to be at the Art Museum, and so after seeing Stallone and the others, we decided to head on over to the reception.
My friend suggested that we try to sneak in, and we thought we’d give it a go. Well my friend just followed the crowd and ignored the person who was asking for a ticket and before we knew it, he was inside. That left Mary and I and we decided to try the same tactic, but got stopped. We pointed out our friend up ahead and said that he had our tickets, and surprisingly that seemed to work, and she let us proceed. Once inside we were able to find a couple of tickets that someone had left down at a table (as shown below), as well as a copy of the program that you see at the top of the post. (It’s hard to imagine that I’ve been able to save these things for almost 40 years).
You will also notice that at some point during the evening we were able to find Sylvester Stallone and he was kind enough to sign a copy of our program.
The reception was a Who’s Who of Philadelphia, and it was fun to be part of the “in crowd”, if just for one night. It was one of our more memorable nights as young twenty-somethings.
I came across the program and tickets a few weeks ago, as part of my trip down memory lane (part one, part two). It brought back some good memories, but what stuck me the most was when I opened the program booklet, and I saw the list of all the people involved with the movie.
And in case you are reading this post wanting to find out the answer posed in the title, by my count there were 158 people involved in the making of the film (at least that’s the number who got a credit in the program).
There were 55 actors (or players as the program calls them), and about 100 film-makers. The film-makers range from the producers, to the director of photography, to the sound effects editor, to the swing gang, to the production accountant (I had to get the accountant in there). For some of the jobs listed, there is a company name, instead of an individual, so that is why my count is just an approximation.
Needless to say, there are a lot of people working behind the scenes to put on a movie, and my guess is that for some major productions the number is probably triple the number shown here.
Yet there are also some independent films that I am sure got by with a much smaller number (I’m thinking Napoleon Dynamite).
And if you can’t remember Rocky II, here’s the trailer:
It’s a classic…
Borden's Blather 