Here’s the thing about Sylvester Stallone: Though most studio heads would like you to believe that Rocky (a brilliant film, by the way) is the end-all, beat-all of what this Hell’s Kitchen native can do as an actor, a lot of us have favorite films from ‘The Italian Stallion’ which don’t involve that long and storied franchise. For this card-carrying member of the We Love Sly Fan Club, my alternate Rocky choice in this Oscar-winning actor, screenwriter and director’s oeuvre is a little-seen 1978 period film called F.I.S.T. (that’s short for “Federation of Interstate Truckers” for any of you wiseacres out there that might be inclined to think otherwise…). Directed by Norman Jewison with a crackling first act from scribe Joe Eszterhas, this movie thinly mirrors the real-life story of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa who went missing back in 1975. Stallone plays rough and tumble blue collar working man Johnny Kovak in the Cleveland, Ohio of 1937. Disgruntled with his working conditions, Kovak takes up the cause of fighting for the working man and eventually works his way up in the ranks of the local union to become a major player in that field. Unfortunately – just like Hoffa – the Kovak character gets tangled up with the mob in order to expedite an otherwise slow moving process of gaining proper working conditions for his fellow workers; things do not end well.

Co-starring Melinda Dillon, David Huffman, Peter Boyle and Rod Steiger, F.I.S.T. is one-part cautionary tale and one-part sweeping American epic. As an eight year old feasting his eyes on this film for the first time, I was mesmerized by the movie’s first-half (the latter-half? Meh.), so much so that, when my parents enrolled me in an afternoon YMCA class which provided its students access to film equipment to shoot our own student films, the first thing my thieving little mitts did was to “adapt” lock-stock-and-barrel a galvanizing scene in F.I.S.T. where Stallone makes an impassioned cry for action in a tight and crowded room of dispirited union members. The scene as envisioned by Eszterhas was something of a signature calling card that any budding writer in Hollywood would kill to have on their sizzle reel, and here I was – a towheaded and bratty know-it-all – liberating it from the context and body of Jewison’s film proper and re-enacting it with my fellow 12 year old YMCA exiles. Though I’d like to say that what wound up on cheap video that long ago Rome, New York summer was akin to Gone With the Wind or Citizen Kane, it probably veered closer to Troll 2 territory, though the heart and well-intentions were all there. It was a grand moment in my childhood all thanks, in part, to an oft-times overlooked Sylvester Stallone performance.

 From our Cop Land (another undervalued Stallone effort) consorts over at the ever-punching Hollywood Reporter comes the news today that steamer Netflix is poised to unleash upon the world a documentary on Sylvester Stallone entitled, appropriately enough, Sly. The doc itself-  narrated by Sly’s onetime good-natured 1980s rival Arnold Schwarzenegger – will be an overview of his entire career, leaving this Johnny Kovak fan quite happy indeed.

 Curious? Why not click here on this handy-dandy link and feast your eyes on the trailer for Sly?

According to the official Netflix logline, Sly looks to be a fun deep-dive into an American icon: “For nearly 50 years, Sylvester Stallone has entertained millions with iconic characters and blockbuster franchises, from Rocky to Rambo to The Expendables. This retrospective documentary offers an intimate look at the Oscar-nominated actor-writer-director-producer, paralleling his inspirational underdog-story with the indelible characters he has brought to life.”

Helmed by Thom Zimmy, Sly will premiere on Netflix this November. In the meantime, assuming you haven’t already, why not check out at least the first-half of F.I.S.T. and write in and let us know your thoughts (no brickbat bouquets, please) on this altogether forgotten Stallone performance?