| First Blood | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster byDrew Struzan | |
| Directed by | Ted Kotcheff |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | First Blood byDavid Morrell |
| Produced by | Buzz Feitshans |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Andrew Laszlo |
| Edited by | Joan Chapman |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15[3]–18 million[4][5] |
| Box office | $125.2 million[6] |
First Blood is a 1982 Americanwaraction film starringSylvester Stallone asVietnam War veteranJohn Rambo. The film was directed byTed Kotcheff and cowritten byMichael Kozoll, William Sackheim and Stallone based on the 1972 novelFirst Blood byDavid Morrell. The story follows Rambo who, after entering a small town and clashing with the police, attempts to survive amanhunt using his expertise in survival and combat skills. The film costarsRichard Crenna as Rambo's mentor Colonel Sam Trautman andBrian Dennehy as Sheriff Will Teasle.
First Blood was released in the United States on October 22, 1982. Initial reviews were mixed, but the film was a box-office success, grossing $125.2 million and becoming the 13th-highest-grossing film at the domestic box office for the year and the seventh-highest-grossing film worldwide.[7] In 1985, it also became the first Hollywood blockbuster to be released inChina, holding the record for the largest number of tickets sold for an American film until 2018. Since its release, it has been reappraised by critics, with many highlighting the roles of Stallone, Dennehy and Crenna, and recognizing it as an influential film in the action genre.
The film's success spawned theRambo franchise, consisting of four sequels (co-written by and starring Stallone), ananimated television series, a comic books series, a novel series and several video games. It was followed byRambo: First Blood Part II, released in 1985.
In December 1981,United States ArmyVietnam War VeteranJohn Rambo discovers that he is the last surviving member of his outfit after learning that his old army buddy Delmar Barry has died from complications related toAgent Orange exposure from when they were deployed. Without direction, Rambo arrives in the town of Hope, Washington on foot, where he is accosted by local sheriff Will Teasle, who judges him harshly and presumes him to be a drifter. Teasle escorts Rambo out of town and warns him not to return. Feeling slighted, Rambo begins to return to town, where Teasle quickly arrests him and leaves him to be processed under the supervision of Teasle's cruel chief deputy Art Galt, who leads other deputies in abusing Rambo. The abusetriggers flashbacks to torture that Rambo endured in Vietnam, and he fights his way out of town with his field knife into the surrounding mountains.
Teasle organizes a search party with his fellow deputies, air support and dogs. Galt ignores Teasle's orders and attempts to shoot Rambo from a low-flying helicopter, but falls to his death when Rambo throws a rock that causes the pilot to lose control. Teasle soon learns that Rambo is a formerSpecial Forces soldier and recipient of theMedal of Honor, but refuses to cancel the search. Not wanting to cause more trouble, Rambo attempts to surrender, but is fired upon by the deputies and flees into the tree line. Rambo usesbushcraft to create traps to subdue the pursuing officers, threatening Teasle at knifepoint to abandon his pursuit before fleeing further into the woods.Washington State Patrol officers andWashington National Guard forces are dispatched to assist with the search, along with Rambo's mentor and former commanding officerColonel Samuel Trautman. Trautman advises Teasle to relent, but Teasle refuses. Over radio, Rambo refuses Trautman's pleas to surrender, condemning Teasle and his men and insisting that "they drew first blood."
Rambo falls back to an abandoned mine, where National Guard units fire anM72 LAW to collapse the mine after suppressive fire fails to force Rambo to surrender. Teasle and the others initially presume Rambo to be dead, but Rambo escapes the mine through a ventilation shaft and returns to town after hijacking a military transport truck, intent on confronting Teasle. Trautman again fails to convince Teasle to cancel the pursuit, while Rambo creates a distraction by causing a gas-station explosion, cutting power to most of the town and destroying a gun store. After shooting indiscriminately in the sheriff's office, Rambo shoots Teasle in the leg, grievously injuring him with anM60 machine gun that Rambo had taken from the military truck. Trautman arrives and appeals to Rambo, who finally relents and surrenders after relating his negative experiences from the war and from his return home. Trautman comforts Rambo before escorting him into federal custody. Teasle is taken to an ambulance for treatment of his injuries.
The original Rambo was so bloodthirsty... the story was so hard, so terrifying every step of the way. (I think that's one reason the book took so long to get done). What I did with Rambo was try to keep one foot in the Establishment and one foot in the outlaw or frontier image. I wanted him to be accepted by the mainstream—but also be a criminal. So he has some strong patriotic views—and he loves the system. He just doesn't like a lot of the people who live and work in it.
In 1972,Lawrence Turman atColumbia Pictures bought the film rights toFirst Blood byDavid Morrell for $175,000.Richard Brooks was slated to direct, and intended to have the film be an allegory on differing American perceptions ofWorld War II andVietnam War veterans, with Sheriff Will Teasle portrayed more sympathetically than in the novel. The film would have ended with Teasle ordering his men to drop their guns to try to reason withJohn Rambo, who would have then been fatally shot by an unknown assailant. Brooks planned to start shootingFirst Blood in New Mexico in December 1972.[8] The film did not proceed because theVietnam War was still underway and Brooks left the project.[citation needed]
Afterward,John Calley purchased the rights atWarner Bros. Pictures for $125,000 with the thought of casting eitherRobert De Niro orClint Eastwood as Rambo. A screenplay was written byWalter Newman withMartin Ritt intended to direct. The film would have criticized American military culture and portrayed ColonelSam Trautman as the film's villain, ending with both Rambo and Teasle dying.[4]Sydney Pollack andMartin Bregman also considered directing the film, with Bregman hiringDavid Rabe to write a script. After Bregman departedMike Nichols considered directing Rabe's script.
William Sackheim andMichael Kozoll wrote the screenplay that would be the basis of the final film in 1977, originally intending forJohn Badham to direct. ProducerCarter DeHaven purchased Sackheim and Kozoll's script from Warner Bros. for $375,000. DeHaven secured the Cinema Group as a financer and hiredJohn Frankenheimer as director with production to begin inGeorgia. This was also the first version of the script in which Rambo survived the film. However, the project stalled again after the distributorFilmways was acquired byOrion Pictures.[4]
AfterMario Kassar andAndrew G. Vajna of Anabasis Investments read the book, they became interested in doing an adaptation as the first production of their studioCarolco Pictures funded by "in-house sources". They purchased the film rights from Warner Bros. for $375,000 and Sackheim and Kozoll's script for $125,000 in 1981.[8][9]Ted Kotcheff, who had been involved in the project in 1976, returned after Kassar and Vajna offered to finance one of his projects.[5] Kotcheff offered the role of John Rambo to Sylvester Stallone, and the actor accepted after reading the script through in a day.[10]
Various scripts adapted from Morrell's book had been pitched to studios in the years since its publication, but only Stallone's involvement prompted its production. The time since the end of the Vietnam War and Stallone's star power after the success of theRocky films enabled him to rewrite the script to make the character of John Rambo more sympathetic. Morrell's book has Rambo kill many of his pursuers, and Kozoll and Sackheim's draft had him killing sixteen people, but in the movie Rambo does not directly cause the death of any police or national guardsmen. Stallone also decided to let Rambo survive the film, unlike in the book. A suicide scene was filmed but was reviled bytest audiences,[5] so Kotcheff and Stallone opted to have Rambo turn himself in at Trautman's urging.[10] Other changes made by Stallone included the addition of Rambo's survival knife.[5] Stallone did an estimated seven revisions of the script. Kotcheff requested further work be done on the script, which was performed byLarry Gross andDavid Giler.[4]
Brooks originally wanted to castBette Davis as a psychiatrist and eitherBurt Lancaster orLee Marvin as Sheriff Teasle. When the project was purchased by Warner Bros., Robert De Niro and Clint Eastwood were each considered for the role of Rambo.[11] Ritt intended to castPaul Newman as Rambo.[5] Pollack consideredSteve McQueen but then rejected him because they considered him too old to play a Vietnam veteran from 1975.[5][12]James Caan,Burt Reynolds andRobert Redford were also considered.[13]
Rabe developed his screenplay withAl Pacino in mind for the role and had several conversations with the actor, who wanted to portray Rambo as a force of nature after seeing the filmJaws. However, Pacino decided not to be involved because he found the story too dark, after his request that Rambo be a lunatic was dismissed by the producers.[11][14][15] When Badham was considered as director he wanted to castJohn Travolta as Rambo,George C. Scott as Trautman, and eitherGene Hackman orCharles Durning as Teasle. Frankenheimer consideredPowers Boothe,Michael Douglas, andNick Nolte as Rambo before castingBrad Davis because of his role inMidnight Express.[4]Dustin Hoffman was offered the role of Rambo but turned it down.[16]
For the role of Sheriff Teasle, Kassar and Vajna approachedAcademy Award winners Hackman andRobert Duvall but both turned the part down. Marvin, another Oscar winner, turned down the part of Colonel Trautman.James Mason andRichard Jaeckel were also considered.Kirk Douglas was eventually hired. Douglas wrote in his autobiographyThe Ragman's Son that he initially rejected the script but agreed after Kotcheff changed it to retain the novel's original ending. When the ending was changed back to Stallone's version, he left the project.[17] He wrote, "I thought it would be better, dramatically, if my character realized what aFrankenstein monster, amoral killer, and menace to society he has created and kills Stallone. If they'd listened to me, there would have been noRambos. They would have lost a billion dollars..."[18]Rock Hudson was approached as a replacement but was soon to undergo heart surgery and had to pass up the chance to work with Stallone.Richard Crenna was hired as a replacement; the role of Trautman became the veteran character actor's most famous role, a performance for which he received much critical praise.[10]
The film was shot in theFraser Valley ofBritish Columbia on a $15 million budget beginning on November 15, 1981, and continuing until April 1982.[10][8] The town scenes in the movie were shot inHope and the nearbyCoquihalla Canyon Provincial Park, called Chapman Gorge in the film,[19] while the rest of the movie was shot inCapilano Canyon,Golden Ears Provincial Park andPitt Lake inPitt Meadows. During the productionBuzz Feitshans replaced producerEd Carlin, who suffered aheart attack.[4][8]
The locations chosen for the film initially experienced unseasonably warm and sunny weather during the filming, which posed challenges since the crew had counted on anovercast setting. However, a period of heavy snowfall beginning in January 1982 delayed the production by two months. Other delays were caused by injuries to the cast during stunts, including Stallone sustaining a serious back injury and several broken ribs, in particular, due to performing his own stunt of dropping off a cliff and into a tree.[20][21][8] Since the production ran over schedule, Crenna's role in the film was reduced in order to avoid having to pay him higher fees as specified in his contract.[17]
The firearms used in the film had to be imported into Canada because of the country'sfirearms regulation.[22][23] In January 1982 over $50,000 worth of firearms—including fourteenM16 rifles, threeRemington shotguns, two.44 Magnum revolvers, and elevenColt AR-15 rifles—were stolen from the set. Although the guns had been modified to shoot blanks, theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police claimed that they could be easily modified to fire live ammunition. After the incident the set was guarded by theCanadian Army, whose soldiers also served as extras in the film.[17][8]
The first rough cut of the film was between three and three-and-a-half hours long. According to Stallone, it was so bad that it sickened him and his agent. Stallone wanted to buy the movie and destroy it thinking that it was a career killer. After heavy re-editing, the film was cut down to 93 minutes; this version was ultimately released in theaters.[24] The ending used in the finished film was shot in March 1982, after the original one was deemed unsatisfactory.[25]
Kassar and Vajna sought either Warner Bros.,20th Century Fox orParamount Pictures as a distributor, displaying an 18-minute promotional reel to studios. Although they secured international distributors, they were unable to locate a domestic distributor to the film until they sent a longer 55-minute reel to theAmerican Film Market. After Warner Bros. and Paramount expressed interest, Orion Pictures agreed to the domestic distribution of the film.[8]
The film's score was composed and conducted byJerry Goldsmith, whose theme "It's a Long Road" added a new dimension to the character, and featured in the film's three sequels and animated spin-offRambo: The Force of Freedom. The soundtrack was originally released on LP by the Regency label, although it was edited out of sequence for a more satisfying listen. The album was reissued on CD with one extra track ("No Power") twice, first as one ofIntrada Records's initial titles, then as an identical release byVarèse Sarabande. The complete score was released by Intrada in a 2-CD set, along with a remastered version of the original album (with the Carolco logo [previously released on La-La Land Records'sExtreme Prejudice album] and theRambo: First Blood Part II trailer music added), on November 23, 2010, as one of their MAF unlimited titles.
David Morrell recorded an audio commentary track for theFirst Blood Special Edition DVD released in 2002. Sylvester Stallone recorded an audio commentary track for theFirst Blood Ultimate Edition DVD released in 2004. This edition also includes the original ending in which Rambo commits suicide, and a "humorous" ending tacked on afterwards. A brief snippet of the suicide ending appears in a flashback in the fourth movieRambo.Lionsgate also released this version onBlu-ray. Both commentary tracks are on the Blu-ray release.
Momentum Pictures released anHD DVD version ofFirst Blood in theUnited Kingdom in April 2007. Lionsgate also releasedFirst Blood as a double feature on February 13, 2007, along with 2004'sThe Punisher.[26]First Blood was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on November 9, 2018.[27]
First Blood topped the U.S. box office for three weeks in a row,[28] and its $6,642,005 opening weekend was the best October opening at the time.[10] The film ended as a significant financial success, with a total gross of $64 million domestically, the highest-grossing film of the fall,[29] and the13th highest-grossing film of the year.[30]
The film grossed $160.3 million worldwide, against a $15 million budget.[6] It was the first major Hollywood blockbuster to be released in China, where it was released in 1985.[31] It sold76 million tickets in China, thehighest for a foreign Hollywood film up until 2018.
The film received mixed reviews from critics, and three lead actors received praise for their performances. In his review,Roger Ebert wrote that he did not like the film's ending, but added it was "a very good movie, well-paced, and well-acted not only by Stallone ... but also by Crenna andBrian Dennehy." He commented, "although almost all ofFirst Blood is implausible, because it's Stallone on the screen, we'll buy it," and rated the film three out of four stars.[32]The New York Times film criticJanet Maslin described Rambo as a "fierce, agile, hollow-eyed hero" who is portrayed as a "tormented, misunderstood, amazingly resourceful victim of the Vietnam War, rather than as a sadist or a villain." Maslin also praised the film's story for its "energy and ingenuity".[33] Conversely,Variety called the film "a mess" and criticized its ending for not providing a proper resolution for the main character.[34]/Film writer Jack Hawkins took a different view on the ending, praising the scene for containing "the finest acting of Stallone's career," adding, "there are no one-liners, no showy acts of bravado, just messy emotion without any catharsis... Stallone couldn't have played the scene better and neither could anyone else."[35]
First Blood has been considered as belonging to thevetsploitation subgenre.[36][37][38][39]
In 2000,BBC film critic Almar Haflidason noted that Stallone's training in survival skills and hand-to-hand combat gave the film "a raw and authentic edge that excited the audiences of the time."[40]
Film.com andFilmsite regardFirst Blood as one of the best films of 1982,[41][42] and in 2008 it was named the 253rd greatest film ever byEmpire magazine on its 2008 list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[43] In 2015,Rolling Stone ranked the movie at #7 on a 10 Best Action Movies of All Time.[44]
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has an 86% approval rating based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 7.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Much darker and more sensitive than the sequels it spawned,First Blood is a thrilling survival adventure that takes full advantage of Sylvester Stallone's acting skills."[45] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[46]
James Berardinelli of ReelViews called the film "a tense and effective piece of filmmaking". He noted that the film's darker tone, somber subtext, and non-exploitative violence allowed the viewer to enjoy the film not only as an action/thriller but as something with a degree of intelligence and substance. On Stallone's performance, he wrote "it seems impossible to imagine anyone other than Stallone in the part, and his capabilities as an actor should not be dismissed".[47] In the 2010 edition of hisMovie Guide,Leonard Maltin gave the film one-and a half stars out of four, saying that it "throws all credibility to the winds about the time [Rambo] gets off with only a bad cut after jumping from a mountain into some jagged rocks".[48]
First Blood received the most positive reception of theRambo franchise. The four sequels received mixed or average reviews.[49][50][51]
In a 2011 article forBlade by Mike Carter, credit is given to Morrell and theRambo franchise for revitalizing the cutlery industry in the 1980s due to the presence of theJimmy Lile andGil Hibben knives used in the films. In 2003,Blade gave Morrell an industry achievement award for having helped to make it possible.[52] Morrell said his being given the award "is ironic" because the knife was Sylvester Stallone's idea and does not appear in the novel.[5]
Rambo's survival knife became an iconic movie weapon. In a July 28, 2013 auction the original knife and its sheath were sold for $92,250, and even a set of 100 replicas of the knife produced by Lile in 1982 have been valued at $45,000 each.[5]
A writer from the American think tankFoundation for Economic Education commented that the sequence of events in the film are the result of police brutality. He goes on to say that Teasle's initial approach with Rambo was without reason, and that he could have driven him to the diner or simply left him alone. He assigned blame to Teasle's actions and compared the situation to a number of twenty-first century police encounters that turned deadly.[53]
A sequel titledRambo: First Blood Part II was released in 1985.
In 2014,Rambo: The Video Game was released, based on the first threeRambo films.
On August 14, 2020, a cedar wood statue of Rambo was unveiled in Hope, Canada, 38 years after the film's release. Mayor Peter Robb, local MPMark Strahl, and the statue's sculptor, Ryan Villers, attended the ceremony.[54]
Why, if it hadn't been for 'Nam then people like me would never have had the pleasure of Combat Shock, First Blood, The Exterminator or Don't Answer The Phone! (...) And Cannibal Apocalypse is almost the best vetsploitation movie ever, second only to the mighty Exterminator.
Vetsploitation was a viable Hollywood genre in the late '70s and throughout much of the '80s. "First Blood," "The Exterminator," "Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except"… even "Taxi Driver" to a degree.
Instead of making modestly ambitious duds between Rockys, he now makes tortured Vietnam vetsploitation films.
"Rambo: The Complete Collector's Set" takes us all the way through Rambo's odyssey from war-damaged veteran to redeemed mercenary. In addition to the dark vetsploitation of "First Blood" and the even darker genocides of "Rambo IV," the set also includes the explosive inanities of "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and the talky longueurs of "Rambo III."
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