Rico explains how he hasn""t had an opportunity to ""be somebody"" yet.He speculates about his criminal ambitions and future as a racketeer:I could do all the things that fella does, and more, only I never got my chance.As the Montague servants pass, Sampson bites his thumb, and spits.After a short period of jokes, deliberate antagonist talk and ribald humor, the Capulet servants spoil for and provoke a fight.When “Semos” was friendly with Leo, Attar immediately assumed that humans were non-threatening, and the fighting ceased.The tale of Jake La Motta""s downfall is a reversal of the sentimental, much-loved boxer/hero story inRocky (1976).[On the last day of 1942, Roosevelt actually screened the film at the White House.] Its strategic timing was further enhanced at the time of its general release in early 1943 by the January 14-24, 1943 Casablanca Conference (a summit meeting in which Roosevelt broke US-Vichy relations) in he Moroccan city with Churchill, Roosevelt, and two French leaders - DeGaulle (the charismatic Free French leader) and General Henri Giraud (supportive of Marshal Petain).