Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Dir: Mark Hartley

Cousins Yoram Globus and Menachem Golan, finding success in Israel with such films as ENTEBBE: OPERATION THUNDERBOLT (1977) and the wildly popular LEMON POPSICLE (1978), looked to realise their dream of producing and directing Hollywood films. Their path to that dream took them to the financially troubled Cannon films, started in 1967. Prior to Golan and Globus purchasing the company in 1979, Cannon distributed low budget films, everything from sexploitation like THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES TO WASHINGTON (1977) to the mainstream v. hippies JOE (1970).

Golan and Globus at first continued the formula established by the prior owners of making films cheap. But that wasn't enough for Golan and Globus. They wanted to be major players. The budgets increased. The amount of films they produced in a year skyrocketed. They bought up theatres. Everything they did was big. But the films weren't necessarily getting better.

This is the story of the rise and fall of Cannon films.

Film documentarian Mark Hartely, the creator of the excellent NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! (2008), brings his talents to telling the tale of two men with an alien perspective of what makes a Hollywood film a Hollywood film and filled with hubris. Using clips from the films, past interviews with Golan (who died in 2014) and Globus, and interviews for this documentary with the writers, directors and actors who helped create the films, we learn a bit about the mindset of the two producers.

Cannon's Chuck Norris B move flick INVASION U.S.A. isn't great cinema. But it is bloody entertaining cinema. And that's what I was looking for from Cannon when I perused the shelves at the local video shop. I wanted to rent DEATH WISH 3 and THE DELTA FORCE. I went to see COBRA in theatres. I squealed with delight upon hearing they were producing Tobe Hooper's LIFEFORCE and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. OTELLO? Is that the foreign spelling for OTHELLO? No matter! I wasn't looking to rent something arty from Cannon. And that may have been Cannon's downfall, trying to be an A list studio when what they were perceived to do best was B films.

Not all the tales are told but there are plenty in this documentary about the cousins doing what needed to be done to get the films made and their delusion that they were making extraordinary cinema. Golan pulling an Uzi on a pilot to force him to continue flying as more shots were needed, the lack of safety on set, the yelling and screaming, shady financial dealings, all told by those who lived through it. Actor Alex Winter, who appeared as a gang banger in DEATH WISH 3, slags everyone from the producers to Charles Bronson to director Michael Winner. It could be selective editing but I have the feeling he agreed to the interview in order to exact some revenge for his treatment on a film from thirty years ago.

It was a lot of fun to revisit the Cannon films from my youth and see the actors from those films recalling that time of their lives.

*** out of ****