All language subtitles for Electric Boogaloo The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films 2014 Ozlem

NARRATOR: Cannon Films,

the home of
high-powered, high-voltage

motion picture entertainment.

We're taking motion picture
excitement over the edge,

and your box office
over the top.

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus

were the heavyweights.

They were the George Foremans
and the Muhammad Alis

of the indie market.

I hold them in huge affection,

(CHUCKLING) even though
they ruined our movie.

(ROARS)

It's hard to say
the words "Cannon Films"

without laughing.

Nuts. Just crazy, nuts.

(ROARS)

Slightly to the sidelines of,

I don't know,
serious filmmaking.

(SNARLING)
Ugh!

The audience wasn't
prepared for the craziness.

Looniness.
(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

Guys, really?
I mean, that's insane.

I felt a little stupid doing it.

They put a stamp on pop culture.

You were rooting for them.
(SCREAMING)

We had no idea
what we were doing.

We were just making it up
as we went along.

(GROANING)

How could it fail?

(SONG PLAYING)

(CAMERA CLICKING)

(HORSE NEIGHING)

(GROWLING)

(GUN COCKING)

(GUNSHOTS)

Menahem Golan is the father
of the Israeli cinema.

Every three movies out of four

were produced by Menahem Golan,

some of them directed by him.

He'd made something like
40 pictures before I met him.

As a kid, he was in the theaters

watching the movies,

then he wanted to
see the projector,

then he wanted to
touch the film.

MENAHEM: This is where
I met for the first time

the Hollywood
of Humphrey Bogart,

Gary Cooper, Billy Wilder.

And I used to spend here
at least four times a week.

I fell in love with Hollywood,
right in this building.

He lived cinema.

He was shooting
movies in Israel,

and he didn't have food at home.

ITZIK KOL: And he came and
said, "Look, I don't have a car",

"I don't have a Frigidaire"

"and I don't have
even a house."

"The only thing what I have
is a wife and three daughters."

"If you can put a mortgage"

"on my wife and
my three daughters,"

"it's okay with me."

Money was never a real issue
for Menahem. Filmmaking was.

Then he brought Yoram
into the business afterwards.

Yoram was a younger cousin.

Yoram Globus was the businessman

behind the movie-making.

Menahem Golan
was the movie-maker.

They had a distribution
company, a production company.

Menahem was directing.

And they were the industry.

They had a number of
certainly very successful

domestic Israeli films

that threatened to break out.

Tevye and His Seven Daughters,

some kind of Fiddler
on the Roof knock-off.

WILLIAM STOUT:
Menahem's wife had brought

their new baby to the set,

and Menahem sees the baby.

"Oh, darling, the baby. Give
me the baby, give me the baby."

(IMITATING MENAHEM) "Put
the baby, put the baby in the basket

"and the basket
in this wagon."

His wife is going like,

"Menahem, you know,
you just can't put..."

(IMIATING MENAHEM)
"Later, please, please."

"Not now."
"Action!"

Boom, everything takes off,
the horses go racing.

It looks like
the baby in the basket

is almost about to fall off.

And his wife lunges
to catch the baby

and he grabs her
and he goes, "Darling..."

"Never in the middle
of the shot, please!"

And that's Golan.

MAN: They already had their
eye on an international market.

The Raid on Entebbe was
a natural for them to do

because Israel
was at their feet.

Put your hands on your head!

To the back!
Keep going!

Menahem and Yoram were the
kings of Hollywood in Israel.

This is a grenade,
and we can blow the plane up!

SYBIL: They got the military.

SAM: We are shooting a scene

and four Hercules
are in the background.

BOAZ: And the pilot was
taking off and landing,

taking off and landing.

And he said, "Listen, I cannot
work anymore. I'm tired."

SAM: So Menahem, he is
very adamant about shooting.

He cannot take it that
something will stop his momentum.

So he just picked up an Uzi...

Points it right at
the head of the pilot.

And said, "You better
go back to the cockpit"

"and do what
I'm telling you."

You can't stop him.

QUENTIN: One of
Menahem's young sidekicks

was a guy called Boaz Davidson,

who came up with the
Lemon Popsicle series of films.

BOAZ: Lemon Popsicle was
based on my escapades

and growing-up pains.

Since we were dealing
with discovering of sex,

we had to go where
people didn't go before.

Menahem didn't want to
make this kind of movie.

Yoram was a little
bit more daring

because he was
a little bit younger,

but both of them were
very conservative.

I think some of
the intelligentsia

saw it as something which
was very vulgar. (MOANING)

BOAZ: A neighbor
told my mom that,

"Your son did
Lemon Popsicle?"

Steady. Keep it there.
It's growing.

She said, "Yes".
She spitted on the floor

and she said, "Wow.
This is horrible".

You all right?
Could be better.

"Horrible."

It was a population
of 3.5 million people,

and the first run of the movie,

1.3 million people saw it.

BOAZ: The number one
box office success of Israel

until this very day.

So Menahem and Yoram
made huge amount of money.

They had a goal,
and it was a dream,

and the dream was to be
successful all over the world,

and mainly in Hollywood.

It happens they bought
this small company

which was called Cannon.

We ran the company for 13 years.

It created something
like 70 pictures.

JOHN G. AVILDSEN: They were
doing various skin flicks,

exploitation,

or buying Swiss skin

and adding some
extra scenes to it.

CHRISTOPHER: We made
Inga in Sweden,

and when you're shooting
in a foreign language,

in Swedish, in this case,

it becomes Bergmanesque,
it becomes an art film,

but our art film had
lots of nudity in it.

NARRATOR: Don't
bother to translate it.

It means the same
in any language.

Dewey said, "We've
raised some money"

"to make this other picture,"

"but we've realized
it's a terrible idea"

"and we've got
to make something"

"or otherwise we're going to
have to give the money back."

"Have you got any ideas?"

JOE: You goddamn
nigger-loving hippies

getting away with murder.

Sex, drugs, pissing on America,

fucking up the music.

I'd like to kill one of them.

(GUNSHOT)

Joe turned out to be one of
the biggest pictures of 1970.

It reflected the headlines.

Hippies and hardhats
and the war,

and whether Nixon was
a good guy or a bad guy.

People said, "Gee, you've
gotta see this, Charlie.

"It's terrific."

JOE: All you gotta do
is act black

and the money rolls in.

I sweat my balls off
40 hours a week

in front of a fucking furnace.

They get as much money as I do.

When we started making
movies, Inga was $50,000.

Joe cost us $372,000.

And by the time we did
The Happy Hooker,

it was $1.2 million,

and that was just a heck of a
lot of money to have to raise

from individuals.

And Menahem and Yoram
came along and said,

"We want to make movies now
in the United States."

They came to town,

for lack of a better term.

MAN: They just wanted

to put together
an instant library

of films that had
their name on it.

"Here's the thing,
it's 17 January today."

"You're shooting on 4 March
with Klaus Kinski."

NARRATOR: Sick with revenge.

Twisted with hate.

You make me sick.

Don't!
(SCREAMING) No!

NARRATOR: Schizoid.

MAN: So at the beginning,
they started to do

the same kind of movies.

MAN 2: Low-budget movies
with a hint of sex.

MAN 3: Horror movies.

Help me!

BOAZ: The movie X-Ray

was one of those slasher movies.

Barbi Benton was the star

and you couldn't do
a movie with Barbi Benton

without showing her body.

MARTINE BESWICK: Their
idea of films at that time

had to have a lot of nudity,

because that's what
the public wanted,

according to their
mentality, their thinking.

MAN: When they were shooting.

The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood

I remember Martine saying

that when she would
walk off the set

they were bringing
fucking into the thing.

BESWICK: There in the pool,

they had all these extras at it,

and I was absolutely furious,

because this is not
what I signed on for.

What I want is a boffo socko,
kiss my grocer's movie.

BESWICK: It was about
a conniving studio

who were really
rotten and horrid,

and, of course, that's
exactly what I was dealing with

with Golan and Globus.

RUSTY LEMORANDE: They
either piled gifts on you

and treated you
like a favorite child,

or they were mean and bullish

and made you fear
for your career.

They carry with them
the Israeli temperament.

MAN: They would
go through walls

in order to get what they want.

Menahem had no trouble yelling.

Up would come the hands,

and the Israeli accent would
get thicker and thicker.

They were screaming
at each other,

just screaming.

"(MUMBLING) Chris!
(MUMBLING) Chris!"

You know, my name
kept coming up.

I kept saying to this reporter,

"What are they
talking about?"

"What are they talking..."

And they were deciding which
deli to take me to lunch.

It wasn't anger, it was just
fierceness and robustness

and passion.

MAN: They were extremely
fond of each other.

Clearly they were family.

MENAHEM: We are
unique partners, I think.

It's more than brothers.

We forge each other's
signatures on checks,

if you understand...

That is the maximum way
you can get to.

You couldn't break that
relationship that they had.

They trusted each
other completely.

Yet there was a real
Yin and Yang quality.

They seemed
to approach filmmaking

entirely differently.

Menahem is a dreamer
and he's a grown-up kid.

And he's doing everything
he's always wanted to do.

He would sit and
dream about projects

and people and stories.

And Yoram was a shrewd
businessperson

who had to keep everything tight

so Menahem can work.

He wasn't ebullient,
he wasn't loud,

he wasn't a center of attention.

He stood in the shadows.

Maybe the best film salesman

the world has ever known.

I'm Yoram Globus.
He's our president.

Nice to meet you.

Dour, watchful,
a little bit suspicious.

Cold and hard and tough.

YORAM: It's Yoram.
Where is my money?

You promise and promise and
promise and you are not paying.

They were opposite, but
together when they went to banks,

it was exactly
the combination you needed

to raise money for this dream,

and they did.

We came to America
to make American movies

that could be sold to
independent distributors

around the world,

with production values...

(SCREAMING)
With a good story,

with... call it star system,

and bring it to the world, not via
the major companies. (SCREAMING)

They invented the way the
independent company work today.

They create a poster

of a movie they intend to make.

They sell it to foreign buyers.

They take that money,
they make the picture

and deliver it
the following season.

NARRATOR: Now
a special experience

in movie-going entertainment.

The Apple.
(GRUNTS)

The Apple, the Mount
Everest of bad musicals,

and Menahem directed it.

* Magic Apple, mystery Apple

* Take a little ride
Let me be your guide

* Through the Apple paradise *

The Apple was going to
be Menahem's Tommy.

* Hey, hey, hey.

DEL VALLE: It was his
attempt to be Ken Russell.

"I'm better than Ken Russell!"

He thought it was going to be
incredibly commercial,

He thought it was incredibly
imaginative and creative.

I can't explain, The Apple
to you. Can anybody?

It's the story of creation,
according to Menahem.

STEWART: A classic story
of good and evil

set in the music industry
in the future.

NARRATOR: In 1994, the
world is controlled by one power.

The Apple is success.

DAVID:
Menahem's idea of the future

is 2025, Tel Aviv.

ALAIN JAKUBOWICZ: He wanted
to show the world of the hippies,

except Menahem is not a hippie,

so he didn't really know
how to approach it.

ALL:
Peace.

In every way, it is bold.

It will have a song
called 'I'm Coming'.

* Ooh, coming

* Coming for you

* Feel me coming.

STEWART: I was
perfect for the role of Bibi

because I was so naive.
(LAUGHS)

I was like, "Oh, he's coming
over here for me. Okay."

That's how I read it, even
with the dance and everything.

Pretty bad.
I know it's pathetic.

He was so sure that the movie
is going to be a hit,

a big hit.

STEWART: So
when we were at the screening

and the opposite happened,

he was devastated.
(BOOING)

They gave complimentary
soundtracks,

and when the movie was over,
they threw them at the screen

and they were embedded
in the screen.

ALAIN: I think he was
in advance of his time

when he did The Apple.

(LAUGHS)

One of the great things
that we are all looking for

is more life,

life, another life,

life beyond what we are limited

to on our earth,

life beyond E.T.

Life up there.

And that's what
cinema provides us.

They loved film more than any,

like, executive or mogul

that I'd ever talked to.

You were talking with them
about something else,

they'd say, "Listen,
talk with me about movies."

They'd have four hours free,
they'd go to a movie,

even though the film
was in German

and they didn't speak German,
they would go to the movies.

Cannon is the only company
who loves cinema.

We don't have other
hobbies. Cinema is our life.

"When can you start?" I said, "Well,
I'm getting married on Saturday."

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"How long will that take?"

NARRATOR: They run
their company like a factory,

a no-frills operation

where long hours
and low pay are the norm,

where every penny
ends up on the screen,

not on an expense account.

"Boys, we'll eat lunch
in the office."

Menahem ran down the hall,

went to the assistant's room,

grabbed his plate
of Chinese food,

and said, "Give me that."

And ran back and said, "We
got you some Chinese food."

The door would open

and an assistant would
bring in some Styrofoam cups

and a couple of those
Styrofoam carry-out trays.

Meetings took place

while he's shoving
pickles in his face.

99% of the budget of a picture

is going to the screen,

not with all
the limouisine-shmimousine,

lunches-bunches
and all this nonsense.

They're not about
the schmoozing,

they're about
getting things done.

We are not the kind of people

of Ma Maison or
Jimmy's in Hollywood,

the restaurants, you know.

We are not going
to Apollo Lounge.

We do not play tennis.
Look at me.

I don't, I'm sorry.

"I don't go to tennis courts,"

"I don't go to big, lavish
parties in Malibu."

Well, the reason he didn't
was because he wasn't invited.

I just had in my head what
a movie producer should be

and Menahem just didn't quite
fit that picture.

(CAMERA CLICKING)

The shirts were too tight.

The end of the screening, he'd
be trying to button his pants.

You know Jabba the Hutt?
Menahem Golan.

If Jabba the Hutt were
on meth or something.

The only thing that motivated
and guided these two men

was the love of movies,

and this goes back to when
they were kids in Tel Aviv

watching American movies.

He wanted to remake

the picture he had seen
as a young guy and loved.

Menahem said,
"I have a wonderful idea."

"I want all the monster men."

"Boris Karloff
and Bela Lugosi."

I said,
"But they're dead."

VINCENT PRICE: Welcome to
the House of the Long Shadows.

The masters of horror
are moving in.

Vincent Price, that's me.

Peter Cushing.
Christopher Lee.

You're not going to make
a movie with these guys

that is going to
frighten anybody.

(GIRL SCREAMING)

It's not going to be
a horror movie.

(BOTH SCREAMING)
(BAT SHRIEKING)

It's going to have to be
a nostalgia piece.

(OPERATIC SINGING)

But I think they were happy
to send themselves up.

Piano wire. He must have
heard her singing.

I knew it wasn't going to be
successful as a theatrical movie.

With all those horror stars
and a kind of horror title,

it got a PG rating.

(SCREAMS)

So you've got
a family horror movie.

There were cinemas out there
that needed to be filled

with something,
and that's what Cannon did.

Really what they made

was whatever they
could put together

that had an actor in it,
that had a name

that they could pre-sell.

OLIVER:
Dutch, Sylvia Kristel.

She was huge, and a big name.

She exuded quiet, erotic desire.

"I'm horny, but stay away."

She was famous for the
Just Jaeckin films.

NARRATOR: The first time
since the original Emmanuelle

that these two
outstanding talents

have been brought together
in Lady Chatterley's Lover.

They sold Sylvia Kristel in a sexy
picture. That's what they'd sold.

NARRATOR: D.H.
Lawrence's classic masterpiece

is now a major motion picture.

They were blown away.
They liked it.

They thought
it was a great picture.

NARRATOR: Sylvia
Kristel is Mata Hari.

Dancer. Lover. Spy.
(GASPS)

When I met her, she
was addicted to cocaine.

By the time she got to Budapest,
she was addicted to booze.

OLIVER: The Italian hairdresser
would go, "Oh, Madonna,

"look at the way she looks!"

She came in looking
like a gargoyle.

She couldn't act...

Your friend Karl

may have already engaged me
to seduce you.

OLIVER: It's an important
role, and she struggled.

The commercial pushing

of erotic scenes
in this film, ruined it.

They called from LA saying,

"Now she's got to get laid
in the trenches as well."

She's getting laid enough.

It's all to do with
taste in the end.

That's sort of the Cannon way.

It completely resembles

something, minus good taste.

I've taken the script, you
know, I'm opening the first page,

and then so I start
reading, and it says,

"Na-na, na-na,
suck my banana."

This was one of the first
lines of the film.

What they didn't have in taste,
they made up for in enthusiasm.

Alright, let's cut this shit,

and now let's all get serious.

* Dance all night, play all day

* One, two, three

* Don't let nothing
get in the way *

Last American Virgin was a...

Almost by-the-numbers
remake of Lemon Popsicle.

They changed very little.

They just brought the plot
to America.

When I first got the script, I
thought, "What is this film?"

"It's... it's got
two different tones."

On one hand there's this
sexploitation aspect to it,

and then the other half of it

was this really wonderful
love story.

It had all these
controversial issues

with the abortion
and the prostitution.

Alright, cowboys,
who's gonna be first?

I wanna get this over with.

FRANKLIN: Then the
crabs, there's cocaine

and there's high-schoolers
doing all this stuff.

Now, you two have fun. (SIGHS)

WOMARK: The good guy and his
best friend who's super good-looking

who always is with the young
ladies. Gets somebody pregnant.

It's actually the girl
he gets pregnant

is the girl that our hero
really loves

and, of course, the
good-looking guy bails on her

and our hero has to basically
take her to the hospital

the day of the abortion,

and in order
to pay for the abortion,

he's a pizza delivery guy.

An abortion is being played
with U2 music under it,

and you go from a doctor
performing an abortion

to some guy cutting a pizza.

Guys, really? I mean, that's
insane. That's just nuts.

They had really high hopes

that this movie would
kind of cross over,

teenage movie, this would be it.

NARRATOR: The Last
American Virgin.

See it or be it.

ALL: Yeah!

I thought it was an odd
script for America.

Hi.
How's it going?

Are you here to interview
me or to fuck me?

I think a lot of the
traditions or customs

didn't translate so well.

For instance, after the abortion

Gary brings her a Christmas
tree and a bag of oranges.

It must have meant something
in Israel. I have no idea.

DAVIDSON: My goal
was to do a real story,

and I think it was
very dangerous,

especially for the
American market,

because in America,
everything has to end up

really, really happy.

American movies are so American

that when they're not American,
everybody picks that up.

We will always do films that
are a little different, I think,

because of our background
and mentality.

They were foreigners,

and I think we needed
some American element.

They did bring over
a lot of Israelis,

um, that were not gonna
help them

infiltrate the domestic market.

They all spoke English,

but they didn't really
understand the American idiom.

I think that was a problem,

you know, judging the material.

When they tapped into,
or stumbled into,

the right idea, it worked.

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"David, it's Menahem."

And I said, "What?" And he said, "I
want to offer you a great opportunity."

He said, "We're going
to make a sequel"

"to one of the great
movies of the 1970s."

I said, "What, are you
going to do Godfather III?"

And he goes, "Close."

NARRATOR: Death Wish II.

He's doing it for you.
Aarggh!

Death Wish II,
was the first legitimate,

real Hollywood film they made.

An anticipated sequel
to a hit movie,

with a movie star.

MICHAEL WINNER: Death Wish,
was on many of the 10-best-of-the-year

film lists in America,

was treated very seriously,

and I think society
has now changed enough,

eight years later,

which is a long time
to wait for a sequel,

to make a story
of some relevance.

I was trying to deal
with a character

who did not want to go back
to where he had been.

He had lost his wife,

his daughter was
in a mental institution,

he has his outing with her,

he's harassed by these punks,

they pickpocket him,
they come back,

they ravage his maid,
his daughter dies,

and because of her
mental illness,

the police won't prosecute
as a homicide.

The violence in
the second film was there

so Bronson can get to work.

NARRATOR: When murder
and rape are the crimes,

Bronson is the only punishment.

Do you believe in Jesus?

Yes, I do.

Well, you're gonna meet him.

DAVID: My script was
original, it was clever.

It was much better
than the film itself,

which I was somewhat appalled
by when I first saw it.

I was upset about the amount

of violence mixed with sex.

It moved it into
a different type of film

that I did not want to be in.

Rape is a terrible thing,
but it does happen.

It is very much on the minds
of the public,

and I see no reason why
any subject

should be excluded from drama.

This was just
to get his rocks off.

The script did not need it.

The rape scenes
of the British version

have been cut by four minutes

by the British film censor
James Firman,

who had this to say, "This
is about as irresponsible

"as a filmmaker could be"

"in the treatment of rape
for purely commercial ends."

"This director
is simply trying to stir up"

"as much controversy
as possible"

"because he's in desperate
need of a hit."

The critics really were
very, very outspoken

about how they were
really upset about the film.

WOMAN: It is obviously very
much on Mr. Winner's mind

to be sodomized.

I hope it happens to him soon.

He loved that. He loved
to get people talking.

Michael thrived on controversy.

HARTMAN: Menahem and Yoram,

they gave him the carte
blanche to do a lot of things.

"You say you want to shoot
this film like that? Fine."

"You want to shoot
another one? Fine."

Winner's films make money.

NARRATOR: This is the lusty, bawdy,
epic story... (CROWD CHEERING)

Of England's most legendary
robber, the Wicked Lady.

Wicked Lady was his opportunity

to go up a rung

on the director's ladder
of respectability.

They had Faye Dunaway,
they had Sir John Gielgud,

they had Alan Bates,

they had A-list names
in this movie.

And yet he had to put
naked girls in there.

It was almost like he was
sabotaging himself.

Mike wanted to put a bit
of spice into the film

and there was a scene where
they whipped one of the girls.

MARINA SIRTIS: Michael came
up with a pair of scissors

and literally just
cut my costume off,

and said, "Get on with it."

That was the scene that
the movie was sold on.

It didn't really fit
in the film at all.

ALEX WINTER: Michael was
a pathologically brutal,

strange, sadistic, insecure,

egotistical character.

OLIVER: He seems to have
used his job as a director

to, frankly, abuse people.

They always seem to call for
me if things have to be blown up,

people have to be killed,
raped or shot, you see?

I don't know why they call for
a nice, charming chap like me.

(SCREAMS)

MARINA SIRTIS: We're shooting
in a leaky garage,

the rain's coming in
through the roof,

and I'm lying naked.

He wouldn't even let me get up.

He wanted me to
lie there to be lit,

and I was freezing, and
the director of photography

came and put his coat on me

and Winner screamed at him
to get the coat off,

how was he supposed to light me?

Completely illegal,
by union standards,

and total sadism.

Mike would say
to the special effects man,

"Where's a good place
for me to be, John?"

And the crew used to say, "In
the back of the car, Michael."

I think that he was in a way
the perfect Cannon director

because Cannon was
this weird bubble

and everybody in it

had this, sort of,
wink and a nod,

and we do love the movies,
but we want to make money,

and we don't care
about your work conditions

or the quality of the product,

and it was kind of
a weird carnival.

It was, like, movies are
an unreal environment

at the best of times.

And the Cannon movies
were like that times 100.

NARRATOR: The Cannon Group

is proud to introduce
the practitioner

of the oldest and ultimate
martial arts,

the ninja.

Before Menahem, I didn't,

and I bet you
that millions of people

never knew the word 'ninja'.

Aarggh!

He took a title from Bruce Lee

and a director
was sent to do it.

They sent a batch of the first
three days of dailies.

I remember him saying,

"It looks like a hundred-year-old
television show."

"This movie's a disaster."

"Look how he's shooting this! This
guy can't... He's a piece of wood."

He decided to take the picture
over and direct it himself.

He fired the main ninja.

Don't worry. The Manila
Film Festival is on.

There must be somebody
here we can go to.

He said, "Listen,
Franco. We need you."

"You are to replace Mike Stone,"

"because he's a great athlete,
but he cannot act."

GOLDBLATT:
Pretty good casting,

considering he just happened
to be at a restaurant in Manila.

He is no ninja!

He is a ninja!

He is no ninja!

He's so not ninja.

I don't know.
I've never seen a ninja.

Aarggh!

His character's name was Cole

and he was from Texas,

and, of course, Franco speaks...
(ITALIAN ACCENT) like this.

Menahem says, "Don't worry.
He'll still be Cole."

"I can't... I don't have time
to change that now."

He re-dubbed me
with an American voice,

but not my... a voice
that was similar to mine.

(AMERICAN VOICE) A true ninja
doesn't kill.

He eliminates, and only
for defensive purposes.

He loved American actors,
he loves American accents.

Maybe he wanted to be
an American.

MARK GOLDBLATT: Enter, the
Ninja made money, it was a hit,

a popular international success.

Interesting outfit.
Who's your tailor?

I think that movie made,
in a way, Cannon.

Ninja is a big deal.

And Menahem is the one
who did it.

They wanted immediately to
cash in and to make a sequel.

NARRATOR:
Revenge of the Ninja.

WOMARK:
"Here's $700,000."

"Come back in seven weeks
with a ninja movie."

"By the way, the script's
not too good."

This is no job for the police.

It's something I'll have to do.

Only a ninja can stop a ninja.

The story's
kind of a loose story.

It's not a heavy drama...

With philosophical ideas...

And character depth.

(GIRL SCREAMS)
No!

There was a script,
but once they shot it

and we edited it together,
and we looked at it,

it didn't make any sense.

If you want to work out,
you forgot your pants.

We had a screening of it.
It was a complete disaster.

And we're all called
into Menahem's office,

and he starts making up
a brand-new plot of the movie.

"We have to shoot a beginning"

"and, uh, the baby, uh,
is being held,"

"and ninjas come,
surround, 100 ninjas,"

"and they kill everybody
except the kid and the father,"

and he's just making this up,

and he had this uncanny
ability to just make up shit

and then we'd shoot it,

and it's the movie that you see.

Menahem Golan
is a very creative man.

He said, "Let's make another",

"but this time, I want
the hero to be a female."

Ninja III: The Domination,

which starred Lucinda Dickey.

She was hot for that year.

She was the Cannon go-to girl.

Ninja III: The Domination,

managed to take,
The Exorcist, a ninja movie,

and combine it with Flashdance.

SAM: We figured
that the only way

that a woman will have
the ninja ability

will be if she will be possessed

by a spirit
of a male dead ninja.

(ROARS)

DICKEY: I had to do
a possessed ninja scene,

and I was like, "I didn't learn
how to do that in acting class."

(DEMONIC VOICE) You fool!

You cannot stop me!
I am a ninja!

Did my head spin around?
I think my whole body spun.

(NORMAL VOICE) Help me,
I'm scared!

(SHRIEKS)

FIRSTENBERG: In everyday
life, she is aerobics instructor.

When the dead spirit takes over,

she goes out and she kills

until the master, Sho Kosugi,

comes into the scene
and he helps to free her.

The result is
a very strange movie.

NARRATOR: Where Revenge
of the Ninja left off,

Ninja III begins.

An epic struggle
of superhuman strength

and supernatural forces.

Ninja III: The Domination,
was quite a failure,

because the audience did not
buy the idea of a woman ninja.

It's over now.

When I took over MGM

it had just come out
of its roughest period.

We had a cap on what we could
spend on any motion picture

and we needed product.

The day I heard

that MGM was going to be
distributing Cannon films,

I thought, "Okay, this is the
end of civilization as we know it."

"Did Nostradamus
predict this?"

This changed the
playing field for Cannon.

But pressure to deliver
big movies...

NARRATOR: Sahara.

ALL: Whoo-oo.

NARRATOR: Only one girl
dares to drive it.

The Sahara World Rally.

I want to see the thing race
straight through hell.

When Sahara was being made,

we all thought,
"Hmm, this may be something."

Brooke Shields was still
close to her stardom.

ALEX: Menahem
started talking about

how Brooke Shields
was going to win

the Academy Award for Sahara.

I wish we could stay
here forever,

but we risked our lives
taking this shortcut,

and now we're losing
all that we've gained.

The idea that that was going
to win an Oscar was so absurd,

and I just was like, "Really?"

"Where in your lexicon
do you honestly believe that?"

Sahara is Menahem's attempt
to make Lawrence of Arabia

and combine it with Blue Lagoon

meets The Great Race.

(CANON FIRES)

Menahem loved the intersection

of ideas that should
never meet each other,

so he assembles,
like Frankenstein,

parts from other movies,
and creates a disaster.

It was as dry
as the Saharan Desert.

It was awful.

It started the wheels
turning in my head

that we just couldn't continue
with these people.

We released it,
we did the best we could,

we put on a campaign,
we spent a little money,

and the film, of course, died,

because it was a bad film.

It was a shame
for the little girl

because she deserved better.

(MIMMICKING MENAHEM) "Brooke Shields,
Academy Award. Sahara, Academy Award."

Every picture that he does,

he think that the picture's
going to make $100 million.

(MIMMICKING MENAHEM)
"This will be an epic of cinema."

Menahem told me once that they
went to, on New Year's Eve,

to Times Square,

where the millions of people
are standing there,

and they had tears in their eyes

and they hugged each
other, and they said,

"Next year,
we're gonna get the Oscar."

NARRATOR: The incredible
Lou Ferrigno is

Hercules.

SYBIL:
Lou spoke to Menahem

and said he wanted to have it
be more of a family movie.

I disagreed. I could have seen

a version that would
have been more sexy.

LUIGI COZZI: He had the script
in his hand, and he said,

"This piece of shit!" Boom!

And threw the script
in the basket and said,

"I asked for a movie
for kids with Hercules"

"and here is Hercules
getting blow jobs."

You know, he was
crazy about that.

I told, "I wanna do fantasy
Hercules, not realistic."

It was kids' stuff.
I wanted to do kids' stuff.

(ROARS)

But it did have the bombshell
girl, like Sybil Danning.

LUIGI COZZI: She was
gorgeous. Beautiful costumes.

I was told, "When you're in that
costume, it becomes dangerous."

(GROANS)

Luigi convinced everyone to do
a special effects Hercules

with the most crude
special effects in the world.

Done very simple because
they had to be done cheap.

SYBIL:
Hercules on a budget.

Maybe there are some special
effects which work better,

and some special effects
which are worse.

I wanted them all to be perfect,

but they could not be
all perfect.

But if you have the sense
of wonder, who cares?

MGM put a lot of marketing
money into that. They believed in it.

Hercules did very, very well
at the box office

all over the world.

FRANK YABLANS: Maybe
it was a hit in comparison

to all the other
garbage they gave us,

but it was not a major hit, no.

The good thing about Menahem

is he could hear
an idea from somebody,

like his daughter seeing a
break-dancer on Venice Beach,

and in a relatively short
amount of time,

there is a movie
being made about it.

This, this is a new dance,
this will grab the whole world.

ALLEN DEBOISE: He just said,
"Okay, we're making this movie",

"we're going into production
in three weeks."

We didn't have a script, a
cast, we didn't have anything.

* Breakin'
and you just don't stop

* Here comes the movie
that's fresh and hot

* With high energy,
dancin' to the beat

* With a scratch-mix sound
that comes from the street *

Breakin' was like the Enter
the Dragon of hip-hop,

'cause he had
the best of the best.

There were no stuntmen, and we
weren't actors, we were all green.

They just said,
"Put 'em on camera."

PIETER JAN BRUGGE: Boogaloo
Shrimp and Shabba-Doo.

I don't even know
what their real names are.

I played the leader,
the straight guy.

I was the Dean Martin role

and he was the funny little
sidekick, Jerry Lewis.

The way people perceived me
in the neighborhood

or just around the world,

they perceived me as some
sort of urban superhero.

We look up to him because a lot

of what has been invented

has come from him.

Boogaloo Shrimp was a sensation.

(HEAVY BREATHING)

The whole place would
just stop and just watch him.

He would just start going and
going and going and it was like...

I don't even know where
he came up with that stuff.

(HEAVY BREATHING)
(MUSIC PLAYING)

Lucinda Dickey was
no more than a gymnast,

but Menahem liked her.

He called and he's like,

"I'm gonna make you
my next big star."

Lucinda Dickey didn't really fit in
the Breakin' film from our point of view.

We resented her.

LUCINDA: It was hell at
times. I'm not gonna lie.

He made it known
from the very first day

that I walked into rehearsals
that he was superior.

He couldn't do what I did,

but it didn't matter because the
movie wasn't about jazz dancing.

It was about breakdancing.

SAM: Obviously
she was an outsider,

but I believe,
when you see the movie today,

this element works

because that's how
the story goes,

that she's an outsider
that has to be accepted in.

There are lines in the movie
that were just so true and real.

She ain't no street dancer.

She knows nothing
about what we do.

There was a high drama

because Orion Pictures

was making a movie called
Beat Street at the same time.

Menahem at the time
famously said...

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"We must beat Beat Street!"

This was the race to be
the first breakdance movie.

Whatever could be assembled

in enough time to make
the release date

was what the movie
was going to end up being.

That movie had to make it in
that year, in 1984, it had to make it.

If it didn't, we wouldn't know
hip-hop as we know it today.

The rest is history

because it became one of their most
popular and highest-grossing films.

It showed leadership
and it showed camaraderie

between the different races,

so it really did something the United
Nations was unable to do so far,

is bring nations
together under one groove.

Our movie did better numbers
than Beat Street.

NARRATOR: This year, the big
hit for Golan and Globus is Breakin'.

It cost just over
$1 million to make

and has so far taken in
more than $56 million.

Unfortunately, it led
to Menahem thinking,

"I've figured it out."

* This story's through
but wait till part two *

Menahem comes in and he says,

"We're going to
do a sequel."

"The name of the sequel
is Electric Boogaloo."

And so it was.

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"We will do what Fred Astaire did.

"Shrimpy will dance
on the ceiling."

And he got it.

* Take me high.

Breakin' II was
more of a cartoon.

The whole hospital scene,
it was silly.

It missed the grittiness
that the first one had.

MICHAEL: Were over
here at East LA with pastels.

(CHUCKLING)
That was Cannon.

"Let's really make LA clean
and beautiful like a rainbow."

It really took away
from the authenticity.

(RECORD SCRATCHING)

I cried about it.

We had lost sight
of the message.

PIETER: I simply
thought it was a fad,

it was over, but the movies
actually did make an impact

upon the youthful audience
of its day.

So they had their finger on the
pulse of something, once in a while.

But most of the time,

the pulse was on something
that was so misguided.

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"We are going to New York,"

"we are making my movie,"

"great, great title."

And were all sitting there,

were all like,
"What's the title, Menahem?"

"My Darling Shiksa."

You can take your darling shiksa

and you can spend
the rest of your fakakta life

in Brooklyn in a candy store.

You idiot!

ELLIOTT: An audience
would say, "What's a shiksa?"

A shiksa is a woman
that isn't Jewish,

and the character is with
a woman who isn't Jewish,

which causes great chagrin
to the family.

The second day we were working,

Golan came up to Elliot

and it was somewhat
of a critical scene.

It was the point in the movie

where Elliot is going to
confess to Margaux Hemingway

that he is in love with her.

How'd you like to spend
the rest of your life

with a sloppy, diabetic Jew

who some day is going
to be a top restaurateur?

I love you, sweetheart.

After the first rehearsal,

Golan goes, "Elliot, Elliot,
Elliot, no, no, no, no, no."

And the whole crew
we're standing there,

we're going,
"Oh, boy."

And he goes, "Watch,
watch, watch, watch."

"Margaux, you
come here, come here."

"Come. Come
to Menahem."

"Okay. I love you.
I love you."

You know, and you just
sit there and you go,

"Oh, my God.
This is insane."

We had an enormous fight,
an enormous fight

and he closed down
the picture for a day or so.

Menahem, you know,
I told him he was a cocksucker

and he took me literally

and I had to, in order
to get it going again,

I said, "Oh, Menahem",

"I apologize for using
that kind of language."

"You're not
a cocksucker, okay?"

YABLANS: All you really want when
you're running a studio is a hit movie,

but if you have films
like Cannon was supplying

it's an embarrassment
to the studio name.

Okay, we fucked up.
What's next?

John Derek said one night,

"You know, what are we
doing all this for?"

"Why are we trying
to make good films?"

"You did 10."

"All Hollywood ever
approaches you with"

"is to screw to Bolero."

NARRATOR:
Introducing Bo Derek.

Did you ever do it
to Ravels Bolero?

(COUGHS)

MAN: Bo, in a lot of
people's mind, equaled sex.

MAN: She was the 10
of that period.

Everywhere we went,
she was recognized.

Our agent, Marty Baum, said,

"Look, if you guys wanna
just go make a film"

"and be totally left alone,"

"there are two
new guys in town."

NARRATOR: Bo Derek,
in a John Derek film.

Bolero was a take-off
of Blood and Sand

and the old romantic
40s bullfight pictures.

(COUGHS)

WOMAN: Andrea Occhipinti has
been gored by a bull in the balls.

And now he can't do it anymore,

and so then the next
sort of half of the film

becomes about Bo taking
on bullfighting herself

and taking care
and nurturing her man.

Cut to, she says...

That thing is going to work.

One of my favorite
lines, by the way.

I guarantee you this.

Then there's this
neon sign of ecstasy

as they're going for
a second round.

If you put Bo in
anything at that time

that John was directing,

it was bound to be erotica.

Her clothes would
always come off.

Riding a horse, terribly erect,

and I suppose others might be
as well while watching her.

BO: All of sudden, we started
getting letters from Menahem

that the film
wasn't strong enough.

"Make this as explicit and
strong as you possibly can."

It was controversial enough.

Look at you.

I am woman.
Ready. Juicy too.

BO: It had enough love scenes,
it had plenty of nudity.

I remember taking
the work print down

and screening it
for Frank Yablans

and saying, "Look, we've got
all these fights going on."

"They want
it stronger."

"I think you'll see
it's strong enough."

YABLANS: I really
don't remember.

All I know is that it was
another failed movie.

Making motion picture is
practically being in a war,

and there is, in a war, wounded.

Menahem would call a press
conference and say,

"Bo and John,
they live on a ranch,"

"they don't even
live in Hollywood."

"They love
that ranch."

"Were going to take
that ranch away from them,"

and just crazy,
outrageous stuff.

And that the film was too
sexy, what are we gonna do?

Poor Cannon Films,
were a good company,

and the Dereks were trying
to ruin our reputation.

And they were just manipulating
the press at our expense.

MGM at that point, I do believe,

decided to discontinue
the relationship with Cannon

as far as distributing
all of their films.

I told em, "Were not going to
go forward with this deal."

"You've reneged
on your deal."

"You've given us
nothing but junk."

Maybe we were a little bit
of a pawn in this game,

and they were using
us as a piece

because they no longer wanted
to distribute Cannon films.

Cannon had sort of a
terrible reputation in this town

as, you know, sort of down
and dirty, which we were.

You would open up Variety,

and there, a big double-page
spread for Bolero.

And these photos
were in my suitcase.

While they were
in Cannon's office

as we were waiting
to get another plane,

they went through my bags,
stole my photos,

and now they shamelessly,
brazenly use them in ads.

They didn't work according
to the Hollywood rules.

They were outlaws,
reckless, had no scruples.

There were a lot of provocative
things said about them.

Carpetbaggers.
Rug salesmen.

Hustlers.
Carnival salesmen.

Cheapskates.
Junk peddlers.

Wheeler-dealers.

They were starting to get
known as the Go-Go Boys.

The Bagel Brothers. I came
up with Mayhem and Urine.

I called them the Bad News Jews.

There was certainly that kind
of anti-immigrant sensibility

in these nicknames for them.

They were down-to-earth people

who just did the movies the same
way that they did it back home.

They weren't part of
the Hollywood bullshit.

Hollywood, 90% is talk and
10% is making motion pictures.

We are motion pictures makers

and the world know about it.

Sometimes we make better films,

sometimes we don't make
such good films,

but we do make films.

NARRATOR: It is
900 years after the great nuke

and the roles of women
have changed dramatically,

much to the displeasure
of men and mutants.

America 3000.

DAVID: Tongue-in-cheek
adventure comedy

in which women ruled
and men were slaves,

which every time I would
explain that to actresses

they always went,
"Ooh, I like that."

My interaction with them
was extremely brief.

It was the day
that I quit the film.

A call sheet
comes under the door

and I just threw it back
and I screamed,

"Fuck you!
Pay the crew!"

(GROANING)

"You people have a cash register
where your heart should be."

This is the only copy
that I have

and this is what I think
of Cannon Films.

There were so many bad movies
being made at Cannon

that if something
of quality came out,

it was like a happy accident.

I got a phone call
out of the blue

and it was from Chuck Norris.

MAN: Chuck Norris
was already established

in the world of
martial art movies,

what they used to call
karate movies.

He wanted to branch out more
into bigger action pictures.

MAN: And I talked
Menahem into it,

I said, "I think
this is the right guy."

"Ah, but he can't act."
I said, "Well make him act."

NARRATOR: Vietnam, 1972.

Captured in a savage jungle war.

We wanted to bring in
all of his abilities.

JAMES: The first time
in a movie

that really is a war movie
with explosions and shootings.

There is actually martial
arts in an extensive way.

They thought before the film
had even come out

that it was going
to be successful.

They wanted to do
a sequel right away,

so they decided to make
that in the Philippines

with Joe Zito directing.

DANIEL: Joe had gone
to the Philippines

and he said,
"I've looked at."

"Lance Hool's
Missing in Action."

"It's a disaster.
Chuck is terrible."

"It's shot badly."

"What I'm telling
Menahem and Yoram"

"is that if we release
our Missing in Action first,"

"we will create a
marketplace for Lance's film."

"If Lance's film comes out,"

"he's gonna kill the
business for our film."

BRUGGE: The second one
was the better movie of the two

and rather than kill the
franchise right off the bat

by showing them in order,

they basically released
number two first.

NARRATOR: James Braddock
declares war.

I think it was a good
vehicle for Chuck Norris.

It didn't ask him
to do too much,

it played to his strength,

and it kind of evolved
his on-screen persona.

Globus was screaming
at Menahem in Hebrew

and I asked somebody,
"What's he saying?"

And he's saying...
He says...

"They're talking
about some karate guy,"

and Yoram is yelling at him

because he signed him
to a five-picture deal

for $5 million,

and he wants to kill Menahem,
and that was Chuck Norris.

In the golden era of Hollywood,

every studio had
a stable of stars,

so Cannon started to adopt
this thinking.

"We need stars that will
work for us constantly."

NARRATOR: Chuck Norris.

Charles Bronson.

WINTER: For someone
like Bronson,

who was phasing out
of a Hollywood career

in a Hollywood that did not
recognize him anymore,

that was one of
the only places to go.

MAN: Bronson, I think,
has more actual charisma,

but neither one of
them were actors.

You're beginning to irritate me.

DAVID: When I was reading
scripts for this company,

we were told very plainly

everything we got
would go in two piles,

one for the two Chucks,
Bronson and Norris.

It could have been
Wuthering Heights,

which one is for Chuck

and which one
is for the other Chuck?

It was offered to Chuck Norris
to do this movie,

American Ninja.

NARRATOR: For 2,000 years,

the sacred art of the ninja
has been guarded in the East.

Now it has come to the West.

When Chuck Norris learned that
he has to be covered, he declined.

He said,
"I am not covering myself."

"If I am on the screen,
I am Chuck Norris."

Who will be the American ninja?

We saw, I believe,
more than 400 candidates,

and when Michael Dudikoff
walked in,

it was like, "Wow, I
saw the American ninja."

Menahem said,
"The Dudikoff kid."

"Get the Dudikoff kid."

Who is he?

I don't know.
He's a new recruit.

I don't even know his name.

He possess great skills.

(SCREAMS)

When I got American Ninja,
I stepped it up.

Anything that I had to do,
being Joe, the American Ninja,

I really wanted to do well.

(TIRES SQUEAL)

Even before the movie
was finished,

it was obvious

that Dudikoff has the charisma
to be on the screen.

I remember Menahem saying that
he is going to be the next James Dean.

MICHAEL: I was gonna be
Superman. There are so many...

I was going to do
so many different roles.

I was Spider-Man at one time.

SAM:
Cannon did not pay attention

to brand the name Dudikoff

and to make sure
that instead of making

smaller and smaller movies,

he should make
bigger and bigger movies.

"We will.
We will!"

"Don't worry, Michael.
No, don't worry."

"It's only the beginning."

NARRATOR: This is Cannes,
home of the prestigious film festival

which is held every year.

You know about the glamour,
the Riviera, the stars,

but there's another side,
a business side you don't see.

They were going there
to sell and to make deals.

This was the jewel of the crown

and they decided
to take it by storm.

The money that they spent in
Cannes would have financed a film.

We'd take over
the Carlton Hotel,

put up as much
advertising as we could.

Posters everywhere, everywhere.

"Cannon Group
presents..."

Full-page ads in Variety,

full-page ads in all the trades.

It almost became a joke,
I think, in the business,

because nobody
could just work out

how they were paying
for all this,

how they were doing all this,

what was going on?

This limo comes up and out
gets Menahem, like the Queen.

The Cannes Film Festival

became the Cannon Film Festival.

A line of distributors
getting a number,

like in a barber shop,
to meet Yoram and me.

People come with a check,
people come with cash money.

"This film will be ready,
don't worry.

"I'll get it to you on time."
"Give me this picture too."

"This is the piece of crap
you really want"

"because people are going
to love this shit."

"Okay, you'll
pay a million?"

"Okay, million and one.
Million and two."

It was like being at
the fish market.

MAN: They used to sell
their film by the kilo.

Selling, buying,
selling, buying.

You hear Golan constantly
going, "Gunga Din, epic."

"Epic, I tell you.
Epic of the cinema."

He loved it.
He was on a high.

You'd meet some
Greek distributor,

who didn't speak English,
couldn't read English,

certainly couldn't
read a script,

but you had to sell him
a picture,

so you just showed him a poster.

Outlandish poster art
for movies,

most of which they never made.

The film could have been
about anything,

and they would have had
a machine gun in the poster.

He would invent a story on
the spot and sell it to them.

"Charles Bronson
is The Golem."

I was in charge
of writing press releases

for non-existent movies

with no cast and no stars

and frequently no scripts.

I don't know that there's
anyone out there today

that has the reputation
that Menahem and Yoram had

for being such
effective salesmen.

They were the best wheelers
and dealers of the 80s.

There was a great celebration

of throwing spaghetti
against the wall,

and whichever crazy ideas
he could get presales for,

those became the movies we made.

The result is those films
were never very good.

If you had Chuck Norris
on that poster,

you knew exactly the picture
you were buying.

So all presale films
were predictable.

MAN ON PHONE: I have for
you Chuck Norris's picture for April.

Killing, shooting, maiming!
Fabulous story.

You're going to love it.
Absolutely love it.

Bring me the script.

NARRATOR: They are an army
of international terrorists.

Their target, America.

DANIEL: In a way, Invasion USA
was a very prescient film.

We didn't really think
about terrorism,

and terrorism was more
of an abstract idea.

NARRATOR: No one thought
it could ever happen...

Here.
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)

The idea of boatloads
full of terrorists

landing on a beach
somewhere in Florida,

being picked up by trucks

and being driven all over
the United States

to create random acts of terror

was a bit of a stretch for me.

What we were trying to do

was come up with
some big action picture

that would be a lot of fun
and larger than life.

Didn't work, huh?

Now it will.

(EXPLODING)
(SCREAMING)

They made Chuck a star.

(GUNS FIRING)

Now they were putting him
in a big-budget movie.

(ENGINE REVVING)

CHUCK NORRIS: The shopping
mall, of course, has been the hardest

and most hair-raising, most
dangerous thing I've done.

Probably the most dangerous
stunt I've ever done on film.

JAMES: They were going
to completely rebuild it, gut it,

so we were allowed to
destroy everything.

They were going to
literally bulldoze

an entire suburban neighborhood

to extend the runway
of Atlanta Airport.

And they were able to
blow the houses up.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

We had some really great
stuntmen working on that picture.

The helicopter
on top of helicopters,

the tanks, people firing.

No, there's some great
stuff in that film.

When we had a screening
of the rough cut,

it was heart-wrenching.

The story, basically,
was edited out.

It's time.

(YELLING)

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

There's a lot of great scenes,
but it's disjointed.

GOLDBLATT: Menahem and Yoram
were not particularly precious

about the process of
editing a picture

and the process of getting
it into a final cut.

"Okay, rewind. Now, cut,
cut, cut, cut, cut!"

He would start the
morning in his office,

listen to a pitch meeting,
go back, edit a trailer.

All the time, keep
suspense and action.

(VOCALIZING)
The scene is their voices.

"No! Help! Help! Help!"

Go back, meet an actor, director,
give notes on a script, go back,

change three cuts.

"That's terrific.
That's great, that's great."

"This is shit! This is
shit!" "Trim that! Trim that!

"This is good! This is
good!" "Cut negative!"

"It's the same shit
you looked at yesterday."

"No, no, no, it's
good shit today."

The problem is they loved
cinema in the abstract.

I don't think, in my experience,

that they really knew what it
was like to love something so much

that you were patient and took
the time and went through the pain

of seeing it through
draft after draft after draft,

admitting to yourself that
it might not be right yet.

You could take 150, 500
scripts, put them in an office,

have a monkey go inside
and pick 70 of them,

and he'd be on par with
Golan and Globus.

NARRATOR: In the tail
of Halley's Comet,

there's something wrong,

something evil,

something hungry.

(NARRATOR READING)

(SCREAMING)
Whoa!

Did someone get the license
number of that movie?

This is the wildest thing
I've seen in ages.

It starts as an
outer-space movie,

then becomes a vampire movie,

then turns into an
end-of-the-world movie.

(SNARLING) I think I know
the word to describe this film.

Berserk!
(SCREAMING)

Tobe Hooper's Ben-Hur.

At the time, it was
their biggest budget film.

It has something major happening
in terms of grand spectacle

about every 60 seconds,

with incredible mechanical
effects, physical and optical effects,

nudity, because the humanoid
creatures are found nude

in these crystal sarcophagi.

Finding Mathilda May was
an achievement, actually,

one of the most striking
young women I've ever seen.

When I saw the rushes,
I... I just died,

and knew that we would never,
ever get away with the British censor.

Her private parts area
was like a bikini!

You'll never believe
what I'm looking at.

JOHN GROVER: And this was
supposed to be a mystery about

this beautiful woman that
was gonna destroy London.

MAN: That girl was no girl.

She's totally alien to this
planet and our life form,

and totally dangerous.

Golan and Globus took a risk.

It was a big risk with this,

especially halfway
through the picture,

when we were four months behind.

They weren't worried
about the amount of time

it was taking to shoot the film.

It had to do with
watching the dailies

and loving the scope of
what they were producing.

They now were in another
level of filmmaking.

GROVER: They wanted to make
the biggest picture of the year.

They were small fry
in a very big pond.

All these films that they
made were bizarre, plot-wise.

I mean, they were made up
on the spot half the time.

"Marriage Venetian Style."

"A Holiday in Rome."

"Holiday in Rome."
"A Holiday in Venice."

(CHUCKLES)

"Marriage in Venice."
"Marriage in Venice."

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

Yeah? Yeah. "Marriage
in Venice." In Venice.

Or... "Stop That Marriage."

Menahem had lots of ideas.
Too many ideas, some people say.

He would say, "I want
music like Poltergeist."

And I was like, "Poltergeist
is a 100-piece orchestra."

And he goes, "You idiot!"

"We get 50 musicians and we
have them play the music twice!"

There was a series of books
that go on about a monkey,

kind of like Curious George, but
it was an Israeli series of books.

Clyde the orangutan from
Every Which Way But Loose

came to the office
with his agent.

Clyde was very hot
at that point,

and he's here with some
Beverly Hills lawyers in suits.

(LAUGHING) Menahem's
sitting next to an orangutan

and deciding whether to sign the
orangutan, to put him under contract,

and he turns to the woman
who's head of publicity

and says, "Would you
fuck this monkey?"

(WHINES)

They go, "So, go on.
What's the story?"

And he said, "Look, it's about
this kid who goes to Africa."

"He is without his parents, but he
has this guy who takes care of him."

"And when they
come off the boat,"

"all of a sudden,
they see you!"

And he looked at the monkey.

And from now on,

he kept talking to the monkey.

"Okay, we're in the jungle.
There is a monkey."

"You, Clyde,
you're the monkey."

"And, you know, there's a kid,"

"and the kid is being
attacked by the tribes,"

"but the monkey saves him, but
now he must go on his uncle's ship."

"The monkey cannot go with him,"

"so now the ship is leaving
and the kid, his heart is broken."

"It's broken!"

"And you love the boy."

"You love the boy."

"And you feel that
the boy love you."

Golan gets on his desk, and he's literally
standing on his desk at this point...

"And you cut back
and you see the monkey,"

"and he's going,
'Help me! Help me!'"

And... It was crazy.

Talking to a monkey.

I remember one of the
agents going, like,

"Will the monkey be
talking in the movie?"

"We don't know that yet, but it
doesn't matter. It's the emotion."

We did some tests and, uh,

and the monkey either
bit the boy or something.

Two days later,
Menahem showed up

with a little guy,

who was a... Midget.

You know?
And he said,

"This is your new monkey."

(CHATTERS)

And he said, "Does he look
like a monkey or not?"

Everybody said, "Yeah,
he looks like a monkey."

But the truth is he didn't.

Not at all.

And I went with
them to Africa...

Oh! Ohh!

And I felt really,
really embarrassed.

When we were in the jungle, on
the tree, there were real monkeys

and I had the feeling that
they are laughing at me.

KRAFT: Usually, a bad idea

only happens once or twice.

Oh!

Bonzo love Ben.

Oh!

These were bad ideas
on a regular basis.

(MAN READING)

I don't care what anyone
says. It's... It's a masterpiece.

NARRATOR: In
a world gone mad,

there is only one law, his.

What's the problem?

We're stealin' a fucking
car. What's it to you?

It's my car!

(GUN FIRING)

Total dog-pile piece of shit.

The first movie that Michael
Winner did was somewhat compelling.

But this is a cartoon.

It's practically World War
III in the streets of New York.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

ALEX: Winner took pleasure
out of presenting this world...

Where these grimy, mostly
minority ghetto characters...

Come on, bitch!
Come on!

Would be summarily executed

by more refined, more middle
to upper-class characters.

And I think that he felt that
that stage could only get bigger.

(GUN FIRING)

(GROANING)

(TIRES SCREECHING)

(EXPLODING)

Yeah! Power, man!

Each film, the police force gets
smaller and smaller and smaller,

and Bronson's persona
gets bigger, bigger and bigger.

NARRATOR: Now the trap
is set. The fuse is lit.

Bronson is unleashed.

(NARRATOR READING)

Three, four and five
are a different...

They're related by blood, but
they're the family we don't talk to.

I know that Charlie wanted
to make better movies.

We had that
conversation many times.

He didn't want to make
Death Wish 2, 3, 4 and 5.

I don't know how
they talked him into it.

He didn't really have
to do very much.

He had a Jaguar
that would drive him

from his dressing
room to the set,

which was usually about three
feet from his dressing room.

It was more like watching
a man golf than act.

MAN: Charles Bronson
and Bronson's stunt double

discuss the seemingly
simple task

of throwing groceries
at a moving car.

This is turned over
to a stunt double

in order to ensure
the safety of the star.

Well, we became the
garbage of the industry.

A place of last resort
to get movies made.

They were considered
schlockmeisters.

Schlock.
Schlock.

Schlock.
It's schlock.

But they sure do
make a lot of it.

They knew what
their reputation was.

They knew that everyone
saw them as kind of,

"Yeah, you guys do a lot of stuff,
but where's the, where's the quality?"

And I think that, uh, they
wanted to do some projects

that not only would
bankroll their company,

but would bring them
a little more respect.

MENAHEM: I want to sign with
Bogdanovich to a three-picture deal.

MAN: (ON PHONE) If you want
to buy Peter Bogdanovich,

let's say that you had
a project called XYZ...

Yeah, I'm not buying people.
I'm giving them opportunities.

"He should work with me because
I'm giving him this opportunity,"

"and if he doesn't,
he's an idiot."

He needs a family because
he's now without a family.

And he's a loser and he needs to
be with the winning, with the winners.

The artists that were
attracted to Cannon

probably didn't want to be,
in the beginning.

But once they got to know Golan,

they realized
they found a patron.

Menahem Golan is a director.

You're dealing with someone
who does the same thing you do,

who understands
what your problems are.

You're dealing with guys who know
every element of the film business.

That, to me,
is terribly refreshing.

NARRATOR: Cannon Films proudly
presents a motion picture event,

directed by internationally acclaimed
master filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli.

Menahem loved Zeffirelli.

MICHAEL: You tell him,
"Listen, you can get the lottery

"or sit with Zeffirelli
and make a movie with him."

He will take Zeffirelli
making a movie with him.

The film opera event
of our century, Otello.

(SINGING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

Zeffirelli, Cannon.

JOHN: Franco
probably started out

by thinking how crude
these guys were

and then ended up
really appreciating them.

MAN: There was one
telegram that said,

"We are looking at the daily and they
looked like they were created by God."

(FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI SPEAKING)

Someone like John Cassavetes,

who could not get
financing from anybody,

Menahem would give him funding.

I'm going to do
a John Cassavetes film,

and once I accepted this fact...

I had to give John Cassavetes

the full freedom
to create his film.

We were never committed
to make a film

that would please the audience.

Now, if you came
to see our films,

you had to suffer through them.

Do you believe that love
is a continuous stream?

MENAHEM: John Cassavetes brought
me a two hours and 15 minutes movie.

I told John, "Go and cut out
15 minutes in the middle"

"and you'll see we'll get
a much better movie."

He said, "Menahem, it will
be done in the next two days."

Two days later, he came and
the movie was two and a half hours.

And I said, "John,
you added 15 minutes."

He said, "But it's, but it's
shorter, nevertheless."

AL: I think Menahem
got the film that he wanted.

I think it served a purpose
for Cannon Films.

He could then go
to any other director

and say, "Hey, look, we just
made a film with John Cassavetes."

You know? "And you know
how difficult he can be."

"But that just goes to show you
how, you know, how far we'll go"

"with a, with
another director."

Menahem Golan
and Yoram Globus are...

Are kind of wild characters.

They make impulsive decisions
like signing up Godard on a napkin.

We didn't have paper and
this was on the table of the bar.

And this is
Mr. Jean-Luc Godard.

I love this project.
I believe in it.

I think it'll be a great movie.

Godard said that he would do, uh,
King Lear only with Norman Mailer.

Mailer. Oh, yes.

That is a good way to begin.

Godard wanted Norman to play
a writer named Norman Mailer

and he wanted Kate to play a daughter
of that writer, named Kate Mailer,

and there was
a suggestion of incest.

Part of me thinks
that Godard did that

in the hopes that
Norman would quit,

and that led to
the famous phone call

that Godard recorded
without our permission.

JEAN-LUC GODARD: I must insist

that this movie, as promised, which
was already put forward so many times,

will reach the Cannes Festival.

This is my main concern.

MAN: No script, no make-up,
no hair, no costumes, nothing.

MOLLY RINGWALD: I was walking
with a horse and I think I'm Joan of Arc,

and then I think I'm dead
on the rocks or something.

And I think I asked him, "Am I
supposed to be dead or alive?"

"Am I sleeping?"

You know,
"What am I doing?"

And he was like...
(EXHALES)

Like it was the stupidest
question ever, you know?

Like, "Oh! Dead!" Like,
you know, "Pff!" You know?

It was not even
worthy of a response

and I thought, "All right, I'm
gonna go with dead." (LAUGHING)

I'm sure it absolutely was not what
Cannon Pictures was expecting.

TOM: When the first
images come on,

Menahem started
whispering to me,

"Tom Luddy, I will kill you!
Tom Luddy, I will strangle you!"

"You don't fuck with Sabras."

I think he was
a bit disappointed

because Godard didn't
take Menahem seriously.

Golan always wanted to
make interesting pictures.

I mean, we would make
what we would call

"the engine that
pulled the train".

We would make one picture
that we'd know we could presell

and then sneak in a bunch
of little ones with it.

We say to the local distributor,

"Sorry, man, you have to
take John Cassavetes first"

"or you don't get
Charles Bronson."

That's how films like
Barfly get funded.

NARRATOR: Mickey Rourke.
FAY DUNAWAY: Just one thing.

I don't ever want
to fall in love.

NARRATOR: Faye Dunaway.

Don't worry. Nobody's
ever loved me yet.

(NARRATOR READING)

Those were the Cannon days where
you had a meeting with Menahem,

you had a 90% chances of
walking away with a deal.

TOM: When we were
in pre-production,

and we already had Mickey
and we already had Faye,

when they said,
"We're stopping the shooting"

"unless you cut the
budget, cut your fees."

So I had to find something
to replace the lawyer

and I found the firm
Black & Decker. (LAUGHS)

Barbet went into Menahem's
office with a chainsaw.

(IMITATES CHAINSAW REVVING)

"For every day
I don't get my movie made,"

"I'm gonna cut one finger
and send it to you."

MENAHEM: As a matter of fact, I
love it that he is ready to cut his finger,

because I am ready to cut
anything, my balls, to make a film.

PIETER: He outsmarted Menahem

and that's how
that movie got made.

The movie didn't explode
the way I wanted

because it was perceived as
a movie about alcoholics.

DUNAWAY: We're all
in some kind of hell

and the madhouses
are the only places

where people know
they're in hell.

They had this terrible
kind of dichotomy about

making what they thought
were important films

and then being
able to sell them.

ALAIN: Even if the
movie was not a B movie,

the moment the Cannon logo
was showing up on the screen,

"Oh! That's
a Cannon movie."

What people expected from
Cannon, the films that we made,

were low-budget,
lowbrow, action pictures.

You'd come along with something
that was more interesting,

no one could take it seriously.

NARRATOR: They
escaped together.

They achieved the impossible.

But their train to freedom
was out of control.

JOHN: You're not gonna
hear anyone not say

that Runaway Train is one of the
most incredible films they've ever seen.

Runaway Train is, quite simply,

one of the best adventure
movies I've ever seen,

a combination of action and
suspense and desperate characters

that never stopped
surprising me.

I don't know how closely you can
almost associate it with Cannon.

It was a film unto itself,

I think, with a very visionary
director in his own right,

Andrei Konchalovsky.

The fact it got made, I suppose,
is some sort of tribute to them,

that they actually did
give it a green light.

JOHN: I believe
firmly today

that if a studio had
made Runaway Train,

it would be a classic forever.

PEARCE: Made by Orion, it
would have got great respect, I think.

You're as afraid to
die as anybody else!

And I never let you free.

I'm free, Rankin.

I am free.

Made by Cannon, no.

They came in so quick and
they did so many films so fast,

and everyone was always
looking around, like,

"How are they doing this?"

Michael Milken, he was
called the Junk Bond King.

CHRISTOPHER: He created
something called

the high yield
or junk-bond business.

That went from financing
bankrupt companies

to financing small,
growing companies.

Michael Milken raised $300
million for Cannon Pictures.

It really took
Hollywood by surprise

that Cannon now had the ability to
make picture after picture after picture.

Major studios were making six,
seven, maybe eight films a year.

Nobody was making
20 films a year.

Forty films a year.
Forty two movies.

Forty seven films a year.
Fifty two in-house films.

Almost average one a week.

Eighty four.

That's an entire career there.

It was almost like
a bowel movement.

(LAUGHING) You make
a movie, it comes out,

you flush it and you
move on to another one.

This company grew up
and mushroomed so fast

just because of the energy and
the personality of Menahem Golan.

The name of the game is to do!

Not just to "Blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah," talk about it.

I'd have meetings
with Yoram one day

and Golan comes in and he starts
talking about something in Budapest.

And we say, "What
are you talking about?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, we're
making this film in Budapest."

"We're in the second
week of shooting."

We didn't even know
it was being made.

If something excites you,
be brave and go

and try to do it
good, but do it.

In England, Cannon became a
real threat to the British film industry.

NARRATOR: Cannon gained
a place in Britain's film line-up

when it took over Thorn-EMI
Screen Entertainment.

Suddenly they owned
Elstree Studios,

the Pathe film library,

and the ABC Cinema circuit.

With their own
Classic and Star chain,

this gave Golan and Globus command of
almost 40% of the British cinema market.

We owned the big chain
in London, in England.

We owned the big chain in Italy,

all the theaters in Holland.

They bought everything,
short of Harrods.

Cannon had all this money
and was anxious to spend it,

and they wanted to
spend it on stars.

They were, and I hope you don't
mind me using the word, star-fuckers.

How many films
a star does a year? One?

What does he do
the rest of the year?

Forty weeks, what does he do?

He goes to psychoanalysts,
he get divorced.

What does he do?
Okay?

So, he wants to work!

He said, "I want...
for the leading lady",

"I want, uh, that, uh..."

"The movie, the Stone movie,
you know the one."

"That's the one
I want. Get her."

RICHARD: And they get back
the first week of dailies

and he goes,
"Who is this fucking bitch?"

"I said, I want
that Stone woman."

Well, everybody thought he
was talking about Sharon Stone.

He was talking about Romancing
the Stone, which was Kathleen Turner.

That's who he thought
he'd cast in the movie.

I've got it!

NARRATOR: Richard Chamberlain
is Allan Quartermain in...

(NARRATOR READING)

CASSANDRA PETERSON: At the time,
Richard was just an incredibly hot star,

so that impressed me.

"Well, they're not doing the same
schlocky stuff they used to do before."

You know, little did
I know. (LAUGHS)

It was a bit of a spoof of
Raiders of the Lost Ark.

(SCREAMING)

(SCREAMING)

(EXPLODING)

You had the sense that if you
could think of something funny to do

that wasn't out
of character, do it.

Surprise!

Great reflexes, boys.

PETERSON: It slowly
became apparent to me,

not that slowly, pretty quickly,

that this was definitely not going
to be of the Indiana Jones caliber.

Quartermain!

DANIEL: Chamberlain was
not Harrison Ford. (GUN FIRING)

And Sharon Stone,
nobody knew who she was.

AVI: It was a tough time
to work with Sharon,

to a level that
none of the crew,

none of the assistants,
none of the make-up,

none of the people that she worked
day-by-day, wanted to work with her.

(GASPS) I wanna scream!

She was hated on the set.

(SCREAMING)

All the South
Africans hated her.

She took a milk bath,
they peed in the water.

And when she got in the
water, she's like, "Ew! Ew!"

"This water smells so funny."

(SNICKERING)

Richard Chamberlain himself
could not stand her.

What's wrong?

(SIGHS) Sharon's a difficult
person to understand.

She was incredibly beautiful.
She's very, very smart,

and talks about
how smart she is a lot.

NELSON: She should have
never done the second movie

if she had such a bad
time on the first one.

NARRATOR: The odds
are against them

and that's the way they like it!

(NARRATOR READING)

I don't know why they would want
to do King Solomon's Mines twice,

'cause the first one wasn't
very good to begin with.

Hold on!

RICHARD:
Well, my first question was,

"How much money do you
think you'll be spending on it?"

And they said,
"Oh, probably $10 million."

I think they ended up
spending about $3.75 on it.

(SNARLING)
(GUN FIRING)

I signed on as
the villainess, Sorais.

They actually had
me in a harness

and were swinging
me over this pit.

I remember being scared
out of my freaking brain,

thinking, "Why am I doing this
and not a stunt person?"

"Oh, wait a minute.
There is no stunt person."

(BLOWS)

(SCREAMING)

Never had contact ever with either Menahem
or Yoram until the end of the movie,

until, um, it was...
Judgment day.

We'd screen
a version of the film

and everybody would turn to the back of
the room, where Menahem and Yoram were,

and they'd wait to see which
way the wind was blowing.

Every once in a while,
I heard, "Fakakta director",

you know, as I figured, you know,
I'm the fucking director, you know?

So, I'm... "That's me. I'm sitting
right behind you, you know".

Then the English would come out.

"Why are those people all blonde,
walking with white pajamas?"

"What's going on?"

And, "Oh, my God!
Yoram, look!"

"The queens!
Look at those queens!"

"They're supposed
to be ugly!"

I come to find out that they
had gotten my movie confused

with one that Tobe Hooper
was making at the same time.

He never would admit
that he was confused.

He never said,
"Oh, I'm wrong," you know.

"I'll look at your picture
in a different light." No.

He said, "The picture
is un-releasable!"

I said, "Menahem, please."

I said, "As I came down
the halls to your office",

"on either side are posters
of films that you have done"

"that are totally un-releasable
that you have released!"

"So don't tell me
it's un-releasable."

MAN: Golan's real dream
always was to be a studio.

They moved out of
low-class offices

and suddenly bought
an entire building.

And had to have security
guards with Uzis at the front desk.

I think there had
been death threats.

"Menahem, there's
a bomb threat!"

"Somebody's gonna
blow up the building!"

(MIMICKING MENAHEM)
"Tell them to go fuck themselves!"

The joke company wasn't
such a joke anymore.

REPORTER: Menahem Golan
took time off from his duties

as chairman of the board
of Hollywood's Cannon Films

to personally produce
and direct Delta Force.

This is a hijack!

NARRATOR: It's a new age of terror
that requires a new breed of warrior.

MENAHEM: We worked on a screenplay
to tell a story of new American heroes,

tell a story of the real
modern American drama.

This was absolutely a fairytale
reaction to a real-life TWA hijacking.

JAMES: The hostages
hadn't been released,

so he got the idea
of sending me to Beirut.

He was gonna sneak me
across the border

and I was supposed to go
to the Beirut airport

and find out what was going
on and report back to him

so he could come up with
an ending for the picture.

Everybody want to see the
American president taking a firm state

and using whatever he has in America,
like the Delta Force, for solutions.

It's a go. Take 'em down.

We don't move until the women
and children are away and safe.

SHARON KAHN:
This was the happy ending

that a lot of people felt
should have happened.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

It was September in Israel.

It was the hottest
point of the year.

Way over 100 degrees
Fahrenheit in that airplane.

But Menahem, sweating harder
than anybody else in that movie,

pushing, shoving, making that
movie happen and getting his shots,

and as a director, he was one of
the best directors I ever worked for.

He wasn't afraid to grab the
thing and say, "Do it like this!"

Shelley Winters and Menahem
had some rip-roaring fights.

Sit down!

"Menahem, I cannot
do it! I'm dying!"

He said, you know,
"Do it and then die."

That's Menahem.

ALAIN: Every movie he directed
always had a cartoonish side.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

Every time I was
trying to reduce it,

he was yelling that
I was killing his movie.

It's an action movie.

With apologies to the guys
who have to play the bad guys,

somebody's got
to carry the flag.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

You cannot hide
your head in the sand

and say there is not
violence out there.

The key point is, how do
you deal with violence?

That's what's important,

and that's what we try to
demonstrate on the screen.

This, I think, is
an exploitation movie

in the very worst
sense of the term,

blatantly and
brainlessly concocted

to inspire vengeful hatred
toward Arabs and Palestinians.

(ROCKET FIRING)
(EXPLODING)

If you kill Arabs, uh... You
have to be politically correct.

(GUNS FIRING)

Menahem didn't care about
being politically correct.

(GUN FIRING)

Sleep tight, sucker.

REPORTER: To celebrate the
move to their new headquarters

and the opening of Delta Force,

Golem and Globus invited
Hollywood to a black-tie party.

A black-tie opening for
a Chuck Norris film!

It's gonna be a blockbuster
of the century!

Delighted to see you.
Delighted to see you. Okay.

Dude, it's a Chuck Norris film!

RUSTY: I remember thinking
there's something really wrong

about putting a party
in a parking structure

where nobody can ever stand up.

Everybody was kind of,
like, leaning.

And I thought, "This is a
bad omen for this company."

It seemed from that point
on that things started getting

a little, a little
dicey at the company.

Cannon expanded
too much too fast.

We had films going in Asia,
Africa, Europe, the United States.

How can you control
it? It's a mess.

They didn't have the
money to make 50 films.

They're raising it on
the next 50 and the next 50.

They were busy selling
and making deals

in order to keep
the company afloat.

Every Friday, Yoram needed
$5 million just to continue.

MENAHEM: I can't be worried
because I'm too busy making the movies

and I'm so excited
and I'm so into it.

I believe that we know
what we are doing

and I believe that
our future is safe.

Roll camera.

MAN 1: Mark.
MAN 2: Marker!

Set.
And action!

NARRATOR: David Gardner just woke
up to a nightmare in his own backyard.

But no one will listen.

And soon, no one will be left.

Tobe Hooper's...

(NARRATOR READING)

TOBE: I wanted to capture,
or, I should say, recapture

those images that literally
burned holes in my mind,

in my imagination and
dreams when I was a child.

I liked the idea of being
uptight and paranoid

to the point where finally
you're afraid of your parents

and where there is really
no safe place to go.

WILLIAM: The tone
of the film was off.

It wasn't as serious as I
think it should have been.

It seemed a little bit silly.

The film missed
really connecting with

the deep fears people would
have in identifying with a child

who can no longer
trust his parents.

Menahem and Yoram
hated the film.

They really felt personally
wounded by what Tobe had done,

that he had basically sold them on
his vision and he didn't deliver on it.

And I think that
really hurt them.

What got everybody excited
about Tobe with Texas Chainsaw,

which was really kind
of a raw experience.

TOBE: Chainsaw wasn't
just a horror film.

It had a lot of
reflection of society.

It totally changed
the genre of horror.

Cannon wanted Tobe to do
a sequel to Chainsaw.

They wanted it desperately.

NARRATOR: Now, after more
than a decade of silence,

the buzz is back.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)
(SCREAMING)

I amplified the dark humor.

I'd felt that that was
missed in the first film.

Bubba's got a girlfriend!

(SINGSONG)
Bubba's got a girlfriend!

Bubba's got a girlfriend!
Bubba's got a girlfriend!

Bubba's got a girlfriend!
(GROWLING AND LAUGHING)

Some people had been
calling it as "red humor".

Because it also made up for
the lack of gore in Chainsaw 1.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)
(SCREAMING)

So, they show it.
First time Cannon's seen it.

Boys, boys, boys.

It was not what they expected.

For some reason, Cannon
didn't realize it was a comedy.

The small business man that

always, always, always
gets it in the ass!

ALAIN: Menahem and
Yoram are not very flexible

and if you sell them a horror
picture, they want horror.

It was a shocker for them to
not know what the film was.

We took the Chainsaw family

and copied the same poster
from The Breakfast Club,

and it went up
on Sunset Boulevard.

And Cannon didn't
know it was a comedy?

The audience wasn't
prepared for the craziness

or the loony-ness of Chainsaw 2.

They just wanted a scream.

And Tobe didn't want to make
another screaming movie.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

The end of Chainsaw
was almost really

the public beginning
of the end for Cannon.

In October, their accounting
practices came under the scrutiny

of the American Securities
and Exchange Commission.

At this point, the company is not
able to continue to operate profitably.

The movies are not doing
well at the box office.

They have a large amount
of what is called

a selling and
administrative expense,

and now a very heavy
interest payment annually

from all of the
bonds and the debt

that they have taken
on to fund themselves.

Menahem asked Yoram...

"Why are you so
depressed? What's wrong?"

And Yoram said, "You know,
we owe the bank $5 million."

And Menahem said,
"You know why I'm depressed?"

"Why we owe them
only $5 million?"

"I want to owe
them $100 million."

NARRATOR: Now we're on the
horizon of our second decade of success,

with promising new talent and
established box office names.

We're charged for excitement

and looking forward to
another decade of blockbusters.

So look to Cannon
for the future.

Cannon Entertainment.
We're moving forward.

When people think we're
in financial trouble,

let's sign a huge actor and
announce three big movies,

and what are they gonna say now?

Tell me, the Stallone deal,
is it completely signed?

NELSON: He said, "I'm going to direct
Sylvester Stallone in this next movie."

I said, "You're
fucking nuts."

"My client would not work
for you for $10 million."

Menahem said,
"How about $12 million?"

Menahem paid him an
unprecedented amount of money.

$13 million.
$15 million.

$20 million.
$25 million.

Before that, probably the max he'd
ever been paid was $4 or $5 million.

Every other star said,
"Yeah. I want that deal."

Changed the marketplace
within the Hollywood community.

JOHN: Menahem believed
that Over The Top

was gonna be as big
as any Rocky or Rambo.

ENGELBACH: My original
script was different

than the movie that
they eventually made.

It wasn't nearly as dumb.

NARRATOR: The world has
always bet against Lincoln Hawks,

but a winner never
listens to the odds.

They made it more about
truck-driving and arm-wrestling

than the film should have been.

Arm-wrestling was
a very strange selection.

(GRUNTS) And it's over!

(GRUNTING)

How do you make something
like that interesting?

ROSENTHAL: We're gonna have
great action sequences

where there's gonna be two arms.

You might as well have
somebody talking like this,

"Hi, Sylvester.
How are you?"

It was definitely unique.
And who knows?

You could have been plagued with 100
arm-wrestling movies after that. (LAUGHS)

(YELLING)

At the end of the movie,
I had tears in my eyes.

Menahem patted me
on this shoulder.

He says, "Aha! I got you!"

(CROWD CHEERING)

I was crying 'cause I saw my
career going down the toilet

and I didn't know
what I was gonna do next.

ROSENTHAL: Menahem was out of touch with
the reality of what was going to be a hit

and what the audience
was going to want.

Over The Top broadcast
this idea of...

He thinks this is what
American kids are gonna love,

and it was so...

It was a... You know,
he had no ear for it.

Selling American films
to Americans was not, uh...

Their sweet spot.

They had certain instincts
of where they wanted to go,

but they didn't quite
know how to get there.

They started diving in and renewing
franchises such as Superman.

Cannon was being touted as,
"Look what they did."

"These two guys have
made it to big time."

JOHN: There's no reason why
Superman IV wouldn't do well.

Probably could
have saved Cannon.

Cured many of the financial woes

and created
acceptance in Hollywood

that probably would
have made them leaders.

You were rooting for them.

HARRISON ELLENSHAW: Christopher
Reeve did not want to come back,

but he was seduced by the fact,

"Chris, what would you like
the fourth one to be about?"

ROSENTHAL: He had this idea,
which was essentially,

what would happen
if Superman decided

he was actually gonna use
his powers to stop war?

Effective immediately,

I'm going to rid our planet
of all nuclear weapons.

How could it fail? It failed.

ROSENTHAL: Menahem promised us that
we were gonna rise to the Warners' level,

not do it like a Cannon movie.

(LAUGHING) And, of course, in the
end, we did it like a Cannon movie.

There was Nuclear Man,
a He-Man equal to Superman.

Sidney Furie says to me,

"We've found him.
We've found Nuclear Man."

"And he's an
ex-Chippendale dancer."

(ROARING)

And I'm just trying to behave
as the visual effects dweeb

and going, "Oh, God.
We are in so much trouble."

I, Lex Luthor, the greatest
criminal mind of the modern era,

have discovered a way
to destroy Superman.

Last month, Cannon announced a loss
of $90 million for the two years 1985-86.

REPORTER: By mid-December, Cannon must raise
$80 million to pay off a debt in Britain.

By production of Superman,
they were already in freefall.

All they could do was
start to cut the budget.

DEL VALLE: This was a movie
that was supposed to be $30 million,

and when they start
shooting it, it's dropped to 17,

and it's a special
effects movie.

ELLENSHAW: I said, "Hey, you
want him to look like the first one?

"This is what
it's gonna cost."

(SNORTS) Well, no way!

It was so cheap and so chintzy-looking
and it just didn't look good.

All the ragged edges of
the production were visible.

ROSENTHAL: They'd pad
out the shots. They duplicated.

It's everything that happens when you
don't have enough money for the effects.

ELLENSHAW: "You're dreadful
at what you do, Harrison!"

"You are a big
frickin' failure!"

Guilty.

Everybody sort of
pointed the finger.

The finger was really
the demise of Cannon.

MATTHAU: They started to do films
with big budgets and take big risks

and try and compete with the
Warner Brothers of the world,

and that didn't go so well.

(GROANING)

They couldn't take on the
studio system and they knew it.

They were trying to get
out from underneath,

and they thought if they got
these big mega-pictures

that they could
somehow parlay it into

not being discovered
for the slobs they were.

If you kept moving fast enough,

there was always the
next movie to be made,

and the next one
was going to be great.

I have the power!

Masters was their big shot.

WILLIAM: They were
so excited.

They could almost
taste the money.

They could almost
taste the success.

GARY: I was trying everything
I could to try and make this

not look, feel, sound
like a Cannon movie.

NARRATOR: At the far
end of the universe,

there is a planet ruled
by a being of utter evil...

(SCREAMING)

And there is only one man
who dares challenge him.

DOLPH LUNDGREN: It was
kind of slightly embarrassing

to sign on playing a toy, right?

For me, it was a bit
weird, all this stuff.

The little dwarf with the
little key and all of that.

I felt a little stupid doing it.

(WEAPON FIRING)

Sylvester Stallone showed up
and he pointed up to Dolph.

He goes, "You gave
that guy lines?"

This is our fight.

I don't want innocent
people to die.

The special effect of Skeletor,

of creating a skeleton head,

was astronomical and would
take an enormous amount of time,

and they knew that.

The solution that
Cannon came up with

was to paint a skeleton
on Frank Langella's face

that looked like
a Halloween costume

that a mother made
for her child.

I don't think so.

I remember just being
really happy that we had

a beginning, a middle
and end! (LAUGHS)

Kneel!

'Cause at one point, it looked
like we weren't gonna have the end.

GARY: They literally
shut me down.

And I said, "There's no
ending to this movie."

(LAUGHING) I made Frank
Langella, this great actor,

in this skeleton mask get
in this bubbling vat of liquid

so he could pop up and say...

I'll be back!

They thought that
that picture would play

to an adult audience,
you know, to grown-ups.

But it didn't.

Masters Of The Universe was to
blame for Masters Of The Universe.

If it was a great story, if it was
funny and moving and exciting,

people would have flocked to it.

These pictures, Superman,
Masters and Over The Top,

went off their business model.

ROSENTHAL: Make low-budget
films, wait for one or two to hit big,

have a huge profit margin,
sell them a lot,

build a library,
sell them overseas.

And Superman is exactly
the thing you don't want to do.

INTERVIEWER: Would you ever
make a $30 million movie?

Never. I don't know what
to do with 30 millions.

I can make 30 movies,
maybe, you know?

But I don't know what to
do with 30 millions.

I mean, I... I'll feel...
I'll feel like I'm a criminal

spending this kind of money
on doing one motion picture.

They were trying
to get a little bit

out of the assembly-line factory
process and make better pictures.

But I think timing and finances
just caught up with them.

REPORTER: The more films Cannon
produced, the more its debt grew.

Cannon have been dispossessing
themselves of their assets.

The Thorn-EMI cinemas,
Elstree Studios,

and a wonderful library of 2,000
films, and they sold those first.

And now they've sold the studios

for what they realized
for property.

REPORTER: Plans to build up movie chains,
distribution rights around the world

collapsed under mounting
interest payments.

Cannon are not in the film production
business as far as Britain is concerned.

They're in the property
disposal business.

They didn't look upon it as
a reason to stop and pause.

"Let's keep going."

They had problems
releasing pictures.

They had problems
finishing pictures.

I'd be on pictures that were
relatively simple pictures

that would take six, eight
months to not get finished.

NARRATOR: An incredible
adventure awaits a young girl

and two brothers
with a taste for excitement.

They will take a journey to a
place they never dreamed existed.

Cannon shutting down almost
overnight had a disastrous effect.

They just basically said,
"You're finished."

Oh, my God.

RUSTY: The thing about
a special effects film

is that it's like
a jigsaw puzzle.

Imagine every third piece
of the puzzle doesn't exist.

So you end up having
a lot of blacks,

we call them "slugs".

So, there was all this footage
that didn't have the special effects.

And it's just not
releasable without it.

They just needed to have it
finished and delivered for a price.

They had already spent
the money on the advances,

so they had to deliver
a finished film.

(LAUGHING) "Can you finish
this film without special effects?"

What a question.

ALBERT: We went in and shot
a pretty big chunk of storyline.

I can't give you words to tell
you how heartbreaking it was.

It was an awkward situation

that I was very quickly the
following year run into with Cyborg.

(NARRATOR READING)

NARRATOR: A brutal gang is reshaping
the world into their own vision of hell,

and only one man can stop them.

I had this idea of a futuristic action
movie that would feature Chuck.

Menahem and Yoram, they talked

and they said, "Well, you
know, we have this other guy

"that we think is
gonna be a big star."

"We'd like to see
him in that part."

And I said,
"Oh, yeah? Who's that?"

NARRATOR: Jean-Claude Van
Damme has become the first hero

of the 21st century.

BOAZ: He used to
come to our company

and he used to sit in the lobby.

He waited, and when
Menahem came out of his office,

he ran up and did
a sweeping kick.

Spinning split kick a quarter-inch
from the end of Menahem's nose.

The very next day, he got a job.

ALBERT: I think Jean-Claude was more
enamored with being a star on the ascent

than he was being an actor.

(GRUNTING)

I think he felt more
confident in how he looked,

'cause as an actor, I don't
think he felt secure yet.

(YELLING)

My vision was very dark, more of a war
film than it was an action-adventure movie.

(BOTH YELLING)

LETTICH: It was
very uncommercial.

They took a survey, and out of 100
people that were in the screening,

one person said that
he liked the movie.

Which is no big surprise,
'cause I don't think

I ever had a test screening
really go very well.

Yoram was saying, "Look, we've
already got this booked in theaters."

"Just let us
release the movie."

"It's not gonna
kill your career."

And Jean-Claude was saying, "Look, give
me two months. Let me recut the movie."

(GRUNTING)

We just turned it into more of
a conventional action picture.

(GROANS)

And that movie worked.

So we had every right to
believe, "I'll get through this.

"I'll sell this.
I'll make some money."

"I'll sell some foreign
rights, I'll get to the next one,"

"and the next one,
we're gonna do right."

That's probably the biggest
reason for the Cannon demise.

Not stopping licking
the wounds, getting healed,

and then starting out
with a new slate.

It just was too much.

It wasn't, "Is Cannon
gonna collapse?"

It was, "When is
Cannon gonna collapse?"

Globus was more practical and
said, you know, "It's one thing to want it,

"it's another thing to pay
for it, even the way we pay,"

uh, and I think it
just became untenable.

Menahem was making
too many movies.

Yoram was buying
too many cinema chains.

And, uh... I don't know where
the balance lied between them,

but I think each guy was
very critical of the other.

The banks didn't want to
give them any more money.

They couldn't repay the money they
took because the movies all failed.

That's when Giancarlo
Parretti came in.

Basically, overnight,
Credit Lyonnais said,

"You've go t
new partners."

CHARLES MATTHAU: You
could feel Parretti come in.

You could feel
the company change.

(WHISPERS)
"That's Mr. Parretti."

"Be very careful around him."

Menahem and Yoram
just wanted to believe

that this was their
white knight savior,

and ignored all the signs
that he was really a raider.

Parretti was an Italian con man.

They said that he was maybe
associated with the Mafia or something.

AVI LERNER: Yoram
stayed with Parretti

and Menahem said he is not
happy to sell his...

His, as you say,
soul to the devil.

These two cousins, who worked
together for so many years,

Um... Splitted.

They had their success
and... it ended.

It was a sad split for us,

because for us, there was
Menahem and there was Yoram,

but what we all loved about the two
of them was the two of them together.

I stayed with Yoram,

and I said to Menahem, you know,

"You're just unmanageable."

"You know, you shouldn't be
running your company."

And he say, "Just give me
the films that I did."

"I don't want the money."

I created a new company
called the 21st Century.

I'm coming with new movies,
modern movies,

picture that everybody in this
coming decade will want to see.

He said to me
he had just split with Yoram

and he went... (SPITS)

And he spit on the floor.

And they started making
these competing movies,

like two competing
lambada movies.

REPORTER: The lambada dance
originated in the 1930s,

where it was soon banned
by the government

for its sexual overtones.

What is that?
The lambada!

That was their next
great idea as a team,

and then when they split up,

it was, who could make
that movie faster?

SHELDON RENAN:
Yoram had a script

and was already into
pre-production.

NARRATOR: A teacher,
his student

and the dance
that changed their lives.

So they were way ahead
of Menahem,

who had to, like,
cobble something together.

We were brought in to write
Menahem's version

as fast as we could,

because the plan was to get it
to theaters before Yoram's.

(SPITS)

NARRATOR: Only one dance
can turn feeling into fury.

This crazy, crazy thing,

that an Indian princess
from Brazil

was going to stop the
destruction of the rainforest.

Stop!

Johns a particularly
fast writer, so I said,

"We can write
it in 10 days."

They shot in four weeks,
we shot in three weeks.

We were working like crazy

and they were trying to shoot
as much in order as possible

so they could finish the reels
and get the sound effects cut in

and get them mixed
at the same time.

If we shot on a Monday,

by Wednesday,
we were locking the scenes.

There was no time
to, like, redo anything

and there was no time
to fine-tune anything.

Somehow, Yoram had managed
to get the word lambada.

We ended up calling it The
Forbidden Dance Is Lambada!

And put Lambada in huge letters

and put Lambada
all over the poster,

but we had the Lambada song
and they didn't.

* Not so far away.

We stopped shooting
on a Thursday,

and Monday,
we had the answer print.

We finished shooting
Saturday morning at 2:45 a.m.,

and if you ever look
at the end of it,

nobody has any energy left,
there's a rainstorm going on,

and all they're doing
is just moving,

just trying to get
the movie done.

We screened the picture
for Columbia,

and I said, "So, were gonna pick a nice
freeze-frame of the two young couple"

"and were gonna put on
a title that says..."

If you've got something
that isn't so good,

you tack on green ecology to it,

and that improves the brand.
It's called greenwashing.

After all this,

the two pictures were released
at the same time.

Limousines from the two groups
came to the same theater.

I don't know that it
could happen anywhere.

It has a surreal quality
even for Los Angeles.

Because the two men
had broken up

and because they made two movies

with the same title,
basically, same theme,

released on the same day,

they split the box
office in half.

They were really trying
to make this lambada craze

rather than waiting
for the craze

and then having a movie
that was a response to it,

like the Breakin ' movies.

Together, they were
very successful,

and alone,
it didn't happen the same way.

It seemed like
a lot of people were happy

to see them go down in flames.

I don't think there were many
grievers, at the end of the day.

Next!

I see Miramax now and I think
that that's probably

when they came to the US,

that's probably
what they had in mind.

They were the forerunners
of the Weinstein's.

The difference is the
Weinstein's cared about quality.

I think that they were
the victims of snobbery.

I think that
they were ostracized

because they didn't have
the proper manners.

There was always
that wheeling and dealing,

and that wheeling and dealing
was very much...

I mean, they were Israelis,

and they were defined
by that culture.

Menahem, I don't think,
was ever thought of

as a great filmmaker,

even though his ego
was as a filmmaker.

His spontaneity and flying,
you know, sort of blind...

It's what destroyed the company,

because he did not think ahead.

He really just thought
with his heart.

And you can't hate someone
who thinks with their heart.

YIFTACH KATZUR: When I look
at Menahem these days, I feel sorry.

There's a certain
sadness about it,

because it was a man
who retreated in defeat.

I'm sure Menahem would like to
still be making movies today,

because he's a filmmaker.

It's in his blood. I mean,
you can't deny him that.

Menahem says,
"This is top-secret."

"Two words."

"Naked Lambada."

Yoram is probably
more comfortable

not being in that position,

but Menahem would still
be on the set.

Somebody comes up to
Menahem and says,

"Menahem, did you hear
that Yoram has cancer?"

And he goes...

"He should never
have left me!"

YIFTACH KATZUR:
Look at these guys.

They touch the sky, the stars,
and they are not anymore.

The legacy is there, but.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

And I don't think we can
say they were failures.

Because for a decade plus,
they lived an incredible life.

If you've got all the guts
in the world

and you've got energy
and work hard,

you can make it work,
and that's what they did.

If you look at how many
B-movie companies

have been around
in the history of Hollywood,

almost none of them
got to where Menahem got.

If they had any influence on
the industry, it shook 'em up.

And that's not a bad thing.

We always said,

"The best school in the world
what not to do is Cannon."

Avi started

turning out all these
low-budget Cannon-like movies

with a company called Nu Image.

JOHN THOMPSON:
Nu Image was founded

by Danny Dimbort and Avi Lerner,

both with great linkage
to the Cannon Group.

In many ways,
we use the Cannon model.

We learned not to
overextend our budgets,

not to overextend with
the acquisition of assets,

and how to make action pictures.

The Expendables series.
Olympus Has Fallen.

We have ninja films

would fit perfectly into
the Cannon brochure.

I think Menahem probably
is very proud of this.

Hollywood today
is making Cannon movies,

bigger Cannon movies
with millions and millions,

but it's making action movies.

We owe it to those guys.
They put a stamp on it.

The only way you can now
pretty much make a movie

is by having some calculation
of presales in them.

And Cannon did that.

Good, bad or indifferent,
they pioneered that idea.

KRAFT: Cannons legacy
will be the insane stories

of how that many movies got made

during a very specific
period of time

by two guys who had
no business doing any of it.

They were definitely leaders

in the foreign market,
in foreign sales

and in dreams, for sure.