Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

The name Cannon Films is an evocative one, bringing to mind synonyms like schlock and cut-rate, and it's a well-earned reputation for cheapness. The story of two Israeli guys with a passion for making movies is a noble one, although their questionable business decisions tend to undercut that enthusiasm. Still, their rise and fall make for interesting documentary material, and that's part of what makes "Electric Boogaloo" so good.

The other reason is the testimonial side of things. Rounded up before the camera are a wide-ranging group of people that have had dealings with the studio, and each and every one of them is eager to opine on such a reckless outfit. I can only wonder what venom Christopher Reeves would have in store were he still us today, and I would like to have heard Stallone's views after "Over the Top" (good or bad, can't tell). Chuck Norris is a glaring omission, given his 5-picture deal with them . . . or is he merely content with how it all turned out? But there's the ever-charming Catherine Mary Stewart and the surprisingly mocking Alex Winter offering their input, and both are amusing. There's a lot involved in this; it's really a varied roster.

This is a hugely entertaining movie that moves at a brisk pace and is funny throughout. A lot easier to sit through than most of Cannon's movie's, that's for sure.

Highly recommended.

8/10

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS is a documentary that does exactly what it says on the tin. That is, to celebrate the wild heydays of Cannon Films, a 1980s production house who put out some of the biggest, silliest, cheesiest, and most effects-fuelled films of that decade.

It's a rise-and-fall tale, brought to live via copious clips and lots of interview footage with various stars, directors, and producers who were involved with the films themselves. Thus for a cinema fan - especially somebody who's seen a lot of the films, like myself - it's a real visual treat. The film is a celebration of the Golan and Globus approach - which is to churn out film after film, hoping one or two of them will be a success - and the eventual hubris which saw the company's downfall. It's constantly funny as well, which really helps.

Mark Hartley, the man behind the wildly entertaining documentaries about B-grade films and filmmakers, Not Quite Hollywood (2008) and Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010), premiered his latest and, sadly, last documentary - Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films - in the opening weekend of the 2014 Melbourne International Festival (MIFF).

As with Hartley's previous documentaries, the story at the heart of Electric Boogaloo (its name taken from the film, "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo", the strange sequel to the hit 1984 rap dancing film, "Breakin'") cleverly unfolds through the skillful editing together of myriad eyewitness talking heads and interspersing these with clips from relevant films along with some wonderfully tongue-in-cheek animations. Essentially, Hartley's latest film explores the story behind Cannon films from its inception to its ultimate demise, following the weird and wild careers of crazy Israeli cinephiles-cum-directors-cum-producers-cum-Hollywood B-grade movie moguls, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Theirs is an extraordinary rags-to-riches- rags story and one well worth seeing for yourself. Hartley has a rare gift for storytelling in his documentaries, bringing together a complex panoply of opinions, rants, scathing criticism and fond remembrances, and weaving these all together into a taut, laugh-out-loud, highly entertaining film, and Electric Boogaloo is no exception, as demonstrated by the very enthusiastic reception the film received from the audience at MIFF.

For film lovers and those who grew up with the Golan/Globus catalog in the 1980s with films like Missing in Action, Lifeforce, Treasure of the Four Crowns, American Ninja, Break Dance, Death Wish 2 and its sequels, Masters of the Universe, The Last American Virgin, Cyborg, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ... the list goes on, and on, and on ... this film is pure joy and something of a nostalgia trip. In this regard the film does have a sad side as it follows how the dreams of Golan and Globus would eventually fizzle up in bankruptcy and acrimony, leaving behind a library of impossibly bizarre creations that are truly weird and wonderful. Electric Boogaloo will no doubt prompt you to want to revisit many of these titles or discover others for the first time. I suspect that, being a true lover of B movies, this is ultimately one of Hartley's aims.

In Tim Burton's Ed Wood, a cheapshot movie producer snorts at Ed's desire to create art on a shoestring. The irony is, of course, that however artistically credible he imagined himself, Ed Wood made junk anyway. There's a sweet spot where good intentions, lack of talent, and thriftiness meet, and Cannon Films regularly found it. The Asylum's mockbusters might be keeping the bad movie dream alive, but can you imagine a modern mini-studio greenlighting the likes of Superman, alongside Death Wish, alongside Shakespeare?

Cannon was set up in the 1960s but rose to prominence/notoriety in 1980 when it was sold to Israeli cousins Yoram Globus (the money man) Menahem Golan (the would-be moviemaker). This is where Mark Hartley's breakneck documentary joins the sordid story. Talking heads – directors, editors, and actors – provide snappy anecdotes and bitesized insights into the passion and incompetence of two upstarts who, for a time, upset the Hollywood establishment. And then spent $25m on an arm-wrestling movie.

Though remembered for Chuck Norris nonsense and some seriously ropey fantasy and sci-fi (Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce will make you question the value of cinema), at their peak Cannon were bashing out nearly 50 films a year. This left room for 'proper' movies from the likes of Franco Zeffirelli and Godfrey Reggio; Cannon even bagged an Oscar for Best Foreign Film at their mid-eighties peak. But for every Company of Wolves or Barfly there were five Charles Bronson Z-movies, so Cannon will always be remembered for the balderdash, churned out chiefly to take advantage of the burgeoning home video market.

Indeed, this is the perfect Eighties trash story, beginning with The Happy Hooker, the strangely apt story of a European prostitute coming to the US and sticking two fingers up to the Hollywood elite. The party ended with Cyborg in 1989, a Van Damme oddity which has little to do with cyborgs and whose creative failure rests partly on the shoulders of Albert Pyun, who would later find cinema's comic book nadir with his mouth-dryingly terrible Captain America. Cyborg was built with bits of Masters of the Universe, which gives us a clue as to the state of Cannon's finances at the turn of the decade. A brief 90s relaunch provided nothing of interest.

Perhaps there's a three-hour version of this documentary which delves into more depth and supposition about the essential culture clash that meant Globus and Golan failed spectacularly, time and time again, to grasp the mood of the nation they adored. But then the film would lose its briskness and humour, and Hartley's superb Uzi-editing would go to waste. It's a shallow documentary about men with shallow dreams, and it's enthralling for it.

The only real art to emerge from Cannon were exceptions that proved the rule. That rule being: Make 'em quick and make 'em cheap. By the time the bloated excess of Masters of the Universe was vomited into the multiplex (I recall that particular disappointment sorely) audiences expected more. Hartley's film may ultimately overstate the influence of Cannon – although with a new Terminator movie potentially about to join Jurassic World, Avengers, and Furious 7 at the top of the year's box office, the business model that spawned five Death Wishes and three Delta Forces does seem disturbingly prescient.

When Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus took over The Cannon Group in 1979, cinema had little idea what it was in for. With the company in a dyer financial situation, Golan and Globus began churning out pictures of questionable quality at an unnerving rate, making a small profit with the odd micro-hit that quickly added up. Soon enough, the exploitation pioneers were buying up cinema chains, paying movie stars ludicrous amounts of money, taking over Cannes, and releasing some of the most diabolical and insane movies of 1980's. Electric Boogaloo tells the rapid rise and even faster implosion of the notorious studio, with the people both in front of and behind the camera telling their own anecdotes of the madcap antics that seemed to engulf their every production.

Director Mark Hartley has made a career in documenting exploitation cinema with Not Quite Hollywood (2008) and Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010), and Electric Boogaloo is undoubtedly his most fun. Packed with clips of such cinematic disasters as Enter the Ninja (1981), Hercules (1983), Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), the film lambastes Cannon as much as it adores their persistence, levelling the field by also showing us their more interesting efforts - the likes of Lifeforce (1985) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), both directed by Tobe Hooper - and the films that were surprisingly great, such as Runaway Train (1985) and Barfly (1987). But this isn't just a collection of clips from some of the most outlandish films ever made, Hartley ensures that the film is highly informative about the 'creative' minds behind the company and the reasons for its inevitable fall from grace.

Amongst the interviewees are John G. Avildsen, Franco Nero, Dolph Lundgren, Robert Forster, Bo Derek and Alex Winter, all telling stories that will have you laughing as well as questioning just how the Israeli's got away with it for so long. Some of it is brutal, with Golan especially coming across as an ego-maniacal tyrant with little care for the safety of his crew and no understanding of the American audience he was targeting. Yet it's all told with a nostalgic fondness, celebrating the fact that these were little guys who actually made it, and doing it all on their own terms. They were, after all, responsible for Chuck Norris's career and the prolonging of Charles Bronson's (although it's questionable as to whether or not that's a good thing), and were eager to give great but fading directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, John Cassavetes and Franco Zeffirelli another shot with complete artistic control. It's a strange story - Golan and Globus clearly adored cinema but didn't seem to understand it - but this is a success story like no other, and insomniacs with little to do at night but watch TV have a lot to thank them for.