Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
Hollywood then bust...
In the ’80s, a certain kind of B-movie ruled videoshop shelves. Whether they featured nunchuks or body-popping, upcoming stars such as Chuck Norris or nose-diving ones like Charles Bronson, these gleefully trashy efforts were usually traceable back to Cannon Films, belonging to Israeli toughs Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. These tenacious cousins became the Miramax of bad movies, their output ( American Ninja 1-4, Death Wish 2-4, the Breakdance movies the title references) a combustible combination of high concepts and low costs. As in his previous film, ‘Ozploitation’ doc Not Quite Hollywood, Mark Hartley breezily traces the irrepressible rise and inevitable fall, wittily intercutting talking heads with illustrative clips.
Cannon flooded Hollywood with saleable (if not always watchable) product in its inimitably bungling, bulldozing style. In this affectionate hatchet job, Hartley offers some great anecdotes, and the contributors prove equally game, with Franco Nero – unlikely star of Enter The Ninja – admitting to never having seen a ninja before. Best of all are the clips; try and keep a straight face while The Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno wrestles the world’s least convincing bear in 1983’s Hercules, or as Ninja III: The Domination melds martial arts with The Exorcist and Flashdance.
Unlike Not Quite Hollywood there are few gems to discover here – Cannon Films were good-bad at best – so the second half is a little deflating. Quibbles aside, Electric Boogaloo is required viewing for connoisseurs of trash cinema, even if none of the films included are anywhere near as good as it is.
THE VERDICT Not quite Not Quite Hollywood but not far off, Mark Hartley’s scurrilous Cannon Films retrospective is a top-drawer doc about bargain-basement legends. › Certificate TBC Director Mark Hartley Starring Bo Derek, Michael Dudikoff, Tobe Hooper, Alex Winter, Dolph Lundgren Screenplay Mark Hartley Distributor Metrodome Running time 107 mins