Top 5 Cannon Films

Last week I watched a great indie documentary about a little film studio that could- Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014). Throughout film history smaller studios run by ambitious visionaries have produced films that challenged the Hollywood status quo- creating memorable movies when the odds were against them. But no one turned out movies quite like Cannon.

Israeli film enthusiasts Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus came along in the late '70's and took over Cannon Films, turning it into a sometimes profitable schlock machine that cranked out some of the best-worst movies of the era. Their library is made-up of films that could all have a Hal Douglas voiceover in their trailer: Death Wish II (1982), The Last American Virgin (1982), Bolero (1984), Missing in Action (1984), Invasion U.S.A. (1983). 

The cheapness of their prodigious output was tolerated by audiences because of the levels of sex and gore that were forced into every screenplay. But eternal optimists, Golan and Globus always worked, wheedled, and pitched their next film in the hopes that it would be the one that would get them taken seriously. The documentary is a lot of fun as former stars, directors, and co-producers chart the rise and the fall of the Dynamic Duo of Duds- who may not have had any taste, but they sure had chutzpah.

Here are my Top 5 Cannon Films and while it's hard to say any of these are good, I can say they leave an impression.

The Apple (1980)

One of the Go-Go Boys' first films after they acquired Cannon, is this attempt to make the next Tommy (1975). What they made looks more like a Eurovision song contest on PCP. It is 1994, and two kids from the sticks, Bibi and Alphie (Catherine Mary Stewart and George Gilmour disrespectively), come to the big city to compete in a worldwide singing competition and get sucked into the dark underworld of sex, drugs, and euro-pop. Will their love be able to overcome lies, betrayal, and bad rock?

Everything in the movie is too-much- and at the same time not enough. Costumes, story, acting, songs, singing, dancing- all are done with obnoxious seriousness, without enough cash to make West Berlin look like futuristic America.

The movie is trying so hard to be a Biblical metaphor that critiques how the music industry grinds up people set in a futuristic society . It really is trying. See how hard it is trying. But it totally misses the mark, leaving us with a movie that causes one's jaw to drop- and not in the good way.

Look for character actress extraordinaire Miriam Margolyes as the Landlady... because they couldn't afford to give the landlady character an actual name...


Breakin' (1984)

I'm a white boy from Kansas. And when Breakin' came out in '84 the whole neighborhood lost its ever-lovin' mind. The dance moves, the music... the black people! Soon we were all wearing parachute pants from JC Penneys, making wiggy-wiggy-wiggy noises, throwing cardboard down on our yards, and trying our hardest to do headspins, moonwalk, and pop-and-lock. That, ladies and gentlemen was the power of Breakin'.

Now let me be clear. We were not reacting to the hackneyed plot about a group of breakdancers struggling for recognition, and the lily-white ballerina who helps them get their big break. That crack was whack. But we couldn't get enough of the music and dancing. And the rest of the country felt the same way. Breakin' hit the jackpot for Cannon with over $38 million in domestic receipts. The soundtrack of early hip-hop songs (including Ice T's first mainstream recording) hit #8 on the Billboard Top 200 charts. Cannon had a genuine hit.

But the problems with the film came from G & G's inability to truly capture American culture. While many of the stars of the film were famous breakdancers, the gritty urban culture that spawned the dance craze is covered over in neon, feather earrings, and leg-warmers. Lucinda Dickey who played Kelly (street name Special K- for real?) wasn't able to really do the dance moves and the authentic dancers really resented it. The attempt to shove an upper class white girl into a street movie was just one example of a film that was once again trying too hard to be popular.

Seven months later when Cannon made a sequel with the much maligned Electric Boogaloo in the title, the dance craze had lost its appeal- and mainstream hip-hop had moved on to more realistic grit and anger. But there was a golden time in that Summer of '84 when we all tried to be like Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp.

Invaders from Mars (1986)

When I first saw the trailer for Tobe Hooper's re-make of the '50s classic Invaders from Mars, my 14 year-old-brain was freaked out. I mean when you have the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974);  Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Alien (1979); and special-effects master Stan Winston working together, you should get some major scare-age. Throw in Karen Black, Louise Fletcher, Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman, and Bud Court, and you have a slam-dunk sci-fi horror movie. Well...

The movie's plot is a version of the typical Fifties horror film: young boy sees alien ship land in backyard, no one believes young boy's story, people begin behaving strangely, young boy has to figure out how to save his town and perhaps the world from an unseen alien threat. The themes of paranoia and a mistrust of those you think you know and love were apropos for the era of the Red Scare- and Reagan's '80's Cold War with Russia conjured up some of the same fears. In that way, the film is really creepy in how it makes us question the veracity of what we think we know by turning parents and teachers into threats to the truth.

What doesn't work in this film is the reveal of the alien threat. The special effects of the ghostly lit backyard and a spinning sandtrap that drags victims under are great in that the aliens are left to our imaginations. But once the alien drones are revealed, we laugh more than we scream. Hooper struggled with the low budget he was given and Winston actually only created two of the hobbling, toothy Audrey 2-esque alien monsters. So camera tricks had to be employed to make the impression that this was a terrifying invasion force.

Hooper was furious at being low-balled on his budget by the G-Boys, and Golan and Globus felt that they had been horn-swaggled by a supposed horror master. The result was yet another Cannon box office disappointment. But hey! I'll watch Louise Fletcher eat a lab frog anyday.

Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987)

There are a lot of movies that people label the "Worst Movie of All-Time". Personally, anything with Adam Sandler in it is in the running. But Tough Guys might actually be the crown-holder of the dubious distinction of worst movie ever. Golan and Globus were desperate to gain recognition as serious film producers, so in the mid-Eighties they used what capital they had to lure celebrated talent to their projects. Franco Zefferelli, John Cassavetes, and even French film auteur Jean-Luc Godard took the bait and worked with Cannon with less than stellar results. Authorial icon Norman Mailer wished to direct the film version of his noir-influenced 1984 novel and Cannon coughed-up the cash for him to do it. Mailer had only directed a handful of films in his career, but with the help of legendary Chinatown (1974) screenwriter Robert Towne, he hoped to create something notable. It's notable alright.

Tim Madden (Ryan O'Neal) is a blackout drunk who wakes up in a bloody car and finds a severed head in his marijuana stash. Madden begins flashing back over his lushy life to try and figure out who the head belongs to and who has committed this heinous act. His dying father (Lawrence Tierney) and his girlfriend (Isabella Rossellini slumming it) figure prominently in his soap opera-worthy musings, but the twists and turns of this mystery are as murky as Madden's memory.

A trailer for the film suggests that Cannon realized fairly quickly that this film was not going to be received seriously, so they attempted to take the campy route in its promotion. It still didn't work. The film bombed and became a cult favorite for its over-acting; lines like,"Cause you don't have a womb!"; and the famous Oh Man, Oh God! scene. Mailer would never direct again, and perhaps that was for the best.

Barfly (1987)

1987 also produced what was supposed to be another prestige project starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway as- well, as barflies. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by poet and novelist Charles Bukowski, Barfly was meant to be a raw and edgy look at the wasted lives of wasted people. Mission accomplished.

Rourke is Henry Chinaski, a poet stuck in a bottle who goes from odd job to bar to rathole, opining about life in between barfights and blackouts. Along the way he meets Wanda (Dunaway), a kept woman who enjoys spending her lover's money on hooch and other men. Henry and Wanda are soon drinking and sleeping together- a co-dependent, enabling match made in Finlandia.

But Henry's work has been noticed by a publisher (Alice Krige), so she tracks him down and offers him a book deal and a chance to escape his plastered life. Will he take that chance? Or will he take Johnny Walker, Captain Morgan, and Jim Beam's offer?

The film is a total downer. But the performances by Rourke and Dunaway are raw, complicated, and disturbing. Rourke was still hot from his sexy success in 9 1/2 Weeks (1986), but shades of the messed-up performance he would later earn an Oscar nom for in The Wrestler (2008) are evident. Dunaway's post Mommie Dearest (1981) career-slide was not stopped by Barfly- although she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress. The film is ultimately a dark character piece that reeks of the apathy of alcoholism without the intervention it so desperately needs.

By the end of 1987 Cannon Films received what was probably their deathblow. They had
poured a lot of money (for them) into Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Masters of the Universe. But both movies tanked- in large part because their special effects looked so cheap. Their reliably lucrative franchises Death Wish and Missing in Action both produced sequels that likewise bombed.

Golan and Globus held on another nine years, but were never able to make the film that would gain the acclaim or the box office they sought. But their passion to keep cranking out movies in the hopes of creating something special resulted in a body of work that stands out for its cult appeal- if not its cinematic excellence.

Today's Old Movie Nerd Purchase

A little lakeside reading about the mistress of San Simeon and her legendary life.

Have great weekends, everyone! And look for my next Top 5 List later today!

The Big Screen in the Sky: Marni Nixon

Heaven's heavenly chorus added a beautiful new voice on Sunday. Movie singer Marni Nixon passed away at the age of 86. Nixon was famous for being the voice of many a Hollywood actress in some of the great musicals from the Golden Era. If you thought you were listening to Deborah Kerr singing "Getting to Know You" in The King and I (1956) or Natalie Woods crooning "Tonight, Tonight" in West Side Story (1961) or Audrey Hepburn twittering "I Could Have Danced All Night" in My Fair Lady (1964) you were beguiled by arguably the best ghost singer in the industry.

Studios needed Nixon to help cover-up the fact that the actors cast in their musicals while stars, weren't always the best singers. So Nixon was used to sing full roles and sometimes as in the case with a high note in "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" for Marilyn Monroe- bits of numbers. Nixon went unheralded for much of her career, but in an interview the gracious lady gave a couple years ago at a King and I screening, she admitted that Kerr was happy to tell the press it wasn't her singing. Wood, however, was devastated that the producers didn't use her voice and was always touchy about the subject.

Nixon took her unheralded work in stride and made many stage appearances as well as playing small parts in movies and television. Yes, she's Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music (1965). 
Nixon was an integral part of some magical movie moments- and I for one, will not forget that voice.

Learn to Speak

Sunday night, for the very first time, I saw a Joan Crawford movie that I didn't like. Yes, you read that correctly. Even amongst Crawford cinematic stinkers like The Ice Follies of 1939 (Joan and Jimmy Stewart ice skate) and  I Saw What You Did (1965) (Joan's verbal attack on a teenage prank caller is the high point) I have always been able to find moments of Joan joy to make a film worthwhile. But Sunday I stared at my television dumbfounded as I struggled to find a good reason to keep watching the 1930 western Montana Moon.

There are several things I could get snarky about (Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards and Benny Rubin, I am looking at you) but the more I thought about what was wrong with Montana Moon, the more I realized that the problem isn't necessarily the movie, its director, or its actors. The problem is when it was made.

When we talk about the Silent Era turning into the Sound Era, we often imagine a marked delineation between the two. There were silent films before The Jazz Singer (1927) and there were talkies afterwards. But it wasn't that clearcut. Studios scrambled to be technologically ready to produce sound pictures and directors and actors likewise had to figure out how to make movies with audible dialogue- while the sound revolution was happening.

Cameras became much less mobile with soundproofing, so how films were shot and looked underwent a drastic change. Actors (even the ones who had been stage-trained) had to figure out how to speak intimately with the microphone and rely less on gesture and expression so that with natural voices came a more natural acting style. None of these things happened overnight. It took the industry a couple years and many films to consistently make movies that successfully integrated sound into filmmaking and acting. Montana is one of those early sound experiments.

Montana is the story of Joan, a well-heeled flapper (Crawford, of course) who on a trip to the West with a trainful of cityfolk falls in love with a cowboy (Alabama halfback turned Hollywood leading man Johnny Mack Brown) and proceeds to commit matrimony.

But can this marriage of city and country survive tuxedos, ten gallon hats,and tangos? The plot is silly and musical numbers are squeezed in to capitalize on sound creating the first singing cowboy picture- a tradition that would later give us the likes of Roy Rogers. The look of Montana is not particularly Ford-esque with little imaginative use of the wide open vistas of Montana. Shots are fairly static and seem anchored to the minimal range of the microphone. And the acting? Well...

Crawford received top-billing for Montana because she had earned it in silent hits like Our Dancing Daughters (1928) but Montana was technically only her second sound picture. (You could count Hollywood Revue of 1929 but she doesn't really act in that. She just does the Charleston while singing "Got a Feeling for You.")

Crawford often told the story of the first time she first heard a recording of her voice. "That's not me. That's a man." So I was a little surprised to hear her voice in Montana was a higher pitch than we are used to. Crawford's type at the time was the young, carefree flapper, so it's likely that she maintained a youthful sound to match her character. Her acting seems more stiff than her previous energetic silents, with some fist pounding and hand waving filling in for more subtle acting.

But there are moments when we see the confident, future Crawford- her eyes big, her mouth laughing or defiant, her jaw set. Crawford is working out her sound film persona- and in just a year in Possessed she would successfully evolve beyond the flapper to the next stage of her career- the plucky shopgirl who fights her way up from the bottom. By then, her designer for Montana, Adrian, would transform Crawford's look and she would become one of the top box-office draws of the '30's.



So maybe I don't dislike Montana Moon as much as I thought. Just don't make me listen to "Montana Call" again.

The Big Screen in the Sky: Garry Marshall

TV legend Garry Marshall has passed away. While he made his career in creating popular television shows like The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley, he also found success directing on the big screen. Overboard (1987), Beaches (1988), and Pretty Woman (1990) were smash hits, and proved that female stars like Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Julia Roberts could rule the box-office as well as their male counterparts. Marshall was able to grasp the female perspective and make it the focal point of the comedy- and not the butt of the joke. I wonder if St. Peter is going to pull the jewelry box gag on Marshall when he enters the pearly gates.

Top 5 New York, New York Movies

This week I've been busily showing my visiting sister and niece the Big Apple. Sure they get to see tourist sites like Times Square, One World Trade, Central Park, and Rockefeller Center- but they also get to experience those little spots that make New York unique- like Penelope, Marie's Crisis, and even a drag restaurant where Joan Rivers is still alive.

I'm in a New York state of mind, and I can't help but remember all those movies that have used New York City locations so effectively- essentially making me fall in love with a real city by watching celluloid fantasies. And coincidentally, the new Ghostbusters movie comes out today with lots of shots of Manhattan. Don't believe the haters. It's fun. Trust me.

So here they are- my Top 5 New York, New York movies!:

Sweet Charity (1969)

Charity (the one and only Shirley MacLaine) is a dancehall gal whose romantic life is as confused as she is. If she isn't getting thrown off a bridge in Central Park, she's being abandoned in a movie star's bedroom (with a bedspread made of three kinds of fur!), or dumped by her fiance (the recently RIP John McMartin) because her job is a little too risque for his taste. But through it all Charity's pluck endures and insures there is always another musical number right around the corner.

The plot is based on the Fellini classic Nights of Cabiria (1957) and tends to wander around town. But MacLaine's goofy screen persona and the fantastic songs like the opening number, "My Personal Property" really make Sweet Charity a pleasant trip. The biggest hit from the show, "Hey Big Spender" is a cabaret bar mainstay- and the West Side Story-esque visuals of "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" make you want to leap around on your rooftop like MacLaine, Chita Rivera, and Paula Kelly.

MacLaine croons the sweet "It's a Nice Face" to a passed out stranger in an elevator and "Rich Man's Frug" gives the mini-dress and the pony-step a real meltdown at The "God I wish this place actually existed" Pompeii Club. Charity isn't very deep- it's just plain old fun.

Much of director Bob Fosse's creative use of song and site benefits from being shot on location in New York City with Central Park, the Top of the Rock, Yankees Stadium, and Wall Street setting the stage for Charity's romance and dance numbers. It might be said that Charity's real love affair is with New York. Look for a brief cameo by future Harold and Maude (1971) star Bud Cort at the end.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

A sweetly titled movie that is not so sweet, Sweet Smell is the acid-toned story of young press agent, Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), who is willing to do anything to get in good with Walter Winchell-esque Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster- who co-produced as well as starred). But as always happens to these ambitious young thangs, Sidney gets much more than he bargained for when he waltzes with the devil.

The film is legendary for its dialogue- a verbal dance with tongues made of barbed wire. Ernest Lehman who wrote the short-story the piece is based on worked up the film script initially, but became deathly ill so famed playwright Clifford Odets finished the job. Lehman would later admit that the working environment with Lancaster & Co. was toxic, and nearly killed him. But with lines like, "The cat's in the bag, and the bag's in the river," it would seem the script's birth by fire was worth it. The Vanity Fair expose on the making of the film is well worth a read.

Lancaster and Curtis are terrific with both screen idols dropping their "good guy" images to play two of the slimiest characters ever teamed-up on the screen. The darkness of these two characters is mirrored by James Wong Howe's stunning chiaroscuro lighting scheme that makes the inside of popular bars and nightclubs look like depraved opium dens- all to the strains of a jazzy Elmer Bernstein score.

1950's Times Square is on full display here with the legendary intersection and real life locations like the Brill Building, 21 Club, and Toots Shor Restaurant providing the frenetic energy that drives the film (even though the interior of 21 was recreated on a Hollywood set). The director found it hard to get some of those shots as the screaming Tony Curtis fans frequently broke through barricades to get a piece of their matinee idol. Don't bite too hard girls. He tastes like "a cookie full of arsenic."

The King of Comedy (1982)

Director Martin Scorsese is a New Yorker born and bred- so it's easy to see why The City That Never Sleeps is a main character in many of his early films. While Taxi Driver (1976) is legendary for its NYC locations, I'm also fond of Scorsese's use of the city in his stab at the entertainment biz, The King of Comedy.

Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro before he stopped trying) is an aspiring comic. He's done the work. He's crafted his jokes. He's followed the careers of successful comics. Heck, he's even created a talkshow set in his apartment complete with cardboard cutouts for guests and a wallpaper audience. What more does he need to do to get a gig? In Rupert's mind, kidnap the most successful talkshow host in America (Jerry Lewis playing himself?) and make him put Rupert on his show.

King of Comedy is so great because while it winkingly highlights the impossibility of making it in the entertainment industry, it also shines a blacklight on the obsessed uber-fans that provide the fuel for our stars. Pupkin isn't just crazy for stalking Jerry Langford, he's crazy for wanting to be like him in the first place. De Niro does oddly-intriguing crazy well, and Rupert, while clearly insane, feels as sad as he does threatening.

The same cannot be said of his friend Masha. In the hands of Sandra Bernhard, this obsessed fan is every star's worst nightmare- a sex-crazed lunatic who has no regard for personal space or volume. Lewis as Langford plays the role of a lifetime as the world-weary, nasty comic- sick of fame, sick of fans, and sick of himself.

'80's Midtown Manhattan is on full display here with lots of West Side and Times Square grittiness to take the shine off the television talkshow. My favorite location is the former Paramount Building at 1633 Broadway- where I have worked for the last 16 years.

Manhattan (1979)

Woody Allen is the quintessential New York filmmaker. No other director (except for perhaps Scorsese) has had a bigger role in depicting New York City on the big screen. So it should come as no surprise that Allen's movie Manhattan is a visual loveletter to his favorite town.

The film opens with a black and white montage of New York underscored by Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue": The Manhattan skyline, Staten Island Ferry, 5th Avenue, Washington Square Park, Fulton Fish Market, Guggenheim Museum, Central Park. Allen narrates, "New York is my town- and it always will be." He has a confidence about this place- a confidence in its joys, letdowns, hypocrisies, and human truths.

Allen plays Isaac Mortimer Davis, a twice-divorced, 42-year-old TV comedy writer who is hopelessly entangled with a 17 year-old girl (Mariel Hemingway). It's creepy even without the events that would unfold later in Allen's personal life.

But Isaac also finds himself attracted to the woman that his best friend is having an affair with- the much more grown-up Mary (Allen's then muse, Diane Keaton). The two talk as the sun comes up over the Queensborough bridge- and one of the most iconic shots of New York City is born. The romantic entanglements ensue with the sort of hopeless optimism that has become Allen's trademark.

Allen skillfully uses New York City as a sort of picture frame for the film's various scenes. Whether it's the aforementioned dawn-breaking conversation in Sutton Place, or Allen and Keaton getting to know each other in the shadows of the Hayden Planetarium, or the final scene where Allen confronts his young paramour in the lobby of a New York apartment building, the city is more than a setting. It accents and reflects the internal desires of Allen's characters, drawing us into their city and their lives.

Allen has set some of his films in other towns, but there is an ease and a comfort to his New York work that sets it apart. You can tell Woody Allen loves New York- and he passes that love on to the audience.

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

I love a good feminist horror film. Some may scold me for using the term 'feminist' in relation to a thriller movie about a fashion photographer and a serial killer- but trust me Laura Mars is all about critiquing the male gaze. Laura (the uber fashionable Faye Dunaway) is a famous photographer along the lines of Helmut Lang who likes to take pictures of models in gruesome murder poses. The girls are scantily clad and are usually being killed. Laura assumes these "visions" are just her creative intuition, but when she begins experiencing spells where she sees through the eyes of an actual serial killer, and that she is the next target, she seeks help from skeptical New York detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones).

The conceit of a woman who loses her sight to see what a man sees, then duplicates that vision in her own art is a clever way of addressing the relationship between women, men, and media. So many of us are swept up by the images we see- without thinking that the source of these images (even if they are created by women) is often from a male perspective.

The makeup, the hair, the clothing, the advertising of these products- it's all created to please men. In Laura Mars, director Irvin Kershner hints that this image is destructive, and women can be complicit in how they are viewed by men and themselves. After all, Laura sees herself from her stalker's perspective.

All that deep-dive analysis aside, the film is a really fun thriller with Dunaway throwing herself into the role of terrified victim with wide-eyed relish. The fashion shoots are a scream as is Rene Auberjonois' performance as a flamboyantly gay manager. His Lloyd Bridges impersonation is to die for.

The film was shot in several New York locations including the apocalyptic fashion shoot in Columbus Circle, the warehouse photography studio along the Chelsea waterfront, Dunaway's slit-skirt trot along Canal and Greene Streets, and the model funeral at Westchester's own Ferncliff Cemetery- the final resting place for such luminaries as Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. If you're going to be pursued by a crazy psycopath, there's no place chic-er than New York City.

What movies make you think of the Big Apple?