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ELECTRIC BOOGALOO – Doc About Cannon Films Screening at The Tivoli September 17th

By Tom Stockman | September 8, 2015

Bronson!….Norris!…..Dudikoff!

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO was the name of the wacky 1985 sequel to the break dance epic BREAKIN’ – which I don’t know was worthy of a follow-up but if there was one studio up to the effort in the mid-‘80s, it was Cannon Films. ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS is the title of a new documentary that plays for one night only in St. Louis at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater Thursday, September 17^th at 7pm.

Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, prolific salesmen with little regard for quality, bought Cannon Films for half million dollars in 1979 (it was founded in ’67) and turned it into an efficient assembly line of high-concept, action, and exploitation. Lovers of low-brow cinema could always count on a good time when that Cannon Films logo appeared on-screen. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PT 2, the Sly Stallone arm wrestling opus OVER THE TOP, Chuck Norris actioners such as MISSING IN ACTION, INVASION USA, and DELTA FORCE, Bronson in DEATH WISH 2 (and 3 and 4), Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE, THE EXTERMINATOR 2, and THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN were all part of Cannon’s dependably entertaining output. Cannon gave the likes of Jean Claude Van Damme (CYBORG) and Dolph Lundgren (MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and I COME IN PEACE) their start and even created their own action hero with Michael Dudikoff (AMERICAN NINJA and AVENGING FORCE). Cannon flirted with arthouse fare with LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, BARFLY, John Cassavette’s LOVE STREAMS, and Franco Zefferelli’s OTTELO, and even received some Oscar love when the two stars of its 1984 hit RUNAWAY TRAIN (Jon Voight and Eric Roberts) were nominated for acting awards. But its films like COBRA and NINJA III DOMINATION, with their low-brow scripts rushed into production, that has made the Cannon studio (which folded in ’94), the stuff of legend. With ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS , filmmaker Mark Hartley, the man behind the wildly entertaining documentaries about B-grade films and filmmakers, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (about the Australian exploitation scene from 2008) and MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED (about the Philippine film industry from 2010) has set his sights on Cannon. Full of clips from the films and interviews with such Cannon luminaries as Dolph Lundgren, Luigi Cozzi, Sybil Danning, Tobe Hooper, Diane Franklin, Franco Nero, Bo Derek, and Lucinda Dickey, the doc is said to be (I have not seen it) a colorful look at the video dustbins of exploitation movie history.

Landmark Theaters will be presenting a special one-night only screening of ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS September 17^th at 7pm. (The Tivoli is located at 6350 Delmar Boulevard, in The Loop, St. Louis, MO, 63130)