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The death of Menahem Golan, best known for his work in the eighties at the head of Cannon Films with his cousin Yoram Globus, was announced today. Although he had been in the movie business since the sixties, even working with Roger Corman, it was in the eighties that he really made his name as he endeavoured to create a studio to rival the big boys of Hollywood. He nearly achieved his goal with a succession of mostly dunderheaded action movies starring the big genre stars of the day, from Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson to Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme among others, which instantly endeared them to those who wanted unpretentious timewasters filled with bullets, explosions and fistfights.
Cannon managed a few prestige projects too, working with John Cassavetes and Robert Altman, but it was output like sequels to Death Wish, Norris's Missing in Action series, Invasion USA and The Delta Force, the Breakin' movies, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II and Lifeforce, the Ninja series, Bo Derek's Bolero, unforgettable musical The Apple, franchise killer Superman IV, Lemon Popsicle films, 52 Pick Up, Tough Guys Don't Dance, Stallone's Cobra and Over the Top and far too many others to mention that flooded the multiplexes and video stores. Alas, Cannon were bankrupt by the dawn of the nineties and though Golan kept working until recently, directing as well as producing, he was never as high profile. A real character, he may have stepped on many toes, but a lot of cult film fans will mourn his passing. |
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