What Did You Say?
Various
quotes from people who
worked
with Golan-Globus and Cannon.
...and
a few pearls of wisdom from Golan-Globus, amongst others.
Link to this
page: www.cannon.org.uk/quotes.htm
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"They supported me well
over the years, staying around even after my star declined. They offered me a
rare and loyal affection and gratitude over a long period of time." -Sylvia Kristel on Golan-Globus. "Cannon has aquired a
two storey house on Sunset Boulevard and will take up residence there next
month"
-Yoram Globus, on Cannon's move to "No, it wasn't a shotgun,
it was a chainsaw. He said he was going to cut off his finger if I didn't
make his film." -Menahem Golan talking about Barbet Schroeder and Barfly. "No other production organization
in the world today has taken more chances with serious, marginal films." -Roger Ebert "Superman IV killed the
franchise." -Ilya Salkind, executive
producer, Superman III "When I was in Cannon I
was wealthy, but that was not important, what is important is to be able to
make any movie you want". -Menahem Golan "When someone like
Goddard comes to you -nothing works." -Menahem Golan "The last time I saw
Menahem Golan, he was waving a large dinner napkin in the air. That was last
year at the "I don't think I signed
a contract. Cannon (or Golan-Globus, can't recall) just picked up black
market labourers as extras. It was either construction that week or film set
with good food and $200 a day. Not bad for 15 years ago. They put the outfit
and paraphernalia on and within a day I was sitting in the front row in the
court room, yelling at some poor actress an insult I still don't
understand." -unknown extra, unknown film. "Naturally, when we came
in the beginning, the door was closed. But Menahem and me, if the door is
closed, we come in through the window. And if the window is closed, we come
in through the air-conditioning." -Yoram Globus, 1986, "We think
it's an obligation of Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris to pay for Franco
Zeffirelli." -Menahem Golan, 1986, "Menahem
Golan rings me up from "For what I spent in "This is
not a picture about what it looks like -it's a picture about who's in
it" -Menahem Golan talking about Number One With a Bullet ---------- Q)
"What do you consider your greatest A) "Receiving champagne on the ---------- "I had my nose pressed
against the glass for 20 years. It took Cannon Pictures to say they believed
in me to the tune of $5 million. There were nights when Menahem Golan woke up
and said, 'I'm giving $5 million to a crazy man who's never directed a movie?
I must be crazy myself." -Norman Mailer, talking about Tough Guys Don't Dance "The last scene in the
film will be a neighborhood war, like a Second World War battle." -Menahem Golan on
Death Wish 3 "People do not copy the
movies, movies copy the people." -Menahem Golan "He's only a simple
architect and a simple man who does not deal with large-scale arms." -Bronson's
thoughts on Cannon's idea of Paul Kersey in the planned Death Wish 3. "It had to be done here,
because of the environment, the look of the places" -Menahem Golan on his film Hanna [in "I'm ready to pay him,
he's worth all the money in the world." -Menahem Golan
talking about Dustin Hoffman and the Cannon project La Brava. "Nobody believed anymore
in features based on comic books." -Menahem Golan on Spider-Man "Now that's a Cannon
movie!"
-Menahem Golan on the re-edit of Robotech: The Movie "If you make an American
film with a beginning, a middle and an end, with a budget of less than five
million dollars, you must be an idiot to lose money." -Menahem Golan "The film business is the
only business where a negative is a positive." -Menahem Golan "The one positive I did
get out of it was to meet Menahem Golan. Menahem was heading for the big
time. He told me so over lunch at a restaurant on the sea front. -Ingrid Pitt "I make films, love
them, sometimes I also do an excellent job. I don't consider myself an Ingmar
Bergman, I don't make 'message' films. I make them for the audience in the
theater who doesn't get bored, laughs at a comedy, cries at a tragedy, with a
lot of emotion." -Menahem Golan "For me a director is a
director, he dictates the piece, creates it and I need to help him. The
producer brings together all the elements that make it possible for the
director to make the film - develop the script, hire the actors, hire the
director and then work together with him. The director is the architect and
the producer is the engineer." -Menahem Golan on being a producer |
Nik
Powell -on Golan-Globus
Nik Powell, founder of Palace Productions.
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Bruce Dern -on Golan-Globus That Championship Season (1982)
click for larger
That Championship Season came out, and
it didn't do well and I put it to bed. In February 1983 I'm in my beddy about eleven thirty in the
morning and my phone rings. I pick it up and get a drunk Jason Miller, which
is not unusual, on the phone with Jason Patric, and they're laughing. They
said "Dernster.." I said, "Where the
hell are you guys?" "We're in "You're Kidding. I
thought nobody went to see it." "You wouldn't believe
it. You won Best Actor, Besten Darstellar. Jason went up and accepted it for
you. It was given by Jeanne Moreau, and it's called a Silver Bear, Best Actor
at the Two days later, I picked up a trade paper, and my press agent
called and said, "Why'd you spend all
that money putting that ad in the trade about your Silver Bear? We didn't
know you won the award you're supposed to tell us this." I said "I didn't take
out the ad." It was Yoram and Menachem who took out the ad congratulating me
on winning the best actor at the Berlin Film Festival. That afternoon Jason
and his son got home and they brought the mail in, there was a paper sack
with this silver thing in it -no note. The next morning, I pick up a trade
paper and it says, "MENAHEM GOLAN AND YORAM GLOBUS FLEE AMERICA TO ISRAEL.
CANNON FILMS GOES UNDER". I never heard a word from them since. They're in -Bruce Dern
talking in his memoirs.
Just Jaeckin on Golan-Globus Interview by Nathaniel Thompson
click for larger
image How
involved was Cannon Films with the actual making of Lady Chatterly's Lover? Oh, those two men - I called
them the "Boom Brothers," Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. They came
to me at the Cannes Film Festival and said, "Why don't we do a film
together? Why don't we reteam with Sylvia Kristel? We have a book for you,
Lady Chatterly's Lover." They said they'd co-produce the film in
England. But they were awful, absolutely awful! They tried to take out the
best parts of the film - they tried to cut scenes and move things around, and
they wanted to remove the scene near the beginning, with the handsome man
riding the white horse. I told them I wouldn't do it, that I wouldn't do any
kind of erotic scenes at all unless I could make the film my way. So finally
they let me do what I wanted, and when they saw the finished result in the
screening room they said, "Yes, of course, it's beautiful!" From http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/Features/just_jaeckin.html Just Jaeckin at the IMDb here |
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Golan: “How did you do with that little picture
of yours?”
click for
larger image Robert Forster
Interview by Marty McKee Q:
What kind of budget and schedule did you have on HOLLYWOOD HARRY? A: I did everything one step at
a time. First of all, I picked an arbitrary number: $500,000. I said, “For
$500,000, I can make this picture.” And, of course, you can. But I didn’t
know where to get $500,000. I kept trying to sell the idea to prospective
producers, and, finally, a couple of exhibitors--these guys had exhibited
ALLIGATOR (in which Forster starred for director Lewis Teague) and made money
with it in Europe--said, “Yeah, we’ll work with you. What’s the budget?”
“$500,000,” I told ‘em. They said, “You come up with 1/3. We’ll come up with
2/3.” And we made a deal. I sold the only investment I
had--the only thing I owned--which was some investment I had made some years
before. I got $150,000 for it. I called these guys up in England, and I said,
“OK, guys, I got my money, it’s in the bank,” and they didn’t return my phone
call. Ohhhhhh, one of those absolutely, typical stories. You think you got a
deal and you trust somebody and they did not come through with it. So I made
HOLLYWOOD HARRY with $125,000 of that $150,000--I had to have some money to
live on. I borrowed another $10,000 from my cousin and another $25,000 from a
friend, and we finished up a rough cut for approximately $160,000. Later, I
had to borrow even more money to post-produce. Each step of the way, I said,
“OK, what do you do now?” By the time we got to a finished picture, I knew
that I had to get it to a salesman. We got it to Cannes the following year.
We sold to about five small territories. That was 1985. Later that summer, I
went to work for Menahem Golan in THE DELTA FORCE (Forster played an Arab
terrorist in this Chuck Norris/Lee Marvin action flick for Cannon). While we
were working on DELTA FORCE, Menahem, who I had run into in Q: How
much did you sell it for? A: Wait, I’ll tell ya. They
originally offered me $400,000. I figured, OK, that’s about $75,000 profit.
When I first started making this picture, I thought it was going to get me a
house on the beach in I was heartbroken. I was
devastated. I’m signing the paperwork, I have no choice, I gotta get the
$25,000 they’re giving me as an advance, I had no Christmas money, I was dead
broke. I’m signing the thing, I think, “Oh, God, this is what happens when
you make a little movie.” Later on, I discovered that Cannon had sold a
package of about twenty movies, one of which was titled HARRY’S MACHINE, but
they had never made it. So they bought my picture to substitute for a picture
they had already sold called HARRY’S MACHINE! Wow! Q: I’m
sure it’s out of print now, but the videocassette I have is HOLLYWOOD HARRY.
I think Media Home Entertainment put it out. A: Yes, yes, you never saw
HARRY’S MACHINE. It’s HARRY’S MACHINE only in a descriptive list of the
pictures that they sold. They never touched it. Q: Who
owns HOLLYWOOD HARRY now? A: I don’t know who owns it
now. All I know is it sold 26,000 units (videocassettes) its first quarter.
That’s a lot of units for a little, tiny picture. Q: It
really is a lot of fun. A: I agree. From Mobius
Home Video Forum http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=102 Robert Forster at the IMDb here
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Alexander Walker on Golan-Globus
"The
producers are Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, names I'm glad to say I haven't
seen on any respectable screen for ages. But those with long memories will
recall they are the Israeli interlopers who formed Cannon Films and were
allowed by the asinine decision of the Rt Hon Paul Channon, then Secretary of
State at the Department of Trade and Industry, to buy Thorn-EMI in 1986, and
thus acquire virtually half the British film industry: Elstree studios, the
ABC cinema chain, the Pathé newsreel collection and a 2,000-film library
including the Ealing comedies. Barely two
years later, a cash-strapped Cannon stripped its assets to the bone and sold
them to another bunch of entrepreneurs, some of whom finished up in prison. From that
unforgivable act of folly by our own government bureaucrats, as ignorant then
as they are now of how the film industry really functions, comes a great deal
of our present cinema stagnation." Above text from
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/film-555761-details/The+Texas+Chainsaw+Massacre+2/filmReview.do?reviewId=555766 Not a particulaly nice man from
what I saw (he used to be on British TV quite a bit) of him and the above
diatribe is from a film ‘review’. Imagine what we’d
have to indure if he were to write a book on The [bemoaning Cannon again
regarding their Screen Entertainment back catalogue which is more secure now than anyone could have
dreamt as it’s with Vivendi Universal
via Canal+ Image. However, he does
have a point as I believe a film’s ownership should be analysed if it’s part
of that country’s culture. Saying that, it’s show business and it’s only
about business] Mr Alexander: Well, the
place for judicious Government intervention is very much the place where
British Screen Finance was at and where I hope the Film Council, unless it is
consumed by megalomania, will realise it should be the sticking place. That
is to say you should have adequate funds but you should not have a
superfluity of funds because that means an over-abundance of production. That
simply cannot be placed in results, as it did some years ago, in something
between 40 and 60 per cent of the films that were made not being shown within
18 months to two years. Grey Gowrie, when he was Chairman of the Arts
Council, took me out to lunch one day and said "Well, you are so smart,
what would you do?" I said "Grey, I would buy a circuit of
cinemas". The Cannon Cinemas had just come on the market. That in itself
is a story of disaster, that two people who had no roots in the British film
industry were given the go ahead by the former Conservative administration to
buy up half the British film industry - Associated British Picture
Corporation, the Elstree Studios, the Pathe Newsroom Collection and the
wonderful 1,500 film library - and then to strip it of its assets two years
later when they ran short of cash. That was Mr Golan and Mr Globus of Cannon
Films. I said "If you bought a circuit of cinemas, Grey, what you could
do is go down on a Saturday night with a sack and empty the cash box. Then
you would have the cinema screens in which you could show your own films, but
you also have the screens to show the American films and you would be in the
happy position of making money out of the American films that take up 90 per
cent of the screen time in this country". Gray's reply to that was
"That is very interesting, but unfortunately the Arts Council we are not
permitted to run a business". I said "Well, then what are you doing
in league with the film business?" Absurd. Text taken from
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmcumeds/uc667-vi/uc66702.htm
Alexander Walker at Talking
Pictures here
Robin Sherwood on Cannon
Robin Sherwood [Death Wish II] “I was
in Festival
is like a candy store of entertainment. [Laughs] Golan and Globus, literally,
had a booth that had a curtain and a chair and that was their production
company.” Robin Sherwood at the IMDb here
Charles B. Griffith on Menahem Golan
click for larger image Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980) An interview with by Aaron W. Graham CG: That could have been the best of the best.
Menahem Golan hired me. I wrote 5 joke titles to show Francis Coppola at his
Christmas party in 1979. I showed him the list and he chuckled a bit, but
asked me what would I really like to do? I told him that I'd love to have an
Ealing Studios situation where I could make little comedies. Francis just
said, “Why little?”, and walked away to something else. So I had these joke titles in my pocket
and Menahem hired me, after I showed him Little Shop, to write The
Happy Hooker Goes to Oliver Reed used to get me drunk but I
liked him. I didn't want him originally. I had wanted Dick Van Dyke, but he
was out on the road doing a play. Menahem hired Oliver because he was there.
I had to redo the entire picture in my head when he was cast, because it was
a zany slapstick comedy and I got Oliver Reed – with that face and that
voice! So I made it more lyrical. Sonny Johnson, the lead actress, was
cast in the middle of the night before shooting started the next day, but she
turned in a stellar performance. A few weeks later, she died of a brain
haemorrhage. She was beautiful and a great actress. She would have went on to
greater stuff. The picture was too long, with the
script being about 200 pages. There was no time to cut it, except for
Menahem's auto-cutting by tearing out pages, and that became a mess. I did it
in four weeks again and, when I told him I was going to go over, I thought
he'd kill me! I told him that I couldn't get all this elaborate stuff that
I'd written that he didn't tell me to cut. It was just so much. Mel Welles played Dr. Hinkle, a fat
doctor with all these fat ladies as patients. He invented a new diet paste,
“One drop you shed 56 pounds, two drops you kill a horse!”, and so Dr. Hype
[Reed] takes this diet paste and that's what causes the changing. He turns
into Heckyll with green make-up, brillo hair, a carrot nose, one red eye and
one blue eye, claws and the whole works. I asked Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze,
from the old gang, to be the garbage men, but Jonathan refused. I just gave
all the lines to Dick, who did both sets. Original
article here © 2007 Senses
of Cinema & Aaron W. Graham
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Shelley
Winters on Golan
COMING SOON…
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