EDITOR’S NOTE: Cannon didn’t produce this movie, but released it on video in Germany on the Cannon Screen Entertainment label.

Whether you call this Aces Go Places 3 – Our Man from Bond Street or Mad Mission III, this sequel to Aces Go Places brings back Sam Hui as King Kong, Karl Maka as Albert Au and Sylvia Chang as Nancy Ho.

King Kong is in Paris when he sees a gorgeous woman in 80s movie punk glasses about to blow up the Eiffel Tower. He chases her up into that romantic building and finds himself battling Big G (Richard Kiel, obviously playing a copyright free Jaws!) and Oddjob (Japanese pro wrestler Thunder Sugiyama, who was also in Message from Space), who in addition to his bowler hat now has the same steel hand as Dr. No.

Image from http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2008/09/dvd-review-mad-mission-3-our-man-from.html

King Kong loses the trail of the henchmen after they all parachute off the tower. As he dives after Jaws — fighting him in mid-air! — he lands in the Seien River below where he’s picked up by a shark submarine and meets Queen Elizabeth (Huguette Funfrock) and James Bond (French Sean Connery lookalike Jean Mersant). They want King Kong to steal one of the crown jewels called the Star of Fortune from a Hong Kong police vault. There’s one rule: his partner Detective Albert “Baldy” Au (Maka) and his wife Supt. Nancy Ho (Chang) can’t find out.

Of course, this isn’t the real Bond. He’s an imposter and working with  Big G, Jaws and that bazooka-carrying assassin Jade East, as well as having a fake Queen Elizabeth who emerges from paintings in their little villain army.

The real spy is Tom Collins, who is played by Peter Graves and he is 100% playing Jim Phelps from Mission Impossible, as his tape recorder gives him a mission and then explodes. That explosion takes him out of the movie until the close, but until then, we have post-apocalyptic movie punks on dune buggies, Santa Claus motorcycle stunt teams, a sub that can flip over and turn into a cruise ship, a one man jet ala Octopussy and a closing cameo by a fake Ronald Reagan.

Somehow, this movie got followed by a fourth installent with Ronald Lacey (Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark) as the main bad guy and a fifth episode with Conan Lee as Chinese Rambo.

Obviously, I loved every minute. This movie never takes itself seriously and has repeated fake arm gags. Director Tsui Hark (Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Black Mask, Iron Monkey) and writer Raymond Wong Pak-ming have made a movie that will delight spy film and martial arts movie fans while keeping things moving as fast as humanly possible.

As for the English dubbed version, it has some footage cut and extra footage with Peter Graves. The dialogue was written by Larry Dolgin, who did the same job on Deported Women of the SS Special Section and whose voice can be heard in so many dubbed films, including Street Law, Nightmare City, Pieces, Blastfighter, Cannon’s Aladdin and so many more. He was also the voice of Lucio Fulci in the English dub of Cat In the Brain. He also acted in Caligula: The Untold Story, Ghoulies II and Robot Jox and before all that, he was a singer in The Cables, a vocal and instrumental group that released the songs “Choo-Choo” and “Midnight Roses” on the RCA Victor label. According to dubbing actor/director Ted Rusoff — the husband of Carolyn De Fonseca — Dolgin recieved a large inheritance in the 1990s and retired to a villa in Sardinia.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was on the site for the first time on April 4, 2021. The Final Executioner was not produced by Cannon but was released on video by Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video.

The Italians get post-apocalyptic movies better than anyone else, because they realize that at best, they are just Western movies remade with cars instead of horses. The costumes, the dirt, the violence are all the same. They can even use the same sets — now rundown with age — from the 60s and 70s heights of the Italian cowboy era to become the Xerox Bartertown of their low budget epic.

Romolo Guerrieri had been around as a director for years, working in all manner of genres like the giallo (The Sweet Body of Deborah, La Controfigura), poliziotteschi (The Police Serve the Citizens?, Young, Violent, Dangerous) and, you guessed it, Westerns (he wrote Any Gun Can Play and wrote and directed Johnny Yuma).

In a film also known as The Final Executioner during its U.S. video shelf life, after a nuclear war, society has been broken into two groups: the clean, uncontaminated elites and those they hunt, the people left behind who have been contaminated by radiation. At least 80 million have been killed for sport as this movie begins.

Alan Tanner tries to put a stop to this, as his wife has been selected to be hunted. He pays for it by getting shot and left for dead before being rescued and trained by ex-cop Sam (Woody Strode, who is pretty much playing the same role he played in Keoma). Together, they go against the system.

Footage from this was used in Giuseppe Vari’s Urban Warriors and Vanio Amici’s The Bronx Executioner, which should please you that even after the end of the world, some folks try to keep it green. In fact, Woody Strode’s character is renamed Warren and is in the latter, with new footage shot for Margit Evelyn Newton’s character.

Speaking of Margit, she was shooting this and The Adventures of Hercules at the same time, which she claims exhausted her and made her lose ten pounds.

Look, this isn’t great, but a dude rides around on a motorcycle and has a samurai sword in an Italian wasteland. That’s enough to get me to watch. And they’re all different . . . but the same, none the less.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Malombra was not produced by Cannon — shh, Roger Corman was the uncredited producer — but was theatrically distributed  by Cannon Distributors (UK) Ltd.

Directed by Bruno Gaburro (Ecco Homo, Scandal In the Family) and written by Piero Regnoli (Demonia, Burial Ground, Cry of a Prostitute), this is pure Italian sleaze with the venneer of art — as you like it — imported to America by Cannon (well, the UK division).

A young man named Marco (Stefano Alessandrini) goes to stay with his uncle after his aunt dies. They’re all alone save his uncle’s sister-in-law. Oh yeah — and the redhead who every night appears and gets herself off and then disappears. That redhead? She looks exactly like Marco’s dead aunt.

Really, the reason to watch this is because Paola Senatore is in it. You may remember her from A.A.A. Masseuse, Good-Looking, Offers Her Services, Ricco or Emanuelle in America.

Gaburro re-edited footage from this movie into another, Penombra, which focuses more on Sanatore’s character and her affair with a man named Alessio (Daniel Stephen).

This is just another example of how the original Cannon made its first successes: grab some foreign softcore and play it in grindhouses and drive-ins; has anyone ever seen an ad for this?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally was posted on October 6, 2019. The Hills Have Eyes II was not produced by Cannon but was theatrically distributed by Cannon France in association with Adrienne Fancey, VTC and New Realm Entertainment.

Seven years after the original film, Wes Craven would return to the desert, bringing more folks back into the near apocalyptic territory lorded over by the mutants from the first film. In fact, if you liked that movie, you’re in luck, because clips from it play throughout this one’s running time.

Wes Craven has disowned this movie, which started filming A Nightmare On Elm Street. Though it was released after that film, only two-thirds of it was finished when the studio halted production due to budget issues. Once Freddy Krueger became a household name, that convinced Craven to finish the movie using only the footage that he had in the can. That’s why so much of this film comes from the original, a point I will continually bludgeon throughout this article.

Robert Huston, who played Bobby in the original (and brought Lone Wolf and Cub to American screens) returns, as does Janus Blythe (she’s also great in Eaten Alive). She was Rachel in the first film and now everyone calls her Ruby. They now own a motocross team and have invented a super fuel. The team’s latest race takes them through the same stretch as…yes, I know I keep saying the original film, but this movie keeps referencing it.

Bobby’s psychiatrist wants him to go, but he chickens out with Rachel taking his place along with Beast the dog. Yes, from the first film.

The team — blind Cass (who brings a blind girl motocross racing?), her boyfriend Roy (Kevin Spritas from the Subspecies films and Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood), Harry (Peter Frechette, The Kindred, The Unholy and T-Bird Louis DiMucci in Grease 2), Hulk(John Laughlin, Footloose and The Rock), Foster (Willard E. Pugh, Harpo from The Color Purple), Jane (Colleen Riley, Deadly Blessing) and Sue (Penny Johnson from TV’s Castle and 24) — head off to the desert but get lost.

Harry takes a shortcut through an old bombing range, which Ruby should have protested way more than she does. This leads them to a mining ranch where Pluto (Michael Berryman) comes back — yes, from the first movie — and attacks her. Everyone thinks she’s crazy until he also steals one of their bikes. Roy and Harry give chase but Harry gets killed by a boulder and a new cannibal named Reaper (John Bloom — who isn’t Joe Bob — the Frankenstein’s Monster from Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein) knocks out Roy.

Reaper is Papa Jupiter’s older brother and he isn’t here to mess around. Seriously, he wipes out everyone — including Ruby or Rachel or whatever she was calling herself these days — in short order, using spearguns, machetes and improvised traps. However, Craven didn’t like John Bloom’s voice, so he’s dubbed by Nicholas Worth, who we all know as Kirk Smith from Don’t Answer the Phone!

Sadly for Pluto, he’s still no match for a dog and gets dropped off a cliff.

The end of the film gets pretty thrilling, as the survivors use the bus itself as a trap for the gigantic mutant leader. There’s an amazing fire stunt at the end, which made me really happy. And hey — Kane Hodder was one of the stunt people for this!

You can buy this from Arrow Video but keep in mind that it’s limited to 3,000 copies! It’s packed with extras, like brand new audio commentary with The Hysteria Continues and Blood, Sand, and Fire: The Making of The Hills Have Eyes Part II, a new documentary that has interviews with Berryman, Blythe, composer Harry Manfredini and more.

Like everything Arrow puts out, it’s a high quality release well worth your money. And despite being told for years how bad this sequel is — it’s certainly not the dark and brutal classic that it’s forebearer was — it’s entertaining.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on August 28, 2020. The Company of Wolves was not produced by Cannon but was theatrically distributed by Cannon Releasing Corporation.

Back before Neil Jordan made The Crying Game, he made an adaption of one of the stories in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. The author had already made a radio version of the story and worked with Jordan on the script.

This was Jordan’s second film and it was made on a very low budget. In fact, to get across the idea of multiple wolves in some scenes, most of the monsters shown in the film are actually Belgian Shepherd Dogs*.

The narrative device that drives this film concerns Rosaleen, a modern girl who dreams that she is in the past, a strange place where her sister Alice is hunted and killed by wolves. Her grandmother (Angela Lansbury!) warns her, as she gives her a red cloak, to beware men whose eyebrows meet. As the villagers soon hunt a wolf whose dead body reveals a man, this dire proclamation takes on some truth.

She soon meets a huntsman, who dares her to a race to her grandmother’s house. He arrives first and eats the old woman, yet our heroine can’t hate the man. Even though she wounds him, she still cares for him and ends up becoming turned into a lycanthrope herself. Finally, the story breaks into today’s time, as the wolves crash through the windows of Rosaleen’s modern world, symbolizing the end of her pre-pubescent innocence.

This framing story also allows the grandmother and Rosaleen to tell stories that concern wolves, man and desire. They include a young werewolf (Stephen Rea) running from his wife and young family, the devil (Terrence Stamp!) showing ip in a Rolls Royce, a witch that transforms a family of noblemen and a wolf woman (experimental musician Danielle Dax) treated kindly by a priest.

The film also offers some truly horrific and bloody transformation scenes that were featured prominently in the advertising when this ran in the U.S. I remember seeing these commercials and being horrified by them, but they are just part of the overall journey for a movie that is more allegory than genre film. And hey — David Warner is in it and he always makes everything he’s in so much more interesting for his presence.

*There were also two wolves used in the film, which required snipers to also be on set. That’s because these wild animals can never truly be tamed.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Emmanuelle IV was not produced by Cannon — shh, Roger Corman was the uncredited producer — but was theatrically distributed by Cannon Releasing Corporation.

Director and written by Francis Leroi (who would make a ton of Emmanuelle content, such as Emmanuelle Forever, Emmanuelle’s Revenge, Emmanuelle In Venice, Emmanuelle’s Love, Emmanuelle’s Magic, Emmanuelle’s Perfum, Emmanuelle 7 and Emmanuelle’s Secret) and Iris Letan, this movie pulls a big switch: Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel) escapes a love affair with Marc (Patrick Bauchau) by going to Brazil where near-magical plastic surgery transforms her into a twenty-year-old virgin played by Swedish actress Mia Nygren.

The original French version was shot and released in ArriVision 3-D, but new scenes were shot for the US version in StereoVision 3-D and composited within the film. There were also hardcore inserts shot for this not featuring the main actors. That explains Christoph Clark and Marilyn Jess being in the credits. I was surprised to see Brinke Stevens, who isn’t in the credits.

Challenged by her therapist Donna (Deborah Power) to explore not only her new body but her new soul, Emmanuelle travels the world and pretty much takes advantage of any opportunity to have sex. That said, this may not look as gorgeous as Just Jaeckin’s original, but it has a charge to it that other sequels didn’t. There’s definitely a budget and definitely good casting; thankfully Kristel shows up in flashbacks and dream sequences, so she doesn’t totally go away. It is audacious, though, to have Nygren sitting in a wicker chair just like the superior first movie.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on July 4, 2022. Thor the Conquerer was not produced by Cannon but was theatrically distributed by Cannon Releasing Corporation.

The craze of making barbarian movies post-Conan the Barbarian had to feel like going back home for director Tonino Ricci, as he worked on the second unit on Thor and the Amazon Women all the way back in 1963, as well as other peblum movies such as Sword of the Conquerer, Erik the Conqueror and Taur, il re della forza bruta. You may also know him for the films he directed, like Kid il monello del west, Un omicidio perfetto a termine di legge, Rush, Panic and Encounters In the Deep.

Writer Tito Carpi wrote plenty of movies I’ve yelled with joy during, such as Marta, Tentacles, Warriors of the Wasteland and Sinbad of the Seven Seas.

Kind of taking a page out of the aforementioned Arnold movie — but not really — this starts with the death of Thor’s parents. Sure, we see Gant The Annihilator (Angelo Ragusa) speaking with the owl wizard Etna (Christopher Holm) as Thor’s mom squats him out behind a tree, but it’s only minutes before the army of Gnut (Raf Falcone) kill everyone but the wizard and the baby as Gant’s sword turns into a snake.

Thor grows up to be Bruno Minniti, who will grow up to be Rage and Rush. He has to find that sword to become the greatest chief of all time and to get there, he must become the most misogynist hero you’ve ever seen, repeatedly sleeping with women while his ghost owl magician adoptive father watches and yells stuff out and man, Italian movies.

One of those women, a virgin warrior named Sheeba (Maria Romano, Violence in a Women’s Prison) ends up becoming his slave and then his wife after saving him and then bears Thor a child, so sometimes getting caveman dragged into lovemaking can be a meet cute, if we believe a 1983 Italian exploitation movie and we never should.

There’s also Ina (Malisa Longo, who is also in Gunan, King of the Barbarians and was Helga, She Wolf of Stilberg), another virgin warrior that our hero who isn’t a hero must battle.

In the final battle, Etna sends Thor an animal to help him and says, “In days to come, they will call this a horse” and I laughed so hard that even thinking about it now makes me laugh even more.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally ran on March 6, 2020.

If you’re going to make a second Gor movie, by all means, call up John “Bud” Cardos. Bud started his career as a child actor, a rodeo rider and a bird handler before appearing as a biker in movies like Hells Angels on Wheels, Psych-Out and Satan’s Sadists. Eventually, he’d start directing movies such as Kingdom of the Spiders, Mutant, The Day Time Ended and The Dark.

While drinking alone one night — thinking about all the adventures he had in the first film and that he actually talked to a real live woman — Professor Tarl Cabot (welcome back Urbano Barberini) meets an even bigger loser than himself, Watney Smith. Before you can say strike out, they’re blasted back to that magical planet of thongs.

Cabot and Talena (man, did everyone sign contracts for the sequel? Because Rebecca Ferratti is back, too) reunite. Her father King Marlenus (Larry Taylor also signed one of those contracts it appears) married a girl named Lana (yes, she was in the first movie briefly and she’s played in both by Donna Denton) and is stepping down from his throne. Of all the men in Gor, he picks the accounting professor from Earth to assume the crown.

Of course, Lana and Xenos — yes, Jack Palance is back — frame our hero, try to kill Talena with female gladiators and toss young Watney aside. I think the dude is missing a t in the front of his name.

All manner of hijinks ensue and if you thought the first Gor was rough, well, at least that one had Oliver Reed in it. There’s one funny scene here, though. The main bad guy — the Hunter — is told that Lana killed the king and he’s like, “Oh OK” and kills her without even thinking about it. Who knew it’d be that easy to defeat these villains?

I guess this movie was shot pretty much right after the original, because surely horndog boys would want more of the world of Gor. Before the internet, horrible movies like this were all we had. It was a rough time to be alive. When people remember the 80’s, I don’t recall them quite so fondly.

You can watch this on Tubi with and without Mystery Science Theater 3000 making it better.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode for Outlaw of Gor here.