As the years have passed, no one could have predicted just how influential the films produced by The Cannon Group Films during the ’80s would have become. Filmmaker Sam Firstenberg was at the forefront of the company, helming some of their most popular films and franchises. Menahem Golan was a huge name in Israel before making films here in the United States. Firstenberg, also Israeli, made his move here in 1972 to continue his higher education. After meeting Golan at a New Year’s Eve party, Sam’s life would change forever. Starting as an assistant, he would work his way up in their graces. Before Cannon, Golan and long-time partner Yoram Globus formed Ameri-Euro Pictures where he worked as their runner, delivering and picking up scripts, contracts, etc. Not wanting to go down the path of an assistant director or have a career on the production side, he went to graduate school. When most students were doing twenty-to-thirty-minute shorts as their graduate projects, Sam teamed up with classmate David Womark (Hulk, Deepwater Horizon) to produce a feature. While not successful, it’s the movie that would lead them back to Golan/Globus and help to build the house of Cannon.
Sam begins, “David (Womark) was producing, and I was going to direct this little picture. We didn’t need a whole lot of money but when we had about 60min of the picture shot, we ran out. This was 1980, and I’d heard that Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus had purchased a company in the U.S. and that company was Cannon. I knew them, so I set up a meeting. They saw the material we had shot and they liked it. It was a small investment for a social drama and it was called One More Chance. Which was Kirstie Alley’s first starring role. The movie wasn’t very successful, it made it into some festivals, won a few awards, but most importantly, I had my foot in at Cannon.”
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Buy me a coffeeGolan and Globus set out to produce low-budget horror films which usually are financially profitable, but the ones they did in the very early ’80s were not. “When Cannon started, they went after horror pictures. In 1980-1981, horror films were very popular and made with very small budgets. They produced New Year’s Evil and Schizoid very early on but they are Israelis and horror films are a very American art form. It’s quite different nowadays but back then, they were predominantly American. I don’t think they understood that particular genre and the early ones they produced were not very successful, so they went back to action pictures. They certainly had some early success with those types of pictures,” remembers Sam.
There were plenty of Kung Fu movies that were successful in the States, many of which were from Hong Kong. There were some successful films produced in America, the early films of Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee’s films, but at the time, no one had made a Ninja movie here. He continues, “Mike Stone took his idea to Cannon and they went with it, the film would be called Enter the Ninja, and Menahem Golan would direct it himself. Stone was going to star but as the legend goes, Golan met Franco Nero in an elevator at a hotel in Manilla, and the rest is history. Mike already knew Sho Kosugi and brought him in as the villain. The film went into production with Menahem directing, Mike Stone choreographing the fights, and Franco and Sho were the stars.” The film went on to be a moderate success and in Hollywood, that leads to a sequel. Though Nero was the star, Sho Kosugi would impress everyone with his abilities so they decided to put him front and center of the next title, Revenge of the Ninja.
“They already had a writer, James Silke, who was working on a script. This was all prior to my involvement. I’d just finished One More Chance, another director had been approached, I think it was Emmett Olsten, but he turned it down for whatever reason, then they asked me. I was a young director who knew how to tell a story, so they took a chance on me. They brought in David Womark as a producer and we were off,” Sam explains. He had never been a fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, in fact, he never saw one until later and was introduced to them by someone highly influential. He relates, “I’d never seen a Kung Fu movie, but I loved the samurai movies, especially from Akira Kurosawa. Sho Kosugi was responsible for showing me those kinds of films, introducing me to the culture, and Ninjas. He recommended the right books, taught me about the weapons, what Ninjitsu is within the framework of the Shogun, just everything. Sho Kosugi is the real deal.”
After Sho took his time to school Sam with the crash course in martial arts cinema, it was off to the races for Revenge of the Ninja. Firstenberg elucidates how he launched into pre-production, “I started to storyboard all the action sequences first, just as we brought on Steve Lambert as the stunt coordinator. I collaborated with Steve and Sho, who were doing the fight choreography, and things progressed quite nicely. For whatever reason, they didn’t want to shoot in the Philippines for Revenge so they had us look for locations in the United States.” After finding the right place to set up shop, the film would be ready to begin filming. He goes on, “We ended up in Utah and the film commission there was very welcoming to us, we shot in Salt Lake City. We brought in Enter the Ninja cinematographer David Garfinkel, and I knew I wanted 45 minutes of action. I had the formula in my mind, the movie was to be 90 minutes, and 45 minutes would be action. I knew right away after Sho showed me the Hong Kong martial arts films that I didn’t want to make a film just like that. I wanted to do a hybrid, so I used those films and the James Bond films as templates and mashed them together with Westerns. I brought in the same editor Michael Duthie as well. I had so much support from everyone on the set that we had all of our bases covered.”
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It was a collaborative effort between director and star. Sam knew he was a bit out of his element and was happy to take suggestions from Sho. The meeting of their two worlds could very much be responsible for the film’s eventual success. “I think a lot of why the film works has to do with Sho Kosugi, he knew what he was doing, you could appreciate the beauty of his movements, and it was something Western audiences had never really experienced before. Sho made a lot of suggestions and I never fought him on it. If he had an idea for a weapon he brought in, we would use it. I glorified every suggestion he had.” Sam continues to speculate on why audiences became obsessed with Sho, despite his wardrobe. “I’m six foot tall and Sho Kosugi is taller than me. He’s very tall for a Japanese man, but he is also half Chinese. He’s a very imposing presence and the only reason he came from Japan was to be a movie star. We both wanted the same things for the movie, so we were on the same wavelength while doing it. He understood he had to create this strong, even bitter character, yet loving to his son. In hindsight, I think we made one mistake with his character, the wardrobe. We should have kept him in black, from head to toe, the entire time. He liked to look fashionable, even in that pink sweater. When I watch it now, it drives me a little crazy. Sho is a star! He’s made a lot of films, with Cannon and without them. He’s known all over the world.”
For Cannon, being an independent studio meant overcoming numerous hurdles. One of the most difficult for any independent during that time was distribution. Cannon was using the MGM labs for film and sound mixing. They already had a foot in the door and were able to squeeze the other one in. After screening Revenge of the Ninja for MGM, they were happy to distribute it in the States. They put their money in an advertising campaign, as well as striking 1400 prints to send out to theaters across the country. For a tiny film with no major stars, it did respectable business. The returns were so good, Golan and Globus wasted no time moving forward with a sequel, thus Ninja III: The Domination was conceived.
Menahem Golan didn’t have Sho Kosugi in mind to star in the new film. Maybe it had to do with overseas sales but regardless of the reason, with the success of Flashdance, he wanted the lead to be a woman, a dancer. Sam may have been a little confused by some of these early decisions, but was still willing to get back behind the camera. “I thought it would be a great challenge with a woman starring alongside Sho Kosugi. When Kosugi found out the main ninja in the movie was going to be a woman, he was outraged, for a few reasons. First off, he wasn’t the star; he felt responsible for the last films’ success and felt a little betrayed. Second, in his mind, a woman could not be a ninja. Traditionally for the Japanese, especially in their early films, ninja were always men. We found ourselves stuck, so we needed to come up with an idea so the heroine would be strong enough to be a ninja for Sho.”
The film could have gone a variety of different directions to make this work, but the path they chose would end up being the most unorthodox. Sam remembers, “I was a big fan of Poltergeist, so the idea to have her be possessed came into my mind. We pitched the idea to Sho, that the woman would be possessed by the spirit of a ninja, and with that, he agreed. We went to work on the script, James Silke wrote it, and we were completely influenced by Flashdance, Poltergeist, and The Exorcist. As we worked on the script, the crazy ideas just kept coming. We realized that pairing ninjas with mysticism were a perfect combination, and Sho agreed. We went into production and we just kept layering it with outlandish ideas. When we finished principal photography, there was some concern about the ending, so we went back for another week to film a new one.”
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When Ninja III: The Domination was released in theaters, it didn’t perform nearly as well as everyone had hoped. No one knew for sure why it failed theatrically, though everyone has their own ideas. Firstenberg speculates, “Sho may have been right about having a female lead. It wasn’t what audiences were expecting. Aside from Sigourney Weaver and Aliens, audiences weren’t accepting of female leads in these types of action films during that time. It came and went, after the VHS release, we just assumed the movie was dead.” Something bizarre would happen years later. A whole new audience discovered the film and fell in love with it. Cult film fans are a passionate group, and they’ve lovingly embraced the outlandishness of the picture and turned it into a successful midnight movie. “I can’t believe how in the last decade, this movie has had a second life. It’s become this massive cult classic, and not just with martial arts fans. It’s being screened at festivals all over the world. Just before the pandemic, I was invited to a screening in downtown L.A. I did a Q&A and the theater was packed. People were dressed as ninjas and the audience knew all the dialogue, it was crazy. I found in my garage the helmet Lucinda wore when she was climbing the telephone pole. I posted a picture of it on Facebook and people immediately started to message me wanting to buy it,” he proudly proclaims.
You can’t slow a prolific filmmaker down, so Sam quickly jumped from one sequel to another. The next sequel he worked on would be of another genre. It wasn’t a ninja movie, it wasn’t even an action picture, it was a film that would become synonymous with the ’80s: Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. Menahem and Yoram saw just how popular the breakdancing craze had become, so they quickly pumped out Breakin. The film starred professional dancers Adolfo ‘Shabba-Doo’ Quinones, Michael ‘Boogaloo Shrimp’ Chambers, and actress/dancer Lucinda Dickey. It was an instant success, Cannon’s biggest hit to date, and something no one had anticipated. The film was rushed into theaters to cash in on the popularity of breakdancing while trying to beat other films to feature the dance to the punch. Ninja III with Dickey was filmed first but would be released after Breakin. That’s just how fast the film was made. Seeing how successful it was, Cannon rushed the sequel into production with the hopes of releasing the same year the first part came out and they succeeded.
For whatever reason, the original director, Joel Silberg, chose not to return for the sequel. In his place, Sam Firstenberg, who was ecstatic to be a part of something so different from his previous work. “The script was almost done when I joined, the main cast was already attached, and Polygram was signed for the music. From a technical standpoint, there isn’t much of a difference between action and dance. I grew up on American musicals so this was very exciting for me. I didn’t know anything about Hip-Hop culture, but Shabba-Doo and the others were gracious enough to help usher me in and we went location scouting in East L.A., right where that subculture was thriving. There weren’t any movies about this subculture then, Hip-Hop or rap, we did have Ice-T who you know would go on to be considered one of the greats. It was so new that we didn’t have to follow traditions and could show whatever we wanted.”
Even though dance was something Sam had no experience with filming, he quickly found parallels with his previous work in the action genre. “With both action and dance, there’s a choreographer, who handles all the movements. My job as a director is to capture the best of it and present it on screen in a manner that is exciting for the audience. Cannon had already struck a deal with Tri-Star/Columbia, so we had a very luxurious budget on this. It was a $6 million budget, an eight-week shoot, and we just had plenty of time. When we finished, it was a success right away. There was a huge opening, 1200 prints, just huge for a film like this,” Sam laments.
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Breakin 2 never left the public eye. The film’s subtitle, Electric Boogaloo, is a cultural phenomenon that has been referenced in countless films and television series. In 2014, filmmaker Mark Hartley did a comprehensive documentary on The Cannon Film Group titled, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. There was a time when a third film was incredibly close to being greenlit but sadly, the dance craze disappeared just as fast as it had appeared. This didn’t slow Sam down in the least. He was an action director and was ready to move back into the genre. His next film would be just as successful as the previous one, and he would be launching one of Cannon’s most well-known franchises.
Menahem Golan knew the distributors were still hungry for Ninja movies, so when he called Sam with the phrase, American Ninja, he knew it would be time to make a new movie. “I thought it was a crazy idea since Ninjitsu is such a Japanese tradition. It was unheard of to have a producer just throw out this crazy idea of having the ninja be an American. He always had these outlandish ideas, some of them didn’t work out but many did. I was intrigued and I thought that maybe it would be a good idea. All we had was the title, nothing else. Cannon hooked me up with a couple of Israeli producers and hired a writer, Paul De Mielche, who was a martial artist and in the military. Menahem had washed his hands of the project and left it up to us to fill in the blanks.”
They knew right away the main character should be a reluctant hero with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, someone with secrets. They wanted him to be a little James Dean, like Rebel Without a Cause. Everyone started throwing in their ideas and Paul started to write. The story began to shape itself; he would have a sidekick, and there would be a love interest. The company wanted Sam and his crew to go back to the Philippines, a location he was reluctant to revisit. “People believe in American movies, and I wanted to shoot here but it wasn’t in the cards. We decided to make an American movie in the Philippines, and the best way to do it was to use the military. There were very big U.S. military bases in the Philippines, with tens of thousands of soldiers. It turned out to be an easy solution, make an American action film in the Philippines on an American military base.”
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Once the script had taken shape, they would need a cast to make it come to life. Sam remembers the massive amount of actors he saw before choosing his lead. “We held an open casting call so anyone could come out and audition. We easily saw about four hundred young men trying out for the role of Joe Armstrong. We recruited Mike Stone from Enter the Ninja to help us find the right guy as well as Steve Lambert, both accomplished martial artists. We first had them perform with the experts to see what they knew or could do as far as martial arts, or how athletic they were. If they passed, then they could read for the part. Some of them passed the test, some didn’t, and the ones who did came to read. There’s a lot I don’t remember about the auditions, but when Michael Dudikoff walked into the room, I remember that.” He proceeds, “He came into the room with the persona of the character, the way he moved, the way he walked, he didn’t even read any lines yet. I was starting to sense that he would be our guy. I didn’t know anything about him.”
After he read, Sam asked him the same question he asked everyone else, “How do you know how to fight?”
Michael responded, “I learned in the streets.”
Sam laughs fondly at this memory before relating the rest of the story. “It was all bullshit! He was a surfer boy from Newport Beach. It was still the right answer, though. He was one of the five finalists and we paired him up with one of the finalists to play the love interest. We liked Michael, but we ran into a bit of a problem. He had already starred in another film for Cannon, Radioactive Dreams, he was also in Bachelor Party and starred in a TV series. Because it was an open casting call, Golan told us that any of the actors hired would be paid scale only. Dudikoff’s agent wasn’t having this since Michael had already starred in several films. I was willing to fight for him, so eventually, we convinced Golan to pay him more and it all worked out. Mike Stone knew that he could train Dudikoff for the martial arts scenes so I was confident we made the right choice.”
With Michael’s co-star, Steve James, there was no other choice. “Steve was hired right away, there was no second-guessing. We immediately made the offer to his agent and he accepted right away. Everyone showed up in the Philippines, they were ready. The rest is history, we made the right choices and they became stars.”
American Ninja would become a global phenomenon and spawn four sequels. Sam directed the first two films, but it would be the first one that harbored that special something and he knows exactly where the magic came from. “You can write the best script in the world but the real magic happens on the set, in the moment, and with the unexpected chemistry from the performers. With American Ninja, our three leads, Michael, Steve, and Judie Aronson, have perfect chemistry. When Steve and Michael are talking to each other, you believe they’re building a friendship and, eventually, would give their lives for one another. With Judie and Michael, you invest in their cute little love story. It was all so innocent and it all just worked. It all just felt so credible, it happens.”
Sam also isn’t afraid to point out when that special something is missing, especially in regards to the sequel, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation. While the sequel is a highly entertaining follow-up, the romantic side story suffers. Sam explains it best, “You could have two of the biggest actors on the planet on the screen together, but if they don’t have chemistry, it won’t work. It’s part of why American Ninja is so beloved, part of its success. Judie Aronson is a terrific actress and her presence was missed in the sequel. We went with South African actress Michelle Botes, a beautiful woman, talented actress, and very physical but for some reason, that innocent chemistry from the first film didn’t work in the sequel.”
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While working on the American Ninja films, Sam developed a friendship with his stars. Steve James was a unique and imposing figure on-screen. Sadly, his life was cut short. On December 18, 1993, James lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, he was 41. Firstenberg takes a moment to reflect on his relationship with the brilliant performer who was taken far too soon. “In between American Ninja films, Michael, Steve, and I did Avenging Force. At the time, I had no idea it was meant to be a sequel to Invasion USA, but Chuck Norris wasn’t interested in doing it. It was originally called Night Hunter (Chuck’s character was named Matt Hunter), and Menahem was stuck with this script. He asked me if I thought it would be good for Steve and Michael. I was blown away by it. James Booth wrote the script, I was ready to do it right away. I had to fight with Menahem because I wanted to shoot in New Orleans and it would drive the budget up, but he eventually gave in. Steve’s character dies in the movie and this bothered him. Steve always wanted to be the next big, Black action star. He wanted to be like Richard Roundtree in Shaft. He has a great role. The film was a little political so he was playing a politician, not the traditional kind of role in an action film. James Booth was on the set and Steve kept bugging us to change the script so he didn’t die. Finally, Steve agreed with us and realized his character’s death was imperative to the story. He made sure to add that one day, I would owe him. When he was in Israel doing The Delta Force, he met an Israeli woman, fell in love, and eventually they married. When we teamed up again to do American Ninja 2, he brought his wife and we all became pretty close. I considered Steve a good friend.”
From out of nowhere, a few years later, a producer with private money came to Sam with a script Night of the Eagle which would later become Riverbend. “They approached me to do it only because they knew I could get Steve James, and that’s who they wanted. It was a hero part for him and a strong story about prejudice in the South during the ’60s. He was a military officer coming back from Vietnam, it was the role of a lifetime for Steve. I knew this role would be the payback I owed Steve for killing him in Avenging Force. He was brilliant in the film, and we all were happy. Our friendship continued to grow over the years. Steve was such a film enthusiast, he had a huge collection of VHS dedicated to various types of Black Cinema, he had over two thousand tapes, easily. After Riverbend, he gave me the gift of The Seven Samurai on VHS.”
In Hollywood, it can be difficult to maintain a friendship when jobs are constantly taking you to the farthest corners of the world. Sam confirms, “He was working, I was working but we remained friends even though it was difficult to see on another. He and his wife eventually divorced, and we lost contact for a while. One day, I was walking through the streets of Tel Aviv and I just ran into him, so strange. He later remarried and we continued to grow apart. When he was sick, he didn’t look good and was losing weight, I learned he cut himself off from many people in his life. It was very sad, and he was such a great performer.”
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On December 29, 2020, the world would lose Adolfo ‘Shabba-Doo’ Quinones. He passed away unexpectedly at the age of 65. The coroner would later report his cause of death to be arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. While Sam’s relationship with Shabba-Doo was mostly of a working nature, he has nothing but praise for the performer. “On Breakin 2, he was the authority on that film and understood dancing better than anyone else. Shabba-Doo was such a great dancer and set the tone, we had a really good working relationship. Later on, I learned he wasn’t happy with the film. We had some great collaborative moments on set, especially the dance scene with the doll, which was never in the script. I hadn’t seen him in over twenty-five years and I had been invited to do the commentary track for the Blu-ray. I knew I couldn’t do it without him. The company doing it had tried to locate him but didn’t have any luck. I set out on my own and eventually I found his agent, and he agreed to do it. Shabba-Doo showed up looking fantastic. He was in great shape and very gracious, but he made it a point to tell me he didn’t like Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. The commentary turned out great, it was so nice, we hugged each other, it was such a good time. He did explain to me why he didn’t like the film, he was hoping it would be a harder-edged film depicting the hardships of minorities trying to survive and grow up in these neighborhoods. I understood what he was trying to tell me, and that was his right to have his own opinions.”
At the height of the pandemic, Sam helped to organize a Breakin/Breakin 2 reunion panel for Yahoo Entertainment. He brought Lucinda, Shabba-Doo, and Michael ‘Shrimp’ Chambers to cover both films. Once again, Shabba-Doo shared his feeling on the sequel so after he finished, Sam offered his insight. “The sequel was a huge success, it was optimistic, about fighting city hall, and making a positive impact. Maybe it wasn’t what he intended, but it certainly wasn’t a failure. So many people around the world just adore the film, it means something to them, and here we are still talking about it thirty-five years later. A few days after the Zoom reunion, Shabba-Doo changed his title photo on Facebook to one of me, him, and Lucinda where I’m directing them. I was surprised by that and it was a beautiful picture. I sent him an email after I saw that asking if he had changed his mind. He told me that maybe I was right and that you can’t argue with success. It may not have been what he wanted, but he was happy knowing how much people loved it. This was the last time I’d heard from him and not too long after, he went to sleep and never woke up.”
Sam Firstenberg has made twenty-five films for various companies throughout his career. Even though he has a vast library of work, those films during the height of the Cannon juggernaut will be what he’s best remembered for. Sam has embraced those movies and the time with open arms. He expresses his gratitude, “We didn’t know what we were doing then. We were just doing fun, low-budget movies, nothing too serious. I had no idea that of all the films I directed, these would be the ones people still talk about. Of all the films released every year, it’s impossible to tell which ones, if any, will ever have this sort of impact. Those six films have taken on a life of their own, who knew? I never really took those films seriously, but looking back now, they’re my legacy, the films I’ll be remembered for. Not only have these films survived the test of time, but they are actually thriving. So I’m going to embrace this legacy and preserve it. I’m so grateful to know that my work hasn’t disappeared and that it’s survived, it’s truly a great feeling.”
To get an in-depth look at the life and films of Sam Firstenberg, pick up the career-spanning interview book Tales from the Trenches by Marco Siedelmann. Available now!
