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Our Film Folk
by Herbert G. Luft
—HOLLYWOOD
Menachem Golan and Yorum
Globus are chairman and presi
dent respectively, of the Los An
geles-based Cannon Group, the
largest independent production and
distribution company with an an
nual gross of half a billion dollars,
operating on three continents and
making movies in Hollywood, Paris,
Rome, London, and of course in
Israel, their home base.
Golan, at 56 in the prime of his
life, just as his younger cousin
Globus, was born in a small town
of Tiberias, a community with a
population of 10,000 with one
school, one synagogue and one
cinema.
1 met Golan in the spring of 1965
at the Israeli Consulate in Los
Angeles when the late Rabbi Max
Nussbaum introduced him to me
as the producer of “Sallah.” We
talked about his mentor, producer
Roger Corman, whom 1 had known
for many years as the successful
director of low-budget films. We
also discussed Corman’s camera
man Floyd Crosby, who, on a
loan-out. had done the outstand
ing photography of “Sallah.”
As chairman of the International
Film Committee of the Hollywood
Foreign Press, 1 was contacted six
months earlier by a New York dis
tributor by the name of Kissner,
who as an importer of foreign-
lah” for Golden Globe considera
tion. Since this was the very first
film from Israel offered to us as an
entry, I was eager to accept, but
Kissner phoned back saying that
the Hebrew-language film wouldn’t
have a chance and he was replacing
the entry with an Italian one.
I insisted on “Sallah,” a picture
written and directed by Hungari
an-born Ephraim Kishon, Israel’s
most versatile author of books and
plays who had gained international
reputation. I screened the film for
our membership and introduced
Chaim Topol, the then 28-year-old
actor portraying the 75-year-old
Sallah. The picture won a Golden
Globe award. This was the first
time an Israeli film was so honored
on American television.
Golan, meanwhile, had written a
letter to me indicating that he was
the producer of the film and when
he came weeks later, we expressed
our regret that he had missed the
Golden Globe presentation.
The youthful Israeli film maker
had worked with Roger Corman as
a member of the crew on “The
Young Racers” writing at the same
time his first screenplay, “El Dora
do” which he directed in Israel with
Gila Almagor and Topol. In 1963,
he formed Noah Films with his
cousin Yoram Globus and produced
“Sallah,” which was brought to the
attention of the American public
by receiving a Golden Globe award.
During 1965 to 1971, Golan/
Globus produced such pictures as
cle,” “Daughters, Daughters,” “The
Highway Queen” ar.d “Tevye and
His Seven Daughters,” the latter a
dramatic, Hebrew-language film.
In 1972 and 1973, the pair pro
duced and Moshe Misrahi directed
the Israeli films, “The House on
Chelouche Street” and “l Love
You Rosa,” both of which were
nominated for Oscars by the Acad
emy.
When Golan came back to Hol
lywood in 1973 with his musical
“Kazablan,” he phoned me to meet
him in Beverly Hills, at which time
he told me that the sentimental
story of a Moroccan immigrant
(portrayed by Yoram Gaon) had
broken all box-office records in
Israel. MGM picked up the pic
ture, the first Hebrew-language film
to be distributed by a major com
pany.
In 1975 Golan directed in Eng
land “What’s Good for the Goose”
with Norman Wisdom; the next
year, “Diamonds,” starring Robert
Shaw and Shelley Winters. In Hol
lywood, Golan made his debut as
director of “Lepke,” an unhealthy
picture dealing with the Mafia
leader Buchalter and starring Tony
Curtis. I watched some of the
shooting at the MGM backlot and
was impressed with Golan’s vitality.
In 1977, back in Israel, Golan
made the stirring Hebrew-language
film about Entebbe, entitled “Oper
ation Thunderbolt,” which was
nominated for an Academy Award.
The following year, in Hollywood,
plan to make the filmic version of
“The Magician of Lublin,” by Isaac
Bashevis Singer, a work he had
talked with me about four years
earlier.
In 1979, Golan/Globus bought
the controlling interest in the Can
non Group; a year later the first
subsidiary London-Cannon Films.
Among others, the company pro
duced “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”
and “Death Wish II,” the latter
starring Charles Bronson. By 1982,
Cannon had a line-up of 18 films
headed by the powerful adaptation
of the Pulitzer prize-winning drama,
“That Championship Season,” with
“10 to Midnight,” “Sahara,” “The
Wicked Lady” and the highly con
troversial “Bolero” starring Bo
Derek.
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Jewish group to help
Holocaust rescuers
by Margie Olster
NEW YORK (JTA)—The direc
tor of a new foundation to aid
needy Christians who rescued Jews
during the Holocaust said many of
the rescuers live impoverished lives
and face persecution for their war
time activities.
Eva Fogelman, director of the
Foundation to Sustain the Right
eous Christians, told the JTA that
the project aims to raise funds to
ease their living conditions and
provide a network of social sup
port for these neglected heroes of
European Jewry.
Founding chairman Rabbi
Harold Schulweis conceived the
idea after studying the importance
of rescuers in terms of educating
about the Holocaust, Fogelman
said.
Schulweis has studied the res
cuers since the early 1960s and
Fogelman directs a rescuer research
project at the City University of
New York Graduate Center for
Social Psychology.
Both have met rescuers in Israel,
Canada, the United States and
Europe in the course of their re
search and have learned first-hand
of their indigence and abuse, both
I rom Jewish and non-Jewish communi
ties.
Even in Israel, where rescuers
ostracized by their communities in
Europe for helping Jews relocate.
the 31 rescuers now living there
have not always been hailed for
their deeds. Just recently, Fogel
man noted, the Knesset voted to
raise the scant pensions for rescuers.
But money is not the only diffi
culty these Christians face in the
Jewish homeland. Fogelman said
she knows of several cases where
Jewish children in religious neigh
borhoods taunted the rescuers—
by calling them “goyim”—and in
one case physically attacked and
almost killed an 80-year-old res
cuer who converted to Judaism.
Perhaps less astonishing, the
rescuers often conceal their war
time activities from their neighbors
in European communities for fear
of this type of abuse.
The first task of the foundation
will be locating the rescuers. Some
4,000 appear on a list at Yad
Vashem in Jerusalem. Others can
be located through the testimonies
of survivor organizations to locate
rescuers and reunite them with the
people they saved.
The international effort of the
foundation will also seek out other
social support organizations to
serve as extended families for lonely
rescuers of all countries.
Finally, the foundation will raise
funds to improve the living condi
tions of the needy rescuers and
possibly sponsor a group of res
cuers to travel to Israel and be re
united with survivors.
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PAGE 21 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE Aufuat 22, 1986