Year:  1980
Rating: 4.0

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I had been warned. Some call this one of the worst films ever made and certainly taking into account the effort put into it, they can not be far wrong. On the other hand it is so over the top garishly bad that it is a candidate for cult status. It is like a very bad Bollywood musical shot in a German Weimar gay brothel where silver and gold lamé is de rigueur. Amazingly or perhaps not so this was a Cannon Production directed by Menahem Golan who thought he had made a great film. Apparently the reception was so bad he considered suicide. To think we would not have had Enter the Ninja and The Delta Force if he had. You sit there and have to wonder what sort of drugs he was taking at the time. I wish I had the words to explain how tacky this film is. There are clips of some of the musical numbers on YouTube that will make your M&Ms melt in your hand.


Made in 1980 but set in 1994 it appears that everyone has lost their sense of fashion and taste in music. Vladek Shaybal (the chess player in From Russia with Love) is a music agent (and the devil) who seems to run the world - yes the whole world - where his product is omnipresent. He sees two young innocent performers sing at a contest and tries to sign them up. The woman (Catherine Mary Stewart - who redeems herself wonderfully four years later in Night of the Comet) falls for the fame and drugs and 24 hour parties while the man doesn't and thus their love is broken asunder. Such drama. The ascent to heaven at the end is nearly breathtaking in its vapidity as Golan desperately tries to bring his masterpiece to a merciful end - poor Joss Ackland.


There is a musical number about every five minutes but I am not sure if this was a blessing or a curse as most of them are these bizarre extravaganzas of twisting bodies and bad songs. It actually took me three days to get through it. Like taking bad tasting medicine for a colonoscopy and I had an ongoing conversation with myself that sort of went like this.

Why are you still watching this?

I believe in finishing what I start.

But I can hear your brain melting.

Maybe the next song will be good.

Stop the madness. There are so many good movies to see.

But I have to find out if true love wins in the end.

Of course it will you nitwit.