Up Your Anchor הרימו עוגן‎ (1985)

It was all aboard and full steam ahead for Lemon Popsicle number 6, Up Your Anchor, but production of the movie was troubled from the start. By the mid-eighties, Cannon’s empire was in full swing with the ninja craze taking off, and enjoying box office success with action hits with the likes of Chuck Norris in Missing In Action. The Lemon Popsicle movies became nothing more than money-spinners to the producers. By the time production began on the now 6th installment, the series creator and original director Boaz Davidson no longer had any association with the movies and left behind co-writer Eli Tavor to work with Baby Love director Dan Wolman.

After bringing the series back on form in the previous Popsicle movie, Baby Love, Wolman was on board to direct Up Your Anchor but from the start his vision did not fit what Cannon had in mind. “I told Menaham that what I am interested in was the innocence and he said ‘forget about the innocence, they were innocent in the first film’.” recalled Wolman. Before the script could even be finished, Wolman had to rush into production “The producer told me ‘The contracts have been signed, we start shooting today’.”

To make matters worse before production began, Popsicle star Jonathan Sagall (Bobby) had a disagreement with producer Menaham Golan over money issues. “I wasn’t in part 6 because I had money disputes with the producers, and they ‘punished’ me by writing me out” says Sagall. Despite Segall’s absence in the film, leading stars Yiftach Katzur and Zachi Noy were back, alongside Popsicle regulars Avi Hadash, Joseph Shiloah, and Bea Feidler.

Newcomer Petra Morzè, then aged 18, made her film debut when cast as Benji’s love interest in Up Your Anchor. The young Austrian actress landed the role after answering a casting call in Munich, Germany.

Set onboard a ship, the indoor scenes were filmed at a studio in Tel Aviv and the plan was for the the cast to sail on a real ship for a couple of weeks. “I could not go because of my studies but filmed my scenes on the ship before it sailed” recalls co-star Avi Hadash. “When they came back, I think they did not have enough material for a full-length movie, so they shot a few more scenes on the ship while it was anchored.”

After a mere three weeks of shooting, the producers requested a screening of the filmed footage. Director Wolman insisted that the film was still in rough cut form and protested, citing that only 15 minutes was ready. However, the screening went ahead and the producers were not happy. As a result, a new director Joel Silberg was hired to edit and attempt to fix the mess of production.

To pad out the running time, a lengthy scene from the original Lemon Popsicle was used in which the friends hold a screening of their past adventures, strangely projecting a supposed ‘home movie’, featured Jonathan Sagall’s famous sex scene with Ophelia Struthl from Lemon Popsicle. Actor Sagall was very unhappy about been used in a film he neither starred or received any royalties from and the move sparked a legal dispute some years later.

The film was shot, edited, and ready for release but was far from complete. Whole scenes shot by Wolman were cut completely, or edited in ways that made the films narrative make little sense. The final edit was a mess, and made for a very poor addition to the series, a pale comparison to previous films and could have been the final nail in the coffin for Popsicle movies but the boys were back again… and again, for parts 7 and 8.