Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment was a company formed at the height of the home video industry in 1984 by producer Leonard Shapiro and director James Glickenhaus to produce and distribute low-budget horror and action films. The company known also as SGE and whose video unit was known as SGE Home Video would produce 14 films and distribute more than 100 pick-up films in its 12 years of operation. SGE's home video titles were distributed by the Video Sales Organization (VSO) until 1991 when MCA/Universal began to distribute the SGE catalog.[1]
Although SGE would never create a breakout or blockbuster film, cult film fans may recognize some of SGE's works. Films such as Basket Case 2, Frankenhooker, Maniac Cop, McBain, and Red Scorpion were released theatrically and often found a wider audience when released on home video and on cable television. Maniac Cop and Red Scorpion proved successful in the video era, each spawning sequels while SGE also launched a third Basket Case film, Basket Case 3. Red Scorpion was SGE's most widely released theatrical feature on 1,268 screens in the U.S. and bringing in over $4 million at the box office.[2]
SGE was involved in two high-profile controversies. Though Red Scorpion was the distributor's most widely released theatrical film, it was also its most controversial. The Jack Abramoff produced feature was dropped by Warner Brothers when protest groups claimed that the involvement of the South African government in the film's creation violated the United Nations cultural boycott against the Pretoria government. The tumult hadn't died down when the film was picked up by SGE and released in April 1989. Five protest groups picketed at the film's opening weekend in Washington, D.C.[3] Protesters carried placards that read "Red Scorpion No! Freedom Yes!" and shouting "Red Scorpion is no good. Send it back to Pretoria!" Less than a year later, controversy also surrounded SGE's feature film, Frankenhooker, one of the last in a group of films to receive an X-rating. The company appealed twice with two editorial changes and could not persuade the MPAA to drop the X-rating to an R-rating. As a result, SGE released the X-rated film in 1990 with a self-attached "A" label in protest of the X-rating.[4] The controversy surrounding the X-ratings assigned to releases in 1990 including Frankenhooker, Life Is Cheap . . . But Toilet Paper Is Expensive, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Leatherface led the MPAA to make a change in the ratings system. The X-rating was changed to NC-17 in September 1990.
As the home video industry evolved in the mid-1990s, SGE disbanded. Leonard Shapiro left the company in 1996 to form Rootbeer Films Inc. while James Glickenhaus would join a finance firm started by his father, Glickenhaus & Co. The company's final film, Timemaster, released in 1995, was directed and written by James Glickenhaus and starred his son, Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus. Synapse Films acquired the rights to some SGE film titles and scheduled the releases of Frankenhooker and Maniac Cop on Blu-Ray in Fall of 2011.[5]