Superman Week Part 1

Alright, I haven’t done a week-long marathon since the Batman week, so now I’m going to do another one. This time, it’s on another very famous DC Superhero that is probably not quite as famous, or just as famous as Batman. If you haven’t been able to guess, it’s none other than Batman’s polar opposite, the Man of Steel himself: Superman! Who wouldn’t want to be Superman? Of course Batman’s brains and Superman is brawn, but he’s not a dummy. Batman himself says that Superman is his perfect opposite, who trades his brain for his super strength, but once again, Superman is not dumb. With Superman, he’s got all these superpowers that any kid would want to have: flight, super strength, lazer eyes, x-ray vision, running faster than the speed of light, etc. For this entire week, I will be looking at the feature films that have come out about the last son of Krypton, since I recently went to see “Man of Steel.” Don't worry, I will get back to my Lethal Weapon reviews next week, but for right now, I want to review the Superman films.

Before I begin, I would just like to say that I will not be looking at the serials from 1948 and 1950 with Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill, or the 1951 feature film with George Reeves and Phyllis Coates. Instead, let’s jump straight ahead to 1978 and look at one of the best, if not, the best superhero film to ever come out, “Superman: The Movie.” This is another one of my favorite comic book adaptations. In 1973, producer Ilya Salkind had convinced his father, Alexander, to buy the rights for Superman. Guess who wrote the movie? The Godfather author himself, Mario Puzo, for a two-film script. Finding the director was the difficult part. First they tried to negotiate with Steven Spielberg, but Alexander Salkind rejected him after Jaws went over budget. Next they tried Guy Hamilton, but he would be unable to shoot the film in England since he violated tax payments. Now that’s funny. Finally, the Salkinds came to Richard Donner to direct the film. Donner wanted to convince his audience that the man they were seeing on the big screen was actually flying, since the tagline to this film is, "You'll Believe A Man Can Fly." Donner hired Tom Mankiewicz to polish the script, and he added a lot of Christ-like seriousness to it. Of course, anyone who knows about Superman’s origin knows it’s basically (according to the Nostalgia Critic) “Moses with aliens.”

Now comes the casting. When they casted one of the greatest actors of all time, Marlon Brando, to play Superman’s Kryptonian father, Jor-El, Brando was faced with a lawsuit in Italy over Last Tango in Paris. Even though Brando spent less than two weeks on shooting the film, he didn’t even read the script until then. Despite that, he earned $3.7 million up front, plus 11.75% of the gross profits from the film. Imagine that? Susannah York plays Jor-El's wife, Lara, and Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter plays Superman's Earth parents. The late Christopher Reeves was casted to play Superman, but the Salkinds were not impressed by him. That is, until he worked out and came back looking the part. Margot Kidder was casted as Lois Lane, Superman’s love interest.

Gene Hackman was casted to play Superman’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. Now here’s a funny story that I found out not so long ago: We all know Gene Hackman has a mustache. Richard Donner said that he needed to shave the mustache in order to play Lex Luthor. However, Gene Hackman had denied. A few months later, Donner called in a makeup artist to give him the most convincing looking mustache ever. Then Donner made a bet with Gene Hackman saying, “You have to at least shave your mustache. If you shave yours, I'll shave mine.” So Gene Hackman goes, shaves his mustache off, and came back clean-shaved, saying it was Donner’s turn. Once Donner removed the fake mustache, Gene realized he was tricked, and laughed it off.

When the film was released on Christmas of 1978, it was a critical and commercial success, since it did not have much competition. The producers felt this was one factor in the film's success.

However, as great as the movie is, it has the reigning king of the most stupid moments that has ever happened in a Superman movie. It’s at the end when Superman could only stop one missile, and Lois dies. After Superman is very sad because of Lois dying, he flies into space and spins the Earth backwards, turning back time, and stopping the other missile. I understand that back in those days, Superman had weird superpowers, but this is really pushing it. First off, if you spun the Earth backwards, you wouldn’t time travel, you would probably fall off Earth. Second, if he could spin the Earth backwards to turn back time he could simply stop both missiles that he passes in like a nanosecond. Third, if he spun the Earth backwards, is there another Superman flying around stopping the other missile if he’s stopping the one missile that killed Lois? And if he didn’t flip out over Lois dying, would he not have a reason to spin the Earth backwards? Fourth, if he had this power all along, why didn’t he use it that one time he came in late to work for the Daily Planet?

Another problem I have had with Superman all along (not only in the films, but in anything, like the cartoon) is that when he wears glasses to hide his identity. How can someone not see through those glasses? Is it really that convincing? Maybe it’s there just to be funny, but who knows.

Anyways, if you haven’t seen this movie, then what are you waiting for? You’re really missing out, go out and watch it, you’ll love it. If you can get past the fact that it was made in 1978, then that’s perfect. Well, stay tuned for the rest of the week, when I continue to look at the other Superman movies. Up, up, and away!