After the commercial success of  The Three Musketeers: The Queen’s Diamonds (1973) and The Four Musketeers: the Revenge of Milady (1975), which were shot as one film and then released as two (to the consternation of many of the actors paid for only one), the producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind and Pierre Spengler lit another controversial fuse with the announcement of their intention to resurrect the ultimate all-American comic book hero – Superman. The Five years of planning that followed swan excessive and, of course expensive period of hype, beginning with full-page ads in Variety, laser shows and hot-air balloons before a shooting-script had ever been agreed.

Couple with this-aid advertising’s the enormous press and media coverage garnered by this momentum production, highlights of which include Marlon Brando’s $3.7 million fee, the search for a director and for a woman to play Lois Lane, and – the most saleable novelty – the search for Superman himself. Almost every leading actor in Hollywood was rumoured to have been offered the part, but the final decision was delayed until almost a month before production when predictably an unknown, Christopher Reeve, was cast.

After problems with the fee demanded by Steven Spielberg and the reluctance of expatriate English director Guy Hamilton to return to Pinewood Studios, the producers decided on Richard Donner as director of Superman,

the Movie. Riding high on the success of The Omen (1976). Donner eschewed all temptations to make a camp version. Wisley, he hoped that a modern audience would accept the limitations inherent in such fantasy entertainment and enjoy rather than mock the adventures  of a being unencumbered with human frailties.As the director said: ‘The main aim of our interpretations to uphold and enhance the American myth. It is real within its own framework.’

Fortunately for the production team of Superman, the Movie, the previous celluloid representations were, despite their popularity, very wooden translations of the DC Comics hero. They ignored the science-fiction element and relied too heavily on the truth and justice aspect. Kirk Allen, star of Columbia serial, and television star George Reeves were tied mainly by low-budget handicaps, and became flying G-Men in search of a good script. The only real inspiration for the new film-makers were the magnificent animation effects created in Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons of the Forties. They were, and still are, wonderfully concise films, clearly displaying Superman’s alien abilities in true DC style. Colourful and adventurous, they come closest to the current notions of ‘man of steel’.

Aided and abetted by the most convincing actor who ever pulled on a pair of blue tights, Donner was also fortunate to have a ‘no expenses spared’ special-effects department. 

Being veterans of Star Wars (1977), their patient work (it took years to create the illusion of flight) was certainly worth the wait, and the sequence when Superman saves Lois and catches a helicopter in mid-air is quite breathtaking.

What makes Superman, The Movie the best screen version to date is not the amazing effects, but the excellent acting from the benevolent Marlon Brando as Jor-El sets the mood perfectly, his awesome presence pervading the rest of the film after his early disappearance. His fatherly wisdom and fairness love no-one in any doubt at all that Superman must be perfect. Through sheer hard work, Christopher Reeve conveys the essence of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shusters’ original character. His Clark Kent – a bumbling innocent, shy and nervous – contrasts superbly

with his macho alter-ego, though this romantic, old-fashioned gallant is not quite believable as a match for Margot Kidder’s Lois, whose persona is probably a victim of too many scriptwriters.

The other small disappointment in Superman, the Movie is that it is never really possible to believe that a man can fly. For all the Faultless effects, the suspension of disbelief is shattered by the stiff-limbed posture of Reeve, necessary for the complicated harness worn in the flying scenes. Regardless of the drawbacks (many of them self-inflicted by the anxious producers, who continued to face litigation from unhappy actors long after the films release), Superman, the Movie is a masterpiece of Seventies science fiction, which relies heavily on the fantastic effects but boasts at least one great acting performance . . .  from Christopher Reeve. STEPHEN WOOLEY