I don’t know if I watched Superman (1978) as frequently as I did Batman: The Movie (1966). It's pretty close. Not only one of my favorite superhero movies, Superman is one of my favorite films. The most poetic, lyrical, and majestic, an epic that ably soars through three distinct modes: the chilly Shakespearean Krypton, the pastoral Smallville, and the screwball mile-a-minute Metropolis, torn straight from a comic strip.
None of the sequels managed to capture the spirit and vitality of the original. In my little world, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) played frequently on TV and I enjoyed its campy cheapness as a kid. As an adult, I know unquestionably it reaches the nadir of the Christopher Reeve series, though remains fun-in-a-bad-way.
Many critics and viewers consider Superman II (1980) the best of the sequels. This borders on miraculous considering the diabolical and tense production. In short, Richard Donner was originally hired to direct and shoot Superman and Superman II simultaneously. After completing the first and close to 70% of the second, Donner was fired from Superman II following a calamitous relationship with the producers, father-son duo Alexander and Ilya Salkind, and their producing cohort, Pierre Spengler.
Richard Lester, best known for directing A Hard Day’s Night and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, replaced Richard Donner. Lester previously worked for the Salkinds on The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. In order to secure directorial credit, Lester reshot much of Donner’s footage on the sequel. Because some Donner-scenes remain in Superman II, the film reflects a binary sensibility, mutated strands of Donner’s DNA and Lester’s DNA commingling.
Superman II was a hit, though not as financially successful as its predecessor. Nonetheless, Richard Lester returned to helm the follow-up. With Donner completely uninvolved, Superman III became the first time audiences witnessed Lester’s unfiltered vision for the Man of Steel. The same applies to screenwriters David and Leslie Newman. The Newmans predated Richard Donner’s participation on the first two installments. Upon Donner’s arrival, he brought in screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz to purge the Newmans’s scripts of the cartoonish, tongue-in-cheek tone. Without Donner and Mankiewicz, Superman III proffers a glimmer at what the original films might have resembled. And it doesn’t look good.
After revisiting Superman III, I believe a more poignant and fascinating movie lurks off-screen, hinted to us with occasional glimpses. Every time we start to settle in, we’re spirited away and plunked down into the middle of a crummy, mediocre Richard Pryor movie. Legend goes that Pryor mentioned how much he enjoyed watching Superman II during an appearance on Johnny Carson. Wanting to capitalize on Pryor’s burgeoning movie stardom, the Salkinds and Newmans fashioned a part for Pryor in the third installment. This was a fatal error.
Richard Pryor is the star of Superman III, not Superman, and that is the movie’s chief problem. Superman never serves as the focal point. A stranger in a strange Richard Pryor flick. Criminally underdeveloped, we never know what Superman/Clark Kent thinks or feels. We have no sense of what he wants or what he’s after. The movie seems uninterested in him, his life, goals, hopes, and dreams. What does Superman III care most about? The humorless slapstick antics of Gus Gorman (Pryor), a blue collar loser who discovers his knack for computers. He goes to work for a crooked businessman, Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn), whose goals of world conglomeration pit him (kinda, sorta) against the Man of Steel. The premise fails and falters. A much stronger one hides beneath.
In the Smallville sequences where Clark Kent reunites with his high school crush, Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole), we encounter one of the film’s few shining lights. Annette O’Toole radiates and explodes off the screen as single-mom Lana, a woman who feels suffocated by small town life and dreams of dumping it all for Metropolis. O’Toole’s performance is believable, true, and charming. Her chemistry with Reeve feels genuine, more laidback, understated, and homespun than Reeve’s chemistry with Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane. Not better or worse, just a different vantage point and contrast. Too bad the movie shirks from taking the time to properly explore and dramatize Clark and Lana’s relationship. Instead, 80% of the movie gets wasted on Pryor. A talented performer and dynamite comedian, Pryor’s performance gets hobbled by a lame, turgid, and humorless script.
What should the screenwriters have done? I would have focused more squarely on Clark’s return to Smallville after many years away. The film initially tees this premise up, but forgets the follow-through swing. Perhaps Clark returns to reconnect with his roots. Superman III mentions that Ma Kent died prior to the events of the film. Maybe Ma Kent’s death precipitated Clark’s need to reconnect with his past. What if Superman/Clark Kent became so consumed with city life and his saving the world (Metropolis and the planet at large) that he lost sight of his terrestrial homeland? What if he discovers that the problems facing larger communities, like Metropolis, plague smaller ones like his hometown. Feeling disconnected from his terrestrial origins and true-self, Clark uses his relationship with Lana Lang to mend his broken roots.
I would emphasis Clark Kent’s anxiety that Metropolis has in some way altered him. He is no longer the small town boy from Smallville: he’s changed and this revelation deeply troubles him. Superman III flirts with the concept of Superman undergoing a deleterious metamorphosis. The most famous scene from the film concerns Superman literally splitting into a good self and a bad self. The memorable junkyard scene allows Reeve to play both Clark Kent and Evil Superman. Despite the scene’s brevity, it serves as one of the few strongpoints of the film, thanks mostly to Reeve’s performance. I would tie this concept — a physical split of Superman’s dichotomous selves — into Clark’s quest to re-discover himself through his sojourn to Smallville. Superman’s external fracturing could reflect the internal war Clark feels about his inner changes. The fight between the Supermans would then posses more sub-surface emotional weight.
In Superman III, Superman/Clark Kent’s transition to the “Dark Side” is rushed and cursory. The screenplay offers no insight into his reaction to the onset of this transformation. When he begins to change, the resultant of ersatz Kryptonite created by the villains, the audience is provided no insight into how Clark feels about his burgeoning sickness. Instead, the screenplay leaves the audience with innumerable unanswered questions: how does Clark feel about this? Is he scared? Is he worried? Does he try to uncover the source of this change? Does he take any action or make any attempts to save himself? The writers never try to answer or dramatize these concerns and lingering questions. When the literal splintering does occur, the moment feels jerky and jarring because so little emphasis has been placed on it (and because it mostly occurs off-screen!)
Superman’s downfall has the potency to serve as the narrative lynchpin. Instead, the writers use Evil Superman as a seasoning. He deserved to be a main ingredient, perhaps even the main antagonist. It would be a logical progression from the previous film, where the Man of Steel willfully abandons his powers and deals with an external threat (General Zod). Now an internal threat (himself), causes Superman to loose control of his powers. Superman as his own villain might have benefited the film both thematically as well as visually. Certainly, any antagonist would prove stronger and more memorable than Ross Webster.
The scheming businessman’s “evil plans” feel too general and nonspecific to come off threatening. They concern something to do with destroying Colombia’s coffee crop and holding the planet’s supply of oil hostage. Webster is a frustratingly ineffective antagonist. He’s a weak substitute for Lex Luthor (Superman III is the only Reeve-Superman without Gene Hackman) and not a physical nor intellectual threat for the Man of Steel.
The choice of villain becomes even more egregious when one discovers the original plan. Before Donner was fired, he imagined a third installment featuring the classic Superman villain, Brianiac. Even Ilya Salkind originally envisioned a more cosmic-setting, featuring Brianiac and another Superman baddie, Mr. Mxyzptlk. But budget concerns watered the supervillains down to a preening businessman and Richard Pryor. Make note, Pryor deserves no castigation for the misguided film. He certainly didn’t write this garbage.
Superman III marks the downward slope of the 70s-80s Superman films (some will argue they still never fully recovered). The film is worthwhile for only a few scant reasons: Reeves is splendid as always and his acting as Clark Kent might even surpass his Kent portrayals in the previous two films. O’Toole nearly steals the movie from everyone else. Further more, several scenes contain the spirit of classic Superman comics, notably the scene where Superman rescues workers from a chemical planet fire. But in a Superman movie, every scene should feel like a Superman story. Instead, Superman III is a subpar Richard Pryor movie that Superman should desperately fly far, far away from.
Make sure to check out the Superman III episode of Obscure Obsessions: A Pop Culture Podcast. Available to stream on 5/26/23. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
- T.Z.
