Monthly Archives: November 2021

Superman 1.43: The Training

Superman: The Movie, , , , , ,

And then, for about four minutes, it becomes a cop movie.

As we’ve been going through Superman: The Movie, I’ve been tracking the film’s swift pivots in tone, as it transforms itself from sci-fi space opera to tragic teen drama to screwball comedy, with a detour into the psychedelic mindscapes of the Fortress of Solitude. The film is essentially a montage of different styles, and once we get to Metropolis, that process doesn’t stop.

People talk about the Krypton / Smallville / Metropolis sections as if that explains everything, but Richard Donner keeps on juxtaposing different styles through the entire movie. This moment is a perfect example, because over the next four minutes, the film is going to walk us through a gradual transition that takes us from the last scene’s classic romantic comedy meet-shoot and leads us down into the depths of the underworld, and the brutal murder of a central figure in the sequence.

Naturally, this dark ritual of summoning begins with a quaint musical comedy street-sweeper, who shouts, “Hi, Otis!”

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Superman 1.42: Another Sunny Day in Comedy New York

Superman: The Movie, , ,

In an article about the filming of Superman: The Movie published in August 1977, Time Magazine reported, “One thing Superman does not have — so far as anyone with plain old 20-20 can see, anyway — is many laughs. Director Donner, convinced that it was campiness that brought down King Kong, is avoiding even the possibility of untoward giggles.” Which just goes to show how wrong a magazine can be.

Because for the last five minutes, starting from our arrival in a Metropolis taxicab, the characters have been doing nonstop screwball comedy shtick, up to and including getting stuck in a revolving door.

Extricating themselves from the architecture, Lois and Clark emerge into a sunny musical comedy New York, where everyone is quiet and well-dressed, and the traffic noise limits itself to a couple of respectful honks when nobody has any important dialogue to say.

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Superman 1.41: Levitate Me

Superman: The Movie,

“Oh, hi Clark!” Lois says absently, mostly paying attention to the newspaper she’s reading. “How’d you like your first day on the job?”

“Well, um,” Clark begins, which does not bode well for his efforts to keep her attention. “Frankly, you know, the hours were a bit longer than I expected.”

This is hard to swallow, considering all the time he spent standing around in the Fortress of Solitude, listening to his dad give lectures about immortality and the human heart. Dude’s had nothing but long hours for the last twelve years; he should be used to them by now.

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