Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Very interesting book

I just finished a book by author Jake Rossen entitled "Superman vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors, and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon."

Veteran comic book writer Mark Millar contributed the foreword, and he says he learned some things while reading it. The narrative begins with a KKK rally - but I'll let you discover how Superman helped foil the KKK in real life.

And that's just one of the interesting factoids which make up the story of Superman in the movies and on TV. Our favorite Lois and Clark make an appearance in the narrative, too. (Rossen blames the declining ratings on the speed at which Lois and Clark got together romantically. Funny, I'd always thought it was a combination of lousy scripts and TPTB playing with the characters and the time slot and the plot arcs.)

I recommend it as a fairly quick but informative read. The story goes up through the release of "Superman Returns" and talks about the seventh season of Smallville (which was being filmed at the time of printing), so this is a recent offering.

Did you know, for example, that Kirk Alyn (the first movie Superman in the 40's serials) and Noel Neill (the second Lois Lane of the 50's TV series) were filmed as the parents of a pre-school Lois Lane on the train which the adolescent Clark Kent raced in Smallville after the football players taunted him in front of Lana? I didn't. I also didn't know that their scenes were excised because the producers were afraid that no one would make the necessary connections. Duh. A lot of us would have.

Did you know that Nicolas Cage named his child (born in 2005) Kal-El? I didn't.

Did you know that the star of the Supergirl movie, Helen Slater, had almost no acting experience when she was cast as Kara from Argo City? And did you know that she has only starred in one other movie since then? (It was 1986's "The Legend of Billie Jean," a fairly forgettable film.)

That's just three, and if you already knew all of them you're more of a Superman geek than I am. (Mind you, that isn't a bad thing.) If you want to inflate your Superman geek quotient, reading this book would be a good way to do it.

I saw the book on Amazon and have been thinking about buying it. Thanks for the review.

That scene is used in the director's cut. It's a fun little snippet.

Yeah, I did. Why didn't he just permanently attach a "Kick me" sign to the kid's back?

That's not true. Among other things, she starred in the made for TV movie "12:01" (which I thought was pretty good - kind of a more serious "Groundhog Day") and co-starred with Michael J. Fox in "The Secret of My Success." She\'s kept fairly busy doing stints on various TV shows . Just recently she guest starred on "Smallville" as Lara.

I certainly don't consider myself a Superman geek - I know zip about the myth and comics. But I certainly knew about the clip from Superman - it was made a huge, huge fuss of at the time the movie premiered, so I'm somewhat surprised to hear them claim now that they excised the scene because they thought no one would get it. It was mentioned in practically every piece of PR they released on the movie, so much so that it permeated even my memory.

And I knew about Nick Cage's brain lapse when naming his child because it was on the news at the time. I think I even remember starting a thread on it here on this forum - which went on to include even more bizarre names chosen by idiotic parents. Ah, here it is:

Strange baby names

It was C_A who actually brought up the Cage connection - but it's a fun thread.

LabRat

Hah! And I see I had the exact same thing to say about it then as I did just now .

They didn't excise all of the clip in question. I remember seeing the movie in the theater when it came out and I recognized Noelle. They must have excised the part with Kirk Alyn (sp?) because I didn't see him. In fact I'm not sure I ever saw him as Superman. I did see Noelle as Lois Lane so I recognized her in the movie and made sure to watch the credits instead of leaving when the credits started rolling like most people. I wanted to make sure I was right about who she was.

You know, thanks for that kmar. I'd been sure I'd seen that scene in the original movie, too, and had convinced myself I was making it up.

LabRat

IIRC they did leave part of the clip in the original release but it wasn't made explicity clear that the little girl on the train was Lois. In the Special Edition, the little girl tells her mom that she just saw this really fast guy running past and her mom says something like, "Lois Lane, how often have I told you not to let your imagination run away with you?" (I don't recall what exactly she said, but she addresses Lois by name.)

C_A, you corrected me on Helen Slater's work, but it's my fault. I wasn't clear. What I meant to write was that Helen hasn't been THE STAR in any movies since "Billie Jean," not that she hasn't made any movies. And the book mentioned that she'd gone into television work, but I didn't. So blame me, not the author. Sorry for the confusion.

I guess that depends on how you define "the star" of a movie. She co-starred in the movies I mentioned. If you mean that she didn't get top billing, that's true, but then she didn't get top billing in Supergirl, either (Faye Dunaway did).

P.S. I love your sig, Terry .

The classic Hollywood definition of "star" in a movie is simple. If your name appears in the opening credits before the movie title does, then you star in the movie. If your name appears after the title, you're a supporting character.

Of course, George Lucas kicked over that convention with Star Wars and its opening. In fact, one or more of the unions or guilds actually went to court over the opening of the second movie ("The Empire Strikes Back") because the actors' names were not listed at the beginning. That's a violation of some kind of working rule that's been in place since before talkies came out, and it cost him a significant amount of money in fines when he refused to change it. Now, of course, Lucas can pretty much do what he wants with his movie openings and nobody fusses too much. There's just too much money involved now.

I checked Helen's bio page, and she also appeared in an independent film called "Sticky Fingers" in 1988, which apparently didn't do very much business. She and Melanie Mayron are listed as the top stars, so maybe the book isn't completely accurate in every single detail. So much for the power of the printed word, eh?