random happy-making thing

[coyotegoth]

Back when I was obsessed with Superman: the Movie, I remember buying and reading David Michael Petrou's The Making of Superman: the Movie, which included this description of the filming: "After several days in the steambathlike depths of Grand Central, the unit moved back to 42nd Street for additional shooting outside the Daily Planet (nee' Daily News) building. An enormous crowd had gathered by early afternoon to watch stuntwoman Ellen Bry's spectacular jump- actually more of a bounce- from the awning over the Daily Planet entrance into a well-stocked fruit pushcart."

The wha...? There was no scene like that in the first movie (I and most of II were filmed by director Richard Donner during one long main shoot; after Donner was fired by the producers, Richard Lester reshot enough material for II to qualify to be credited as the director on that film), nor in II. I merely filed it away under the heading of "cinematic mysteries"... until a few weeks ago, when I finally caught up with Superman II: the Donner version (a re-edit supervised by Richard Donner, intended to use as much of his footage as possible), including this scene of Lois attempting to force Superman to reveal his identity.

Mystery solved!

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Keen!

[kadenza.livejournal.com]

Swell!

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Slightly bizarre almost-movie, that one. I got to see it last year as a Cort and Fatboy Midnight Movie, and yes, I was aware of that cut scene, too. I'd heard about it from STARLOG.

Reminds me: the re-edit, since it involves turning back time so a lot of the film didn't happen (an ending Donner would've changed had he had the chance to), that makes the scene of revenge against the trucker into a scene where Clark's just a dick. After all, in that revised timeline, the trucker didn't do anything to him!

And I missed the supervillains re-carving Mt. Rushmore. I wanted what happened to the Washington Monument to be a little more, um, epic; it's so quick in this.

I'm usually not this hard to please, really... ;-)

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Wow, I never thought of that. I do think that the time-travel bit works better for movie 1, with its (literally) world-shaking events; for Superman 2, which is so intently driven by the Clark/Superman/Lois dynamic to begin with, the amnesia kiss (apparently canonical (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081573/faq#.2.1.2)) is actually a better solution. (The struggle of Superman between the words of his two fathers is good, too, and sets up Superman's rebellion against his heritage and destruction of Jor-El's "ghost" in the Donner version.)

As far as the trucker goes, any Kryptonian who cuts loose on a human is pretty much a dick in my book ;)

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Well, as robyn_ma reminded us once upon a time, Superman is a Dick (http://http://superdickery.com)... ;-) (Now on Tumblr (http://superdickery.tumblr.com/), too!)

Good point about the dynamics. I think overall the character work is better in II (either version) than I, but then, I've long had more of a soft spot for II than I. Bias, maybe.