Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Adam H. Kerman" Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv Subject: Superman (1978) John Williams' score Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 17:58:39 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 70 Message-ID: Injection-Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:58:39 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="753aacc27330e1759efaf63ca1b36a2d"; logging-data="2388832"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19plk/FsCGriIXyCjY9guMMFhV8kBszqQA=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:aZSp4giMOQrGVKKWotQfNuRjbjY= X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 4584 Throughout June, TCM was playing various movies to celebrate the scores of Hollywood's best-known composers. To honor John Williams, they chose to play Superman. In the host's comments, it was new information to me that Jerry Goldsmith had turned the movie down as he was scoring something else, although you'd think the guy who scored Chinatown over a weekend after the earlier composer was fired would been able to do it, just by never sleeping for two months. It's a great score, but it's always always always annoyed me that you cannot hear the score properly over the opening titles because of all the whooshing noises as each title flies by. I've always hated that. Salkind hired the guy who had just received an Oscar for Jaws, so I think the audience really wants to hear the music. Yes, I know the main theme is derivative (of previous works of his own, plus the usual romantic composers that movie music is supposed to sound like), but the first four notes of that one major theme in the music conveys such a sense of joy and optimism, it's just perfect. One of the pieces I really like is "Welcome to Krypton" (I really have no idea what it's called), slightly reminiscent of Aaron Copland and early Charles Ives. When I first saw the movie, I wasn't entirely happy with Christopher Reeve's perforance as Adult Clark, but it's grown on me over the years. The movie has too many farcical elements, but Reeve's scenes, even in the slapstick moments affecting Clark, are relatively subtle compared with Gene Hackman's scenes. Marlon Brando? He got paid a fortune based on his reputation from the 1950s, but this isn't Terry Malloy and it sure as hell ain't Stanley Kowalski. It's barely even Vito Corleone. I liked Brando better in the voiceover scenes. He seemed to have made more of an effort. Did he care about the quality of the movie? By the mid '70s, wasn't it clear that Brando, based on his past reputation alone, wasn't bringing in the kind of audience that justified his salary? For gawd's sake, he also got a percentage of the gross (which of course he had to sue Salkind for), as if his off-screen presence meant something in 5/6 of the movie. I read (no citation) that Marlon Brando contributed the idea of making the "S" the family crest, instead of the symbol he used on his Superman costume. Is this true? It made the Krypton scenes especially weird as everybody ended up wearing a family crest on his uniform. Who walks about like that? Glenn Ford's scenes were terrific but all too brief. To give him more time, we'd have needed less Brando. Or not hired Brando to begin with. Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor isn't the way I ever pictured Lex Luthor but he made it work. Of course it would have been better to create an all-new character for the movie. Why was Valerie Perrine a henchwoman? Yes, she got to distract Major Nelson in that one scene, but my goodness, Jeannie would have smited him for putting hands upon Miss Perrine. It's more like, let's cast her because we love her and give her something to do. Mostly, Hackman just did reactions to her, not that she was doing much in those scenes. Is Jackie Cooper's Perry White like anything in the comics? He's supposed to have a temper but were all those stories of his past new for the movie script? He was one of the top child stars of the 1930s, The Champ, Peck's Bad Boy. I like the movie. The sets were spectacular. The special effects looked great. I never saw the wires. But the Superman I grew up with in adaptations was more cynical, if not the film noir elements of the first season of The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves. In the few radio serials I've heard, Bud Collyer was terrific.