Superman the motion picture, and his weird, grey nose.

 I'm watching Superman: The Movie. 

The movie has Supertramp on the soundtrack. Why do I think that's a joke? Because it probably is, in this film. 

Krypton is a fabulously advanced super-society. We know this because its war criminals are banished into a two dimensional prison that looks like a bin bag, rather than sent to Broadmoor, or being shot in the face. Kryptonians also wear cool, light reflecting clothing, and have Zoom meetings on massive solarised screens, so everyone is Big Brother, just for one day.  

Never-the-less, when Jor-El, a short, fat man with a quiff, tells the rest of the Krypton elders (overwhelmingly they are old white guys with English accents - even Marlon seems to be doing a sort of shit Ollie Reed voice) that their red super-giant sun is about to explode and kill them all, they call him a prick. They just refuse to believe him. It's almost as though they had no computers, or other scientists, or they hadn't done any research at all. It's like planet of the Trumps - they just put their fingers in their ears and say "NOOOOO!", as Jor reveals his very real concerns about climate change. A be-quiffed science guy has rocked up and said "Hey! We're all gonna die, guys, I have proof." and they're all like "We hate proof! Stick your proof up your arse. Get out of town, so called Jor-El."  

The Elders of Krypton become less impressive. It's less a pantheon of Godlike super beings, and more like a Rotary Club meeting. And Jor El has just brought his soppy, hippy bullshit into the member's lounge while they're nodding and winking and exchanging brown envelopes. 

I'm no scientist, but I know that if you've got a red giant sun it's eventually going to creep out and engulf your planet. The question is - was Krypton's sun ever a boring old yellow one? And if so, how cold was Krypton then? Because if our sun turned into a huge swollen red giant - like Bomber Pat Roach on a Club 18 to 30 holiday - then the one planet in the solar system supporting the sort of life that Krypton has - white guys in hi viz - would be completely engulfed by flame. 

Never mind, because Jor-El has a plan. He's built a really tiny space ship. Like, tiny. So small that only a baby can fly it. That seems a bit short-sighted. How did he explain that to Susana York, his wife? "The planet's blowing up, but don't worry I've got a spaceship, and I've discovered a planet, miles away, where not only could we survive, but any Kryptonian who goes there will have incredible powers." "That's great, Jor. I was worried when you told me that the planet was going to blow up. I don't want to die, after all."

"Oh."

"Oh? What do you mean, "Oh"?"

"I may have miscalculated, then..."

"The space ship. It looks a bit...small."

"Yeah, about that. You're going to laugh when I tell you..."

It seems odd that Jor El's little baby stroller is the only spaceship on the planet too. It's sophisticated enough to navigate through several galaxies, droning on about Krypton the entire time, while nurturing a child for three years, so the technology must be extraordinary. And apparently unique. As nobody else on the planet thought to get in a space ship and fuck the fuck off. The only people to escape the conflagration are some people trapped in a bottle and the aforementioned war criminals.   

Superman is three years old when he falls to earth in 1939. He was born in 1936, like Jim Henson or Burt Reynolds. Meaning that Clark Kent, the bumbling second stringer, attempting to woo Lois Lane from his position as raw recruit at The Daily Planet, is 42 years old when we meet him. There's a problem there - according to the film Clark spent 12 years in his Fortress of Solitude, from the age of 18, so once again, like Shakespeare or Jesus, there are Superman's lost years.  What was he doing for that missing decade? And why did he become a journalist? Journalists were aspirational figures in the thirties when Superman was dreamed up by Siegel and Shuster. They were always crusading, speaking truth to power, as they say now. Superman was about truth, justice and the American way, so it made sense to make him a reporter. This was before being a journalist meant hacking the phones of murdered children, the way it does now.  

The tag line of this film is "You'll believe a man can fly", and you might. But you won't believe he'll run. There's a sequence where a teen Superman from the fifties is frustrated his adoptive father won't let him use his powers, races a locomotive - which he is faster than - but with an awkward knees up mother brown gait, like a poorly manipulated marionette. It looks ridiculous, the worst cinematic running since Roger Moore outpacing a karate school in The Man with the Golden Gun. Superboy is played by Jeff East with a wax nose. Presumably, the difference between Christopher Reeves' nose and Jeff's was deemed too great and they slapped a bit of grouting on it. This film was the most expensive film ever made - the flying sequences were revolutionary and still hold up. So why is Jeff's nose blue? Superboy looks like a serious wine bibber - you'll believe Keith Floyd can fly. Who did the make up? Inspector Clouseau? 

Once it gets going, once Clark gets to Metropolis, its marvelous. Christopher Reeves gives great nebbish as Clark, and great smug prig as Superman. Margot Kidder is sublime as raspy, sassy Lois, a ballsy hack who always gets her man, and Jackie Cooper's Perry White gets all the best lines. 

Possibly the weirdest scene - it's just crying out for scissors - is Lois' mid-air poem, a literal flight of fancy. As Superman takes her up into the air (having previously checked out her pants with his sneaky see-through eyes) and as they tumble round the sky, the pair of them defying the laws of gravity, we hear Lois' thoughts as she thinks out some poorly advised verse as she snuggles into Superman's armpit: 

"Can you read my mind? Do you know what it is that you do to me? I don't know who you are. Just a friend from another star. Here I am, like a kid out of school. Holding hands with a god. I'm a fool. Will you look at me? Quivering. Like a little girl, shivering."

It continues. At one point it features the immortal couplet "You can fly. You belong in the sky." I mean, I love it. It's the sort of thing that would never happen in a modern film, where strange ornamentation, and this is a Notre Dame gargoyle of a scene, would be excised long before it made it to the screen. This and Jeff's boozer's bulb, would be so much cutting room carpet. But I'm glad they're in the film. Fuck it. I like my films warts and all. At least its not boring, and the plodding and sensible Eternals film was often very boring. Ikarus from that film is a modern Superman: joyless, dull and invincible. There's no room for Clark's dicking about, or Christopher Reeve's subtle Cary Grant characterizations, or the way he leans into the preposterous and myopic "goodness" of Superman. It's a great performance in a magnificently silly film. He flies really fast around the planet, crying, to turn back time and save Lois from some angry rocks. That's what this film is about. Gene Hackman takes his wig off in the last scene and it's the only time he's been anything like Lex Luthor at all. Marvelous. 

Neil Diamond lobbied hard to play Superman in this film. I mean, that's just great. C'mon.