The Light’s On At Signpost

Alex obviously assumed that we would now start sorting it all out; Dick was non-committal, and said he would phone me next day. What else was said, I don’t remember, but I have a memory of Dick standing, saying very little, looking extremely formal in a very nice tweed suit (which wasn’t like his usual casual style at all), and for some reason I thought, this is as far as we go.

Which proved to be true, in a way. Dick rang me next day and said he wasn’t going on with the project. So that was that, and I prepared to turn my attention to whatever other work I was doing at the time. I wasn’t all that interested in the project myself by this time, and when Pierre called me and asked if I would go to Paris to confer with Guy Hamilton, who was to come back on to the picture, I wasn’t enthusiastic, and if it had been anyone but Guy I think I might have bowed out.

But, let’s face it, I would be getting paid, and I can stand a couple of nights in the George V or Prince de Galles any time. I met Guy and his wife in London and we flew over. Come to think of it, I don’t recall why we were working in Paris; possibly because we had to confer with Alex. Anyway, for two days we worked on the thing employing 1) my list of the material already shot; 2) the unshot material from the script of II; 3) our own ideas. These last we kept to a minimum, because the less new material, the better; the job was to link what was shot with what was unshot into a coherent story with as little fuss as possible. New stuff obviously had to go in for the Kryptonian elders, but Hackman’s part was a real problem, since at first sight it didn’t seem to be complete, and would take careful rearrangement.

I covered sheets of foolscap with notes in red, green, blue, and various other colours, denoting filmed material, unshot material, possible plot links, new material, etc., etc.; we cut and spliced and arranged and rearranged and somehow arrived at a synopsis which satisfied us both. Neither of us got a credit on the finished film, but we didn’t expect it – there is no such credit as “script cobbler” or “script fixer” or “plot arranger”, and the writing credit went to Puzo and the Newmans – why Benton was left off, I’ve no idea. By this time I just wanted to get home, and insisted on catching an early plane; I packed in haste, with Pierre helping, and as I was about to close my case he suddenly produced a book and asked me to read it on the flight. It was called The Ice People, of which more anon.

That was the end of my connection with Superman. Dick came back on to the picture, and although I was summoned in haste to Pinewood during the shooting, it was simply to do a very minor tinker on one part of the plot which could easily have been accomplished without me. I watched one daytime scene being shot – an announcer talking to camera, and a couple of cars being wrecked – and one night scene involving the enormous New York street which had been built on the back-lot – life-size at one end, and dwindling down in size at the other to give a sense of perspective. It was a smashing set; I heard it was eventually demolished by a high wind, much to the annoyance of a later production which had hoped to use it. Pierre and I stood in the dark eating endless hot dogs and watching them rehearse and then shoot the bit in which a woman with a pram doesn’t get hit by a falling girder.

There was a royal premiere attended by the Queen, followed by a dinner, but I confess that my chief interest was in recognising little bits and thinking “I did that” or “I was responsible for that,” or “Well, I sort of influenced that”, which is the only personal satisfaction you can get from a movie in which your participation has been limited to tinkering little things, script-snipping and arranging and so on. Critical opinion of it has changed; at the time, the flying sequences were regarded as terrific, there was much praise for the music and the opening credits, and the end titles provoked mirth for being of such length that they even included the breakfast cereal used by Clark Kent’s earthly parents. The early “earth” scenes were interminable, and I came out asking myself why the hell they hadn’t just been content to shoot the original N – B scripts, instead of padding it out with unnecessary junk. But it was obviously going to gross a jillion, which it did.

Superman II was the better movie, probably because Dick had the direction all to himself. But I like to think back to that Paris hotel room, with Hamilton and me up to our ankles in coloured paper, and tell myself that our labours were not in vain.

* The Macmillan Film Encyclopedia describes Guy as “among England’s most technically proficient craftsmen”, which is an understatement. After his apprenticeship with Rene Clair he graduated to assistant director with Carol Reed and John Huston, and worked on such prestigious films as The Third Man and The African Queen before going on to direct a string of major pictures, including four James Bonds – one of which, Goldfinger, I regard as the best in the series.

* But we may have underestimated his talent; many professional boxers have acted, and acted well, since James J. Corbett and his fellow-champion John L. Sullivan trod the boards a century ago. Rocky Graziano, Max Baer, and Maxie Rosenbloom were all good comic actors, and more recently Jersey Joe Walcott, Tony Galento, and Henry Cooper have acquitted themselves well in supporting parts.

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