The Light’s On At Signpost. George Fraser MacDonald

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       Gene Hackman Should Have Blown up Vesuvius

      SOMETIME AFTER the Musketeer movies had been released, Pierre Spengler asked if I was interested in doing Superman, which Ilya Salkind was determined to bring to the screen. I had my doubts but said ‘yes’ on principle; however, later Pierre phoned me to say that they thought an American writer would be more appropriate, and I couldn’t argue with that; in fact, I was rather relieved.

After that nothing happened until the scripts of Superman I and II were written by David and Leslie Newman, and Robert Benton. Pierre told me they had some slight problems with the script; would I go to Rome to meet Guy Hamilton, who was to direct? So I went, staying at the Cavalieri Hilton, outside Rome (notable for excellent ball-point pens which wrote very finely). Guy and his wife (formerly the actress Kerima, in Outcast of the Islands) were staying at a palazzo (Lanzerotti?) in the middle of Rome, one of those magnificent marble interiors which looks like a slum from the outside. We had dinner, and I quickly realised that this was a director I could get on with splendidly; a tall, genial, educated Anglo-Scot who had learned his trade sweeping the studio floor for René Clair.* He was slightly older than I; Kerima, who was about my age (early fifties) he referred to as “my child-bride”.

      The production at that time was planned for Cinecittà, and there I was given the two scripts – really one long script, split in the middle à la Musketeers. Guy said: “I want twenty-five minutes out of the first one, eighteen out of the other, and any improvements will be gratefully received.”

      In fact they were splendid scripts – fast, inventive, and thoroughly well-written, and I hated the idea of cutting them at all. But I did, in consultation with Guy – which means that I explained where I would abbreviate and connect up, got his agreement, and made my notes for the actual work, which I would do at home. There was no question of improving them; I just had to cut and rework so that no one could see the joins.

      I had previously been sent Mario Puzo’s script, which is still in my attic somewhere. It was enormous, with very long speeches, and I didn’t refer to it again: my impression is that if its storyline bore any resemblance to the Newmans – Benton job, the actual treatment and dialogue didn’t, but I never read it closely. Puzo got the principal credit on the first two movies, but for my money the moral credit belongs to the N – B version. At this stage I doubt if I contributed much new material at all – maybe a rephrasing of dialogue to accommodate a cut, maybe a different ending-opening of scenes for the same reason, but nothing original. Anyway, I did the work, getting the scripts down to size, and that, I thought, would be that.

      At this stage, incidentally, there were four super-villains in the movies, to be played, it was hoped, by Christopher Lee (as Zod), Ursula Andress, Charles Bronson (as the goon) and Mickey Rooney as a sort of evil jester, Jakel. The Rooney character had to go, alas, and in the end the villains were played by Terence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, and Jack O’Halloran.

      Time passed, in which I wrote books and worked on various other films – Royal Flash (with Dick Lester), Prince and Pauper (Fleischer), Force Ten from Navarone (Hamilton, of which more anon), and at least as many others which never got made, such being the way of this crazy industry. Five films written and actually screened in five years was unusually good going, but in my novice ignorance I didn’t appreciate this.

And then, Superman re-surfaced and I was invited to Paris, but exactly why I can’t remember – presumably to consult with Guy on the edited scripts, although I don’t recall our doing so. What I do remember vividly is a series of long meetings with Alex and Ilya Salkind and Pierre in the Hotel Lancaster, where the great question was: who would play Superman? Christopher Reeve wasn’t heard of at this point, and one of the names that came up was Muhammad Ali, the boxer. I’m not sure who suggested him – Alex, I think, but not I, anyway. He got a brief canvass, God alone knows why, because even in that black-is-beautiful era, the idea of a black Superman was, on the face of it, crazy. Fans of the comics would have been outraged, and there was no evidence that Ali, fine showman though he was, could act his way out of a paper bag.*

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