From the Vault: Superman III (at 40)

A version of this Superman III post originally appeared at my old blog. It has been revised and expanded here for the film’s fortieth anniversary.

Superman III crash landed in theaters forty years ago on June 17, 1983. While it recouped its budget at the box office, the film was a major letdown for critics and fans alike. I was one of those fans. Superman: The Movie and Superman II were easily two of my favorite movies at the time. I was eight when my parents took me to see Superman III, just young enough to expect the same brilliance as the first two films. Instead, what I got, what we all got, was something else entirely. Superman III is a lot of things, namely a camp classic these days, but in 1983 it sure felt like an unmitigated disaster for this young Superman fan.

Richard Pryor got a huge payday for his comedic supporting role, admitting later it was the only redeeming thing about doing the movie. The excellence of the first two movies was nowhere to be found here. Obviously Richard Donner, fired during the making of Superman II, wasn’t here to steer the ship, and director Richard Lester had to try and make something serviceable out of an incoherent script. Lois Lane (my girl Margot Kidder) appears only briefly, as the film’s action quickly moves from Metropolis to Smallville for Clark Kent’s high school reunion. Such a minuscule amount of Margot screen time really broke the heart of this young Lois/Margot admirer.

I won’t even rehash the plot except to say Clark Kent/Superman (Christopher Reeve) reunites with his first love, the beautiful Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole). At the same time, a nefarious millionaire (Robert Vaughn), disgruntled over Superman foiling his cockamamie scheme to take over the world’s coffee supply (you can’t make this shit up), devises a new plan to destroy the Man of Steel. Soon enough, Superman is transformed into an evil version of himself, thanks to being exposed to some seriously flawed Kryptonite. Sporting a darker colored, dingier looking version of his costume and a perma-five o’clock shadow, Supes is a nasty piece of work in this one.

Reeve spends a chunk of the film acting like a boorish, petulant criminal. He also wears a very plastic-looking wig throughout (whyyyy??). This is the movie that provides the popular meme where Superman saddles up to the bar and throws back whiskey shots. He disliked this movie so much he swore never to come back for another—but came back anyway for the truly dismal Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

I haven’t mentioned the special effects. Let’s keep it that way. Simply put, it’s a weird movie, a hodgepodge of disparate elements that, when slammed together, make very little sense. Yet that also makes it, at times, a riot. I couldn’t appreciate the B-movie level badness of it as a kid, but I certainly do now.

Oh, have I mentioned Pamela Stephenson yet? Because I really should mention her. Frequently. Like, all the time. Let’s just talk about her, okay?

She’s one of the more memorable villainous vixens in cinematic superhero history and, in many ways, a 1980s cousin to the funny and flirtatious gun molls that appeared with regularity in the 1960s Batman television series. Stephenson plays Lorelei, Vaughn’s character’s girlfriend. Lorelei acts the part of the dumb blonde sexpot, but in reality she’s a genius-level nerd who lounges about reading metaphysical philosophy books because, why the hell not? To say that Ms. Stephenson briefly helped me forget about the disappearance of Margot Kidder from the film would be accurate. Whenever Stephenson vamped on screen, the temperature in the theater spiked considerably. Yikes.

One scene in particular has always stood out as emblematic of the WTF nature of the film. Featuring a lascivious Superman and the nuclear sex bomb Lorelei talking dirty to each other on top of the Statue of Liberty, it’s clear the innuendo-laden scene went right over the heads of most little kiddies.

The way it’s filmed only enhances the kink factor. One shot is framed so that Supes’ well-endowed, um, Super Package looms suggestively near Lorelei’s face, just…waiting. It gets better, by the way. Superman then asks, pointedly, “What did you have in mind?” To which Lorelei responds in her best, most breathless Marilyn Monroe voice, “Lots of things.” Oof. It’s hilarious and still shocking to see it in a film ostensibly aimed at children. I couldn’t believe my eight year old eyes—was Superman about to get busy on top of a national monument? My little mind was blown.

Is it hot in here, or is it just Pamela Stephenson?

Here’s the clip, in full. Watch ’til the end or you’ll miss the Lorelei-Supes sexy saxophone-scored consummation scene. Yep, that’s a thing that actually happens. Off camera, but it totally happens.

Superman III was one of my first times I remember being disappointed in a movie—the following year Supergirl would equally confound and disappoint me. Now though, I find Superman III amusing in its badness. Sure, the movie’s a mess, but that’s part of the charm. After all, it’s the only movie I can recall where Superman boozes it up and makes the horizontal mambo with a blonde bombshell next to a roaring fire in a remote snow-capped chalet. That’s something, right?