Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

75% of the way through the Mario Puzo 1st Draft, about hour #3 of what would be 4 hours. We're starting to see bits and pieces of Superman II, in particular Lois figuring out he's Superman and Superman powering himself down.

Superman goes to his hologram parents saying that Lois has figured out his identity, and that she has the kryptonite jacket that could hurt him. They tell him that lead should shield from from Kryptonite.

Lois again takes the lead in figuring out Clark is Superman by asking Clark to dinner that night and offering Clark the kryptonite straightjacket. What Lois doesn't know is that he's wearing a lead jacket! She's upset that Clark isn't Superman, but she confesses her love for Clark. Clark is oblivious to it (probably on purpose). They get comfy, and Clark takes his jacket off for dinner.

At the end of the evening, Clark doesn't understand Lois wants him to stay the night with her, and he decides to leave. She offers to go with him and grabs her coat. Immediately Clark keels over - while he didn't have his lead coat on, Lois put on the straight jacket under her own coat. She's figured him out.

Clark flies her to the Fortress of Solitude and Superman decides for himself to power himself down to be with her. Both Lara and Jor-El push back that he shouldn't do this (One of the few lines that exists in every draft of the movie: "We have tried to anticipate your every question. This was one we hoped you'd never ask"), but if he feels he must, instructions exist to change his molecular structure. Once done, he has ten days. If he doesn't change back in ten days, he's a human forever. If he DOES change back, he's a Kryptonian forever.

Superman depowers himself, get super drunk and in the morning, they head back to Metropolis hung over. The diner scene with the fight with the trucker happens here, although now it's three truckers demanding they get their booth back after it's given to Clark and Lois.

Luthor decides he's going to pull off three incredible feats of evil, but only let's out the first: He's going to kill the new Pope. The four reporters, Lois, Clark, Olsen and Lombard, go to report on what seems to be the Popes coronation. Kent realizes something is wrong and pushes the Pope out of the way, and the bullet meant to kill him hits one of Luthor's henchmen. Kent is pleased that he can still be heroic without his powers but Lois is scared for him as he's not superhuman any longer.

At the seven and five days left mark, Lois asks if Kent is fine still not being superman, and Kent says he is. Edge decides to send all four to a military base to report on the new H-Bomb being built there, but to also get a side angle on radiation sickness without the army knowing. It'll be a five day stint where they can't leave the base.

Just as they get there, Luthor and Eve arrive disguised as army soldiers.

Mario Puzo really had it in for Pope John Paul I, didn't he.

THAT'S who Puzo's Clark Kent is: Data.

50% through the Mario Puzo first draft of Superman. At this point, there's almost nothing here that is recognizable to the movies we got. Three scenes have something akin to what we got in the movie:

Superman gives an interview to Lois. This, however, is a quickly done interview iimmediately after saving the group from Luthor. It's not as indepth as the one in the movie (at all), but there is an mention that he does several of these off-camera throughout the second quarter of the movie.

"Superfeats." The scene in the movie where Superman stops various crimes, and saves a cat is an echo of a similar scene here. After Superman saves Lois and company from Luthor, he does a similar set of superfeats. The only one that has a parallel in the movie is Superman walking alongside someone who is using suction cups to climb a building.

"Edge sends the group to Iran." This has an echo in the Richard Lester version of Superman II, where Edge sends the group to Iran to cover a terrorist takeover of an oil refinery, where in the movie Perry White sends Lois and Clark to Paris to cover a terrorist takeover of the Eiffel Tower.

Other than those echoes, this is a completely different story altogether, focusing on the group to Lois, Clark, Jimmy Olsen and Steve Lombard covering crime for the TV news. Lois comes across as a very competent reporter, and very incomptenet weather girl, Olsen is a true believer in Clark, and Lombard and Clark have a rivalry about how Clark is a coward, and Lombard is a washed up footballer trying to prove his worth.

Eventually, the four bad guys in the Phantom Zone find Luthor and while he's asleep whisper to him about Kryptonite and how the yellow sun of the Earth gives Superman his powers. This convinces Luthor to find and steal some Kryptonite from the local museum and fashion it into a straightjacket for Superman.

The group head to Iran as a group of terrorists take over an oil refinery, but it's a ruse. Instead Luthor has created the distraction to steal the Peacock Throne of Tehran, hoping Superman will show up. He manages to get the straightjacket on Superman and captures Lois. Olsen and Lombard go to save them, however Lois has managed to save herself (with a little advice from Superman) about a hidden sword in the throne. She uses that to cut her and Superman's bonds, and he cleans house. Luthor gets away.

As they get ready to fly back, Lois has the kryptonite straight jacket in a lead lined suitcase to give as a "present" to Superman. She obviously suspects Clark is Superman.

So so so SO different....

Okay, I laughed:

I can totally see Margot Kidder delivering this line exactly as described:

About a quarter of the way through Mario Puzo's first draft of the Superman Movie. It's wierd....

The opening of the movie goes directly to the scene on Krypton where Jor-El is explaining that Krypton is going to explode. The four villains (General Zod, Jax-Ur, Kru-El and Professor Vakox) are already in the Phantom Zone, described as a black void where all you can see are their faces.

Krypton is more of a regular planet than the crystal world we see in the movie, but that's kind of how it's described in all drafts including the shooting script. It's more of a regular looking city with buildings, just covered in glass to keep the air in. Jor-El lives in a house.

The movie quickly moves to Earth, where there's just no time wasted on the Kents. They take Kal-El in and raise him, but seem to leave him be for the most part. This is where it starts to diverge a little, where the high school coaches want him on sports teams, and he refuses. Once he gets back to the farm, he's already talking with holograms of Jor-El and Lara in the barn.

He decides on his own to go North, based on advice from Jor-El to hide himself away in the arctic, where he will read all the info he got from Krypton, and then read all the info on earth(!).

It then switches to Metropolis, where there's no Daily Planet! It's Galaxy Communications, a TV station where Lois is an off-screen reporter and an on-screen weather girl! Clark's been hired to anchor the news.

"Luthor Lux" is working with Eve Tessmacher and his henchmen (no Otis here yet) to pull off a money laundering crime (We put the counterfit money in the bank, and take the real cash, and when the crime is found out, the bank takes the fall). The news reporting team finds them and interferes, and Superman interferes with the plot. Luthor gets away, and Lois is already suspicious that he's Clark.

The story feels very fast, everyone speaks in a very concise way with little extraneous dialogue. The Movie's Kryptonians speak almost biblically...here it's just straight up info-dump. The Kents spend little time "Teaching" Kent. They're just kind of there. Superman himself comes across as a an obediant little boy, who does what he is told and parrots it back.

There's still 75% more coming, and seeing how quickly the plot veered off what comes in later drafts, I'm looking forward to seeing it....

Luthor Lux, not Lex Luthor? Also, funny seeing the idea of Dustin Hoffman or Paul Newman playing Lex Luthor instead of Gene Hackman.

Mario Puzo's Superman, no!

Well, now. Ask, and apparently ye shall recieve....

I've read the status of the Superman scripts given to Richard Donner (although not the original Mario Puzo ones, which I'd kill to read). They were...goofy.

The main plot beats are there for both Superman 1 and 2, but the attitude is very different. It's clear the Salkinds wanted a campy 1960s Batman feel to the movies and Richard Donner and Tom Manckewicz brought some real down-to-earthness to the script. Pun intended.

Superman 3 was the kind of movie the Salkinds wanted for 1 and 2. And that...wasn't good.

https://fandomwire.com/it-was-disparaging-richard-donner-revealed-original-superman-script-with-marlon-brando-wouldve-killed-the-superhero-genre-forever/