Supergirl ** (1984, Helen Slater, Faye Dunaway, Peter O’Toole) – Classic Movie Review 2246

Director Jeannot Szwarc’s 1984 fantasy adventure stars Helen Slater as Superman’s girl cousin Kara Zor-El, who flies to Earth to bring home a precious Omegahedron, the lump of Kryptonite needed to save her planet.  This British superhero film is of course based on the DC Comics character and is a spin-off from Alexander and Ilya Salkind’sSuperman film series.

On Earth, Kara becomes Linda Lee, Clark Kent’s cousin at Midvale School, where she shares a room with Lois Lane’s sister Lucy (Maureen Teefy) and her extraordinary powers as Supergirl naturally cause a bit of a sensation.

Though Slater makes a pretty and spunky heroine, her Supergirl lacks the charisma of Christopher Reeve’s Superman. However, Slater was nominated for a Saturn Award for her performance by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films as Best Actress.

But a grotesque Faye Dunaway has great campy fun as the pantomime baddie, the evil sorceress Selena, who snatched the Kryptonite and is set on Lex Luthor-style world domination. And Peter O’Toole enjoys a field day of more campy over-acting as the patriarch Zaltar. Alas, Dunaway and O’Toole earned Golden Raspberry Award nominations for Worst Actress and Actor. Peter Cook plays the warlock Nigel, while Simon Ward and Mia Farrow play Kara’s parents.

Supergirl is not exactly a bad movie, it’s just a silly, not very good one, and all those who like this comic book movie kind of thing are well enough, indeed better served with the 1978-87 Superman saga. Dunaway and O’Toole somehow unfairly ended up taking the blame for the film’s lack of success.

Marc McClure re-creates the role of Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen from the Superman films. He’s the only Superman performer to reprising his role. Also in the cast are Brenda Vaccaro, Hart Bochner, David Healy and Sandra Dickinson.

Test audiences found the film overlong and it was edited from 135 minutes to 105 minutes for its North American release. Reviews were poor and it was a box office flop after making only $14million in North America on a cost of $35million. The film’s failure and the limp performance of Superman III led the Salkinds to sell the Superman rights to Cannon Films in 1986. There are two other versions, the 124-minute International Version and the 138-minute Director’s Cut.

The first DVD release was by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2000, under license from StudioCanal. Warner Bros acquired the rights and reissued it on DVD late in 2006 to coincide with the release of Superman Returns. It is not included by Warner in any of the Superman DVD or Blu-ray box sets.

2015 brings a new Supergirl, with Melissa Benoist as Linda Danvers/Supergirl.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2246

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