Superman vs. Hollywood (Jack Rossen)

Superman vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors, and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon By Jake Rossen – Published by Cappella Books – ISBN 1556527314 – 353 pages

Jake Rossen’s book, Superman Vs. Hollywood, chronicles Superman’s exploitation outside of his traditional comic book home. Superman has always been a character who has spanned different media. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original designs had been for their character to first appear in a newspaper strip, but economic necessity meant that they had to fall back to the less prestigious comic book medium. Then, as soon as it became clear that those comic book stories were a success, Superman’s publishers began concerted efforts to push Superman into almost every conceivable medium possible.

The book’s first chapter rattles through the radio show, the Fleischer cartoons, and the Kirk Alyn serials at a pace. It is a pity that Rossen doesn’t spend more time on these as they’re the part that I’d loved to have read more about. Nevertheless, each of them gets a fair and fascinating hearing. The second chapter covers the events surrounding 1950s The Adventures of Superman TV show and the eventual fate of its star George Reeves. The third chapter spends a bit of time covering the attempts to keep the TV franchise going and the rise of the TV cartoon.

It’s with the fourth chapter that the book really gets into its stride and focus – the Christopher Reeve motion picture version of Superman. We’re taken through the various adventures of the Salkinds, Richards Donner and Lester, their script writers and actors. The production of Superman the Movie and its sequels and spin-offs takes up the next eight chapters. Personally, I found these sections to be the most interesting. Rossen doesn’t spare anybody from his withering critiques, but I found his history to be more balanced – particularly over producer/director clashes – than a number of other works.

There is a break of a couple of chapters to discuss Superboy and Lois and Clark. Then its back for the strangest section of the book – the fiasco of Warner Brothers trying to get Jon Peters to relaunch the Superman film series. The back story is fascinating and it dominates the last third of the book (inter cut with pieces covering Smallville and Superman The Animated Series). That of course ends up with the production of Superman Returns.

A causal fan will be aware of the general outline of this history, but even the most obsessive fan will be surprised by some of the details that Rossen has managed to unearth. He takes all the adaptations and presents then in context with each other. This is a real page turner and its very easy to rattle through this book at some speed. It is a little light on photographs and illustrations given that it’s a book about a visual medium, but its a prose discussion not a glossy coffee table tome.

4.0