SUPERGIRL 1984

Its it a bird....yes and she's lovely....Helen Slater is Supergirl and a fine figure she cuts too....ALF JOINT as stunt coordinator as he was back in 1978 with Superman.

A fun film, sadly lambasted by the critics....and a Jerry Goldsmith score to die for....enjoy

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this week's look at action and stunts on film and television. Back in nineteen seventy-eight we watched open-mouthed as Christopher Reeves swooped across our screens in the very first big screen outing of Superman. Subsequently followed out of the King of the Crusader. And in nineteen eighty-three, a new movie introducing Superman's cousin. This was the adventures of Cara Zorrell, who is known on earth as Linda Lee. And to the rest of us, we just call her Supergirl.

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Who is she? You know, I think I recognize the costume.

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The question remains just who on earth are you?

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On Earth I'm Lee. Linda Lee. Because nobody gets in my way. I mean you can do the whole number of leap tall buildings with a single belt and look right through things. Yes. Bend steel bars? Yes. Enjoy your prison, supergirl. Alexander Solkine presents the action-packed adventures of a dazzling new superhero starring Peter O2. I must be sent to the Phantom Zone. Red Navacaro. That's Clark Kent's cousin. Adventure runs in the family.

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The bar had been set very high with the Superman pictures, and with that in mind, it was a nice return for stunt coordinator Alpha Joint, who'd not only be the man in charge of the action on the picture, but also be responsible for actress Helen Slater getting into shape, required to play a superhero. Helen had to understand the science behind the wire work the way that Christopher Reeve did back in the beginning. The complicated thing about wire work is making it look effortless. You have to work with the special effects team to create a fluid movement which gives the superhero that Hollywood flair. Nowadays, the actor playing the superhero will have cables attached with a safety line or rope, all of which can be removed in post-production. CGI has made this type of movie much easier to handle. However, it's also taken the edge of the creating. Helen Slater was 19 when she secured the role in the movie and wasn't perhaps fully aware of the amount of work that would have to be done to get action fit. The role involves a great deal of hanging around in wire rigs and doing lots of takeoffs and landings. But for everything else, Helen has a stunt double, who is one of the very best. She has Tracy Edon, the daughter of Eddie Edon and Sadie Eden, who both work on the movie. Are a long-established UK stunt family. Tracy is a wonderful double who understands the movements of the actor. She's doubling for, and she's very experienced, with a very cool track record, including work on Star Wars Episode 4 as the double for C3PO, Never Say Never Again, as Kim Basinger's stunt double, and appearances as a stunt performer on Minder, Bergerac, Son of the Pink Panther, Goldeneye, Mission Impossible, and Johnny English, to name but a few. Alf, Tracy, and Helen worked as a team, working out all the possibilities of which shots Helen could do and which ones Tracy would do. The combinations of the two of them is best seen during the sequence where the bulldozer runs riot through the small town under the direct instruction of villain Selina, played by Faye Dunaway. A huge set built on the back lot of Pinewood Studios, where it was transformed into a town with its water tower and its huge tyre on top of a garage, and a full street with shops and businesses. In the street scene, there are hundreds of extras with stunned professionals in for safety. Helen Slater on a wire doing some of the close-ups, and Tracy Edden doing flypasts on a wire attached to a crane. A bulldozer being blind driven is crashed into vehicles, buildings, causing havoc, whilst chasing an individual before landing him into a bucket at the very front. It's a remarkable sequence, and has given the audience a big thrill as the bulldozer leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. The movie had a budget of$35 million. Sadly, it only took 14 and a half at the box office, and I feel the lack of action may have had something to do with it. The story and characters can only do so much. But certainly this movie doesn't have the same bag full of action cues that the Superman movies have. Even Superman 4, and I apologize for saying the movie's name out loud, has many more action cues than Supergirl. It doesn't take anything away from Supergirl, but I just wish it had a few more exciting stunt moments. This may have been the reason why the TV series bowled along at a faster pace due to its numerous action setups in each episode. Let's explore the 1984 movie a bit more on Friday on the YouTube channel.