Worked with the best comedians
Born in Philadelphia, Richard Lester attended university aged 15. He then entered the medium of television in the early 1950s, working for CBS. He was a music editor, assistant director and eventually a director. In 1955 he moved to London to work for the newly established ITV. He was a director and a composer. He also shot numerous television commercials where he further developed post production and editing techniques. Here he became associated with the notorious 'Goon' show, the anarchic comedy series beginning his friendship with comedian Peter Sellers. This eventually lead to the groundbreaking 11 minute short 'The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film'. Although nothing more than a silent home movie, Lester energetically lensed Sellers, Leo McKern and Spike Milligan from every angle while never restricting their creativity, no matter how daring their ideas were. The film was eventually shown on British television where it's immediate popularity prompted it's appearances at film festivals, the Cannes film festival and eventually the Oscars where it was nominated.

Beatlemania
Later on in the mid 1960s one of pop cultures greatest influences had arrived; Beatlemania. Lester at the request of the fab four, (all of whom were great fans of his work with Sellers), was commissioned to direct a day in the life of' film to cash in on the Beatle's popularity. 'A Hard Day's Night' and more so it's follow up, 'Help!' show how Lester revolutionised sound in film. Up until that time, films containing popular music had always been, as Bob Neaverson explains:
'Song performance derived from the classic Hollywood musical, with lip-synched performances and minimal on-screen backing sources to give illusion of performance. Lester used pop music as the incidental music' additionally, Lester experimented with the images too, using his television commercial techniques for these sequences. As described by James Monaco:
'What Lester did was break the 'grammatical' convention. He introduced a 'frenetic' editing style using jump cuts'

Lester obliterated the cinematic continuity, with images slowed down and sped up, often with images running into each other. Essentially this captured the essence of the Beatle's place in 60s pop culture through the synergy of image and sound. Thes anti-establishment insolence is gently sprinkled over the proceedings. In the 'Ticket To Ride' sequence from 'Help!' Lester had the Liverpudlian lads involved in a skiing scene in the Alps. He got two cameras and randomly shot them going about their leisurely activity. Later on in the editing suite, aided by his new friend John Victor Smith, Lester 'frenetically' juxtaposed the images together in no logical order. The result was perfection, and years later MTV no less pointed out that Lester was the 'Godfather' of the music video. One 1965 UCLA film student was particularly inspired by such innovations, the young George Lucas, and Lester's influence is apparent in his student films.

From The Knack to the Musketeers
In 1965 Lester also made the 'mod' cool Britannia film 'The Knack', based on Ann Jellicoe's play. The film has very much influenced retro sixties fads such as 'Austin Powers' and video game 'Grand Theft Auto London'. A year later he directed the film version of the Broadway musical 'A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum'. A musical farce co-starring silent era comedy icon Buster Keaton and Phil 'Sgt Bilko' Silvers, the film is held by many critics as one of the most successful stage musicals translated for the screen. It's here that Lester excelled in slapstick, off beat humour and skilful physical comedy. It was also the film that united him with his composer collaborator, Ken Thorne. Thorne's adaptation of the music for the film was so good in fact that the composer won the 1966 Academy Award for best score.

'Petulia' in 1967 saw Lester return to the USA for the first time in fifteen years to look at the hip society of sixties San Francisco from an alternative, alien perspective. Photographed by British DP Nicolas Roeg who only two years later directed his first feature - Performance. 'Petulia' is used by many film connoisseurs as the ultimate historical document summarising modern sixties America. 

Lester reunited with Beatle John Lennon on 'How I Won The War', a personal, surreal antiwar film. Along with his follow up film 'The Bedsitting Room', this is one of the few English language films to successfully apply Brechtian conventions such as alienation (a convention used to prevent the audience empathising with the characters). The film did poor business.

Lester's notoriety as a box office unfriendly innovator and the difficulty of finding funding for British productions led to a five year hiatus from making features, instead he directed television commercials from time to time. Eventually the auteur returned, but a change, he conformed to commercially safe blockbuster fodder. 1974 saw Alexander Salkind's lavish production of 'The Three Musketeers' followed by it's sequel in 1975. Filmed as originally as one separate film, but split in half with new scenes added to consist of two (to the all star cast's disgust) they are both valued as the definitive filmed versions of the Dumas classic. Marrying sincere adventure, slapstick comedy and remarkable period detail (Lester insisted that all actresses wear tight corsets in front of the camera), this all added up to a winning formula. This was one of his films which proved his iconoclastic nature was truly alive, he brought the lavish and romantic wonder of Dumas's characters down to Earth ignoring the romantic view of the colourful 1943 version. In this version, their environment is gritty and grimy, a more realistic portrait of 17th century Europe. Lester then discovered character development and emotional depth in the depressing and highly unnecessary 'Robin and Marian' and 'Butch and Sundance: The Early Years'.

In-between Robin and Butch, Lester directed a rarely seen feature, Royal Flash, based on George Macdonald Fraser's 2nd book, this one is a literary, satirical, popcorn masterpiece, the story of a coward, bounder thrusted into the Prisoner of Zenda scenario, is right up Lester's creek, where opportunities for farcial humour is guarenteed but can't pass comment because I haven't seen it. It was photographed by the legendary, Geoffrey Unsworth BSC - I'm dying to see it.

Lester on Superman
As far as Superman was concerned, for Lester this was once again mere blockbuster fodder, but one that certainly piqued his interest, for one, he had never been involved in such a large scale production and an opportunity to work with sophisticated special effects was hard to pass up. Richard Donner's 'Superman' had been a labour of love, he romanticised the myth, his approach was childlike, wanting to believe rather than subvert the comic book material. Superman to Donner was a Christ like allegory, a saviour, a God. His films were to be a shrine to the legend housed in American heritage.

But Superman had become a piece of pop culture much like Beatlemania in the mid sixties. Donner's film had immortalised Christopher Reeve's Superman as an established celebrity, just as record sales had done it for John, Ringo, Paul and George. When Lester has Superman stand amongst the product placement of 'Superman II' spectacular times square battle, our hero is as much a fashionable product as either Gucci or Coca-Cola. The series had gone down market from being the comic book equivalent of the Godfather series to that of the James Bond series. But also, like James Bond, the series was damage proof, with built in global popularity until Superman IV.

All of Lester's previous films had one thing in common; their source was already established material. The Beatles were musicians and celebrities, 'The Knack' was an Ann Jellicoe play, 'A Funny Thing...' was a Broadway musical, Butch and Sundance was an established western, Robin Hood was a legend. Lester's talent is being able to develop his own unconventional style out of established material, to challenge and subvert the conventions and tell it from another angle. In 'The Three Musketeers' he constructed an accurate period atmosphere and social reality, which he was then able to go and interpret in his own idiosyncratic style. His attention for detail was of an incredibly high standard, looking and sounding entirely authentic.
Consider Robin and Marian, this is an example which personifies Lester's take on the myth, it's a far cry from Curtiz's legendary take. Here an aged Robin struggles with heroism and his place in society after the crusades, stripped of wonder and awe, he's left vulnerable like an ancient relic. Lester's dim view of sweet nostalgia is apparent, the film's an elegiac lament to the zeitgeist.

With Superman he took the essence of the source material, the comic book, and made it entirely authentic. Cinematography, art direction and framing of the shots compare favourably to the panels of a comic book. Lester's compositions for the sequel were tailored to evoke the images of a comic book, no sweeping shots but flat, static camera positioning gives the desired effect. He chose Robert Paynter to photograph the film and it was the pioneering compostional concept in this film which influenced the asthetics of Michael Jackson's, 'Thriller'. Donner's storytelling for part one and his 75% already shot for part two provided the through line for Lester's film, the foundation for Lester to work on. 

Richard Lester came aboard Superman The Movie when relations between Donner and the Salkinds deteriorated. Lester acted as an intermediary between the 2 parties. Since the Salkind's allegedly owed him money, this was a way of getting it, as an uncredited producer. [Ilya Salkind vehemently denies any monies was owed to Lester. It's entirely possible that Lester concocted a story R.E. money owed to him to ease Donner's worries about taking over the picture.] He wanted no part in the direction of the film and would only come on the set if asked by the director. He wasn't a sinecure, he eventually did mind a unit and offer advice. During the production, Lester asked Donner that he should put all efforts into the first film, Lester's thinking was that "Who would want to see the sequel if the first film wasn't good?" Donner agreed. He shot all the remaining scenes with Hackman, Perrine and Beatty (They didn't return for any extra shooting under Lester in S2) and finished off some other scenes, then all work was concentrated on the first picture. Lester also help convince Donner that the finale of Superman needed emotional impact, thus we have the death of Lois etc.

This was the first direct sequel Lester had made and the first time for which he hadn't directed part one. Hard core fans expected subtle integration between Donner and Lester's work. Lester, rightly in fear of challenging Donner's work, applied no integration skills, neglecting the experimental epic look for the less pretentious comic book flavour. Instead of continuity between the bookends of part one and two, Lester's footage is knowing graffiti, spraypainting the essence of comic book across Donner's legend.
The best example of this is in the Mount Rushmore scene in 'Superman II'. Donner had the original scene shot for his sequel with Ursa defacing the national monument and etching three Kryptonians faces using her heat vision. Lester took the footage and superimposed the faces of the three Kryptonians across the ruins in true witty fashion. Note also the opening alleyway transformation sequence of part two, spraypainted across the brickwall is a crude, bright yellow graffiti version of Superman's 'S' emblem. With the passing of time, the producers reviewed what Donner had shot and felt that the material was not as good as they expected, with Tom Mankiewicz not returning due to loyalty, Richard Lester teamed up with writers David and Leslie Newman to devise new material within the bounds of what had already been shot, some 70% - 80% was added and the remaining Donner footage was further manipulated to Lester's style.

Terence Stamp felt that Donner's version was superior -- the villains were painted vividly as diabolical, power hungry obsessives - as promised in Jor-El's speech. Lester somewhat diluted the power crazy villains, instead of visual world domination, annihilating monuments and causing carnage to biblical proportions, they conquer a small town. Funny, considering their pretension is to take over the world. They don't even step outside America! Yet they are bored in the White House. Quite ironic. This is indicative of the auteur's paradigm view on comic book, he finds the concept of super villains predictable with their pretentious world domination mantras. Conquering a small town is twisted and logically inventive in the Lester framework. Of course, he's also paying homage to the B-movies of the 1950s where small towns were wiped out (incidentally, another medium with it's origins in comic books). These towns folk are certainly not intended 'stereotypes', and are obviously not used to represent different social groups. Lester isn't viewing the US from an alien perspective as he had done in 'Petulia', as his Houston is entirely fictional, played for laughs with comic caricatures and cartoon violence.

Lester directed the core emotional story with a dollop of down-to-earth reality - for Lester this area of filmmaking was still uncharted territory. 'Robin and Marian' and 'Butch and Sundance: The Early Years' both proved him capable of decent emotional performances, but the films were depressing and an audience endurance test. The love scenes of part two are made believable by both Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve's performances, monitored by Lester's three camera set-up, which bravely chose to linger on their subtle performances. On paper, Donner adheres to the comic strip - Lois shooting blanks is pure comic book. Clark tripping over the pink bear is humanistic. We are clumsy, so it's funny that Clark, who performs such amazing feats, but can't hide his true identity when he trips over a pink bear - Lester has reduced him to our level even before he loses his powers.

The final product is a technical divorce from the first film's accomplishments. Lester wanted to do the film to learn about the dazzling wizardry something that was virtually alien to him and his lack of experience in rallying the troops is evident - the standard of optical work here falls short at times considering what had come before. Saying that, one must consider that the deadlines had been brought forward to take advantage of the Austrailan summer in 1980. On the other hand, the mechanical effects are tremendous.

The James Bond element is further apparent in part two, Lester starts the sequel in Paris on a morose day, the city he had first met the Beatles in. Paris, considered to be the most romantic city in the world did suit the romance theme in part two, but is instead used as an action set piece and plot device to excite the audience and free the villains. He also takes us to the luscious St. Lucia, not to develop the character, but to impress us with the scenery and to show that there are no boundaries, any place on Earth is just a stop away.

Superman II was the Frankenstein of the franchise, Lester was constrained by the Donner framework in II, but in three, it was entirely his making. Superman III feels fresh, the shackles of pretensions gone, the grandeur downsized considerably, but it retains its cinematic reputation.

If you control coffee and oil, you rule the world! Lester delves into social commentary but without preaching the morals or ethics, beginning in an unemployment office, where a down and out, African American sparks an idea, to become a computer programmer, and when he does get a job, he climbs to the top in no time by greed - eventually he's used by a non-threatening white American tycoon.

The comedy on the Streets of Metropolis is a farcical representation of everyday life, from a blindman losing his dog to bank robbers. Expertly choreographed but ultimately displeasing to the die-hard fans.

One of Lester's most potent, and perhaps most interesting commentary, is the sequence where Kryptonite, mixed with tar, doesn't hurt Superman physically but internally becomes a human with super powers -- his lust for alcohol and greed are common traits of us especially ones who indulge in marital excess. He abuses his powers to get want he wants, all virtues that he lived by are now gone. Beyond the popcorn, the contrast between the evil and noble Superman is original and eye-catching, the nobility of the character is contrary to a good human being, whilst the hostile Superman is portrayed as an alter-ego of ourselves.

Just as Lester had revisited the USA in 'Petulia', he returned to Donner's Smallville established in part one. Again the stylistic attention to detail is high, with the redneck atmosphere of Canada's Alberta heightened by the twanging sound of Roger Miller's country and Western music. The Lana Lang and Brad subplot was the most emotionally involving intriguing aspect of 'III'. It is with these scenes that Lester is as true to the origins of Superman as Donner had been, and both Annette O'toole and Gavan O'Herihly gave true and believable performances. Consider the picnic sequence, one of Christopher Reeve's best moments as Clark Kent, delivering an authentic performance. These are however, marred by their superficiality, only choosing to skim the surface of Clark Kent's home town romance. The nostalgic trip is directed with a cry for better times, in between the romance, there's the drunken husband who is a father to a neglected son, the depressing, spiritless tidy up after the party and the town itself is stuck in a timewarp.

To be commercially safer, part 'III' priorities itself as a fashionable 'National Lampoons' comedy. The occasionally heavy handed preaching suffered in Donner's Fortress of Solitude scenes in parts one and two are absent in 'III', but Lester finds a new foundation to use as a through line: Gus Gorman.

Played by popular comedian Richard Pryor, who is hardly the computer technician everyman the story describes him as, he is just star attraction used to pull in the crowds. Lester films Pryor as an established celebrity, genre crossing frequently into comedy. In the beginning, Gus Gorman conforms to the deliberate stereotype, but Lester gives him plenty of material to progress with, not necessarily because of character but because he's Richard Pryor. In one skilfully orchestrated piece of physical comedy, Pryor's Gorman falls from a skyscraper dressed in a pink table cloth, survives the fall and looks startled at the camera (known as 'Sprung Tempo Rhythm'). The audience laughs or bemoans not at Gus Gorman, but at Richard Pryor.

The through line of 'III' should have been the Smallvillle triangle, but the tasteless 1980s comedy aspect did favour the film at the box office. As a comedy farce, it's pure John Landis 'National Lampoons', so much so that there is even a cameo by Frank Oz as a surgeon ( the film was also lit by Landis DP Bob Paynter at his height of popularity). Like 'Ghostbusters', 'Trading Places' and other Reagan era comedies, it proved successful, and as with part one it resembled a detailed comic book. The action sequences, with Reeve as Superman carried out Donner's rule of verisimilitude, thrilling and fast paced, albeit detached from the character development. One exception to this is the junkyard fight, where Reeve's virtuoso performance as both Kent and Superman was obviously an inspiring challenge for the director, and the onscreen result justifies this.

But as far as the producers were concerned, the masses flocked to see Superman for it's value for money action, and it's here that Lester preserved the product. 'Superman III' along with 'Return of The Jedi' and 'Wargames' was one of 1983s highest grossing films. Critics found the charm of 'III' in it's existence as an unpretentious blockbuster but left diehard fans fuming that their hero was brought down to Earth with kryptonite, the leper of the series in 1983, a crude analogy to say the least. Ken Thorne's music also highlighted the blockbuster nature, as he had directly adapted the music of 'A Funny Thing...' s stage music for Lester's Roman farce, for Superman he rearranged John William's original material. The producers had with the title theme the most recognisable eight bar tune in the world, so Thorne's job was to exploit and preserve it with pride. Any original compositions by Thorne were light comedic such as 'Honeymoon Haven' and 'Streets of Metropolis', resembling Henry Mancini's 'Pink Panther incidental tunes.

The advent of Giorgio Moroder in part 'III' (who ironically had beaten John Williams Superman score for the 1978 Oscar with 'Midnight Express') also brought Superman hands on with popular music, the album includes an abomination, an electronic version of the Superman theme. The popularity of Superman was in fact so bankable, that audiences expecting the man of steel refused to see his cousin Supergirl in the 1984 film, which again, seeked out a new direction, a comic book fairy tale.

Superman III, if compared to the first two, falls quite short of expectations but it's surprisingly fun, an unpretentious 'standalone' romp. Ilya Salkind had plans to include Supergirl and the city of Kandor, unfortunately, those ideas were scrapped when the studio were alerted to a comedian's call on television.

'Superman IV' was a disaster, promising it's audience a Superman worthy of challenging human ethics, the most ambitious storytelling since part one, but deteriorating into an offensive children's film. It's biggest flaw is that it avoided the theme park atmosphere of it's predecessors and the sensitive nuclear arms theme, in favour of desperately rehashing precious moments from the first three films.

Further insult to injury was that the wilting cast members (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marc McClure and Jackie Cooper) personally depended on it being a success as they had become typecast as their characters. Superman had always been a guaranteed success, and had allowed the actors to have a career reboost every couple of years, confident that their popularity was solid. Here they just faded into the unknown.

For Richard Donner, the state of this awful sequel had hurt an American legend. Had Donner returned to the character directly after 'III' he could have brought the legend to new levels. Donner's obvious passion for the material shown in part one, linked with the controversial nuclear arms race subject matter could have returned some genuine substance to the series.

For Lester, what once was a winning formula had now turned into a tired failure. It's safe to say that Superman III made it difficult to seek out and develop new material for now he was labelled a blockbuster director, Superman gave him renewed vigour when his previous few films became box-office duds, but it was the same heroic films that stalled and eventually faded his subversive, artistic nature, with the blockbuster now firmly gripping the industry, directors that seeked out personal films were near the bottom of the list. It wasn't until the end of the decade, did a new wave of artistic directors reignite the box office with striking new styles of film-making, beginning with the likes of Steven Soderbergh, a Lester champion. Had Lester directed 'IV' the focus would have again been on preserving the style and action sequences, leaving us with another box office friendly, if highly superficial piece of pop culture. There is no comparison between Donner and Lester within the Superman universe, as one cared for the legend as art, while the other saw it as merely preserving the product. The way Lester did preserve it though, did create some of the most inventive, original, unconventional, exciting and utterly unpretentious imagery seen in cinema. The spire of the Empire State Building returning to the top of the skyscraper, the Coca Cola sign fizzing in a shower of neon and Superman vs Superman are just some of the examples that provided crowd pleasing entertainment for audiences everywhere.

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