September 25, 2023 • 13 mins
In Episode 49, Part 1 Jay Towers and Jim Bowers reflect back on their Alberta Adventure, visiting some of the original filming locations for Superman and Superman III. This video podcast takes you to downtown Calgary for a few of the Metropolis scenes is Superman III. They guys also check out the starship crash site, Smallville High and some of the most famous train tracks in Superman '78 History! Jay & Jim also get a first look at the Exclusive NYCC 2023 Foil Variant Covers of Superman '78. We're flying high over the wheatfields of Kansas and beyond on The Alberta Adventure. You can watch the episode at www.capedwonder.com or The Caped Wonder Superman Podcast Facebook Page.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
No, the Capwonder Superman Podcast withJay Cowoys and Jim Bowoys on iHeart Radio.
Hi everyone, and welcome to theCape Wonders Superman Podcast in Las Vegas.
I'm Jade's Howers with Jim Bowers inLas Vegas. How did we get
here so fast? Oh? Ilive here? That's right. So great
(00:22):
to have Jay visit. He doesn'tget to come here often because he's a
really busy guy and he's flying fasterthan his beating bullet everywhere you can imagine.
But yes, he's here and weare thrilled to have him and greed
to do with our special morning breakfasteggs today so delicious Cosa de Bowers.
All right, that's it. Listen, we thought we'd do a Cape Wonder
(00:45):
Superman podcast. If you're listening onthe iHeart Radio Apple we're listening to podcasts
or you're watching I want to goover some of the exciting things that have
happened over the last two or threeweeks and some things that are coming up
that we think that you're really gonnalike. So I know what you're thinking.
We're these guys been It's been abusy summer, but we were able
to Finagle a little filming locations tripthat we're going to go through with you
(01:07):
in a few minutes. Before wedo that, New York Comic Con will
be here before you know it.And you found some really unbelievable variant covers
and a great story behind them.Really did Big Time Collectables dot com.
Nelson Chewa, who's the owner ofthat company, has done some amazing exclusive
variant covers for Superman seventy eight amongother comic books over the years, and
(01:32):
he's going to have a booth thirtyeight twenty five at the New York City
Comic Con in October. In fact, it's October twelfth through the fifteenth.
They are actually going to be availablefirst for pre order on the Big Time
Collectibles website starting Friday, September twentynine, eight pm Eastern Time. Here's
the first Now you've probably seen theseonline. I've put on both of these
(01:56):
on the Cape to Wonder podcast pageon Facebook, and aren't they beautiful.
I've got a glove on for onebut not for the other. So if
you're listening to these, are goingto be the responsible guy with the glove.
Yes, yes, these are foiland you can see how much they're
reflecting our studio lights here. Andthis is the comic book in it is
Superman seventy eight issue one. Theycame out last year, so identical content.
(02:21):
Two variant covers. Now, thiscover absolutely beautiful Superman flying up with
the Bob Peek inspired movie poster artin the background. And this was drawn
by Miko Sawayan, and he's goingto be at the New York City Comic
Con booth to sign these if youlike, so you can either pre order
(02:42):
them on the website later this monthor go next month to the New York
City Comic Con, or do both. Romolo Fhardo Junior is the colorist.
He is the colorist of the cover. And didn't they do a beautiful job.
And here's the back of them withthe Superman seventy eight logo and the
Big Time Collectibles logo. And they'reonly making a thousand of each j So
(03:04):
Nelson expects them to sell out reallyreally fast. There's no limit on how
many you can buy, so orderor buy as many as you want,
but definitely go to the CON's it'sgoing to be a whole lot of fun.
And Miko is very much excited aboutmeeting all of you and talking with
you about this. Obviously, they'rehuge Superman movie fans and we're really grateful
for that and great guys. Bythe way, the foil cover here is
(03:28):
a really nice kind of nod tothose great Milar posters from back in nineteen
seventy eight. Right. There weren'tmany of them, but they looked great.
Right. They made the one sheetsize Milars Silver Milar. They said
coming this Christmas, I think oneof the more rare ones say is coming
soon with big gass shield. Andthen they also made those green ones j
(03:50):
those smaller ones. Yeah, yeah, so get those. Absolutely good for
the collection. It's nice to seemin person love it can't wait. You
can't wait to reread series. Andwe've got a new series coming out,
Superman seventy eight, The Steel CurtainNovember, I think November December. Yeah,
it's going to be a six partseries, just like the first one.
We are celebrating the forty fifth anniversaryof Superman the Movie this year.
(04:13):
We are December fifteenth, twenty twentythree, the forty fifth anniversary of Superman
the Movie in theaters. And Iwas there forty five years ago, Jay,
and you were there shortly after.Shortly after many of you have asked
(04:34):
about and watched the segment that Idid on Fox two in Detroit about the
Superman filming locations. This was adream of mind to see. I would
never have done it without mister JimBowers, who has done it before,
and it was really special. Wewe crammed a lot into that three minute
television segment because that's typically how thingswork on TV, but Jim and I
(04:58):
were able to go there the endof all game. We spent a couple
of days and really the trip ofa lifetime that started in Calgary. I
want to ask you a couple ofquestions because you had not been to the
location of the photo booth from Supermanthree that famous seen with Aaron Smolinsky a
little older now you know goes thatChris runs in, comes out ripping of
(05:19):
the photograph. But your initial thoughtsof seeing that location today, well,
initial thoughts were it hasn't changed verymuch. Yeah, this is really cool.
We're at the filming location from Supermanthree right behind us. I mean,
this is we're standing right now wherethe car goes over the hydrant and
(05:43):
Superman flies across the street. Imean, this is it, This is
it? And Aaron Smolinski with thephoto booth and his mom remember that,
wow, flying right over cars,Jake. We've been lining up things and
looking at pictures. A lot alot has changed, but you certainly can
find a couple of really cool things. And that's what we've been doing.
We've been really lying things up here, even the bank robbery scene that part
of the billings, I'm in hereanymore. No, the stairs are gone,
(06:15):
and we also found the stairs.It was a great shot. Remember
we ask walking down his dream Jaygoes, I think those are the stairs
from the openings, welcome back tothe hotel. I'm like, look at
look at these over here, Andsure enough, Laura, that's where she
was walking down. At the beginningof Superman three, careful, there's a
(06:42):
scene where Christopher Reeves Clark Kemp kindof comes around this corner started the day
and those opening credits and Superman threeand takes out that newspaper from the Daily
Planet, you know news your ripset in half rust and half yeah,
And we found that spot, youdid, and you saw it from a
distance because of the unique architecture,And it turns out it's a beautiful old
church. But wow, you've gotsome real superpeapers on you there, Jay,
(07:05):
Yeah, it's cool, and youknow you can see why they said,
hey, this would be a greatspot. So it was great to
be in Calgary for a day.That was just kind of our rest up
and get ready to head out.About an hour away from Calgary kind of
the first set of Superman filming locations. We brighton early in the morning.
First stop was the Barons School.It so father with these huh, I'll
(07:29):
take them in with the other equipment, Thank you, Clark. Sure we
are in Baron's, Alberta, Canada, and what do we have behind us?
But the Barons consolidated school that wasSmallville High School and Superman the movie.
And you could not ask for amore peaceful and beautiful place as this
area is. And I absolutely lovecoming to this school. Jim, take
(07:54):
us back to that filming day innineteen seventy seven, Well, it was
unseasonably cold, Jay, when theyare arrived here in late July of nineteen
seventy seven and films through August andhad to wait for many many days in
between filming because Jeffrey Unsworth and RichardDonner wanted the perfect sky, the perfect
(08:15):
clouds, which it's part of thejob being team manager and all, we're
gonna head over to the football fieldwhere Clark kicks that ball that we love
so much, which you know itfilm film wise, it looks like it's
kind of right next to where weare, but it's a little while down.
I remember when I came here thefirst time, I was kind of
baffled, jam like, where isthis football field? What you've got to
(08:35):
do is go down the road alittle bit. So through the magic of
great cinematography and Stuart Baar's editing,it looks like it's all together. One
of the shots that didn't make itinto the television segment that we ran in
Detroit was the start of the trainbefore you know Jeff jumps the train tracks
(08:56):
there that opening shock. We foundthat location as well. Right, it's
a curve, It's just a bigcurve in the track, and you can
easily see it from the road,super close to the school, super close
to the school. Right, it'salso in Barance, just down the street
from the school. In fact,if you look down the train track you
(09:18):
can see the grain elevator, theseat cleaning elevator that we see on the
field right, so it tell usabout this filming spot. How did they
do it? A giant crane waspositioned right here on the road with two
arms on each side of the traintrack. They connected Jeff east to a
flying harness, hooked him up tothe wires and actually swung him backwards as
the train was backed up by theconductor away from Jeff. Then the film
(09:41):
was played backwards and that's what yousee on the silver screen, all done
in camera. It all happened righthere. It's a beautiful place. You
really can get a good sense ofthat shot when you're standing there and kind
of looking over that little hill wherethe tracks are, and you can see
how the road kind of curves down, and we remember that shot of Jeff
(10:03):
running in the background, and youreally it is very emotional when you stand
there and not much has been touched. A couple of new houses here and
there, but for the most part, pretty much the same right. And
we saw a number of vehicles goingup and down that road and you see
the same dirt cloud behind them asyou see when Clark's running away at a
(10:24):
distance, And that was actually achievedby a guy on a motorcycle dragging a
sandbag to get the desired effect.All of those scenes, or all the
shots the camera angles you see weredone in camera. Either they strapped Jeff
to the bumper of an El Caminoand had him do this, or they
had a crane, two cranes,one on each side of the track.
They hoisted him up on wires andswung him in front of the train.
(10:48):
Yeah, that's amazing. It's socool to see. We'll jump around a
little bit, but it would bereally tough to find the crash site for
when we've first get to meet AaronSmolinsky and we see Phili Staxter and Glen
Ford. But when you find it, you certainly get that awesome wow factor.
(11:09):
And a lot of it has todo what you see in the background.
And this is probably the most quiet, peaceful spot we've been to yet.
(11:30):
It really is. I mean there'sno one around. There's not even
hardly any animals, just bugs andbutterflies. Yeah, but we haven't had
any cars go by, and Ican see why, Jay, they chose
this spot to reveal the first superfeat of kylel You know, there's a
great scene too in the behind thescenes footage that we've seen in the making
of Superman before where you see Philistasterand Glenn Ford kind of walking up that
(11:56):
road. Right, it's a greatshot, right absolutely. If you why
the extended kind of Superman, you'llsee the static shot of the truck drive
away from the crash site and theglow inside the starship start to fade away.
And if you look on the otherside of the road as the truck
is driving away, you'll see agully or a gulch. And that's very
specific, you know, very specificshape, and it's still there and it
(12:20):
looks the same. And that's howwe were able to most easily line up
where we thought the starship would be. And the starship is not the trail
or the crash what do you wantto call that. The debris field is
not perpendicular to the road. It'sat an angle, not forty five degrees.
So that was a lot of fun. And you actually had me stand
(12:43):
where we think was the exact locationwhere Dick Donner stands up in the air.
It's pretty close, stands with hisarms up in the air to coach
Aaron to throw his arms up here, I am I will tell you It
was just like being with Dick Donner, just like that Jim the arms, all that
No, the Capwonder Superman Podcast withJay Cowoys and Jim Bowoys on iHeart Radio.
Hi everyone, and welcome to theCape Wonders Superman Podcast in Las Vegas.
I'm Jade's Howers with Jim Bowers inLas Vegas. How did we get
here so fast? Oh? Ilive here? That's right. So great
(00:22):
to have Jay visit. He doesn'tget to come here often because he's a
really busy guy and he's flying fasterthan his beating bullet everywhere you can imagine.
But yes, he's here and weare thrilled to have him and greed
to do with our special morning breakfasteggs today so delicious Cosa de Bowers.
All right, that's it. Listen, we thought we'd do a Cape Wonder
(00:45):
Superman podcast. If you're listening onthe iHeart Radio Apple we're listening to podcasts
or you're watching I want to goover some of the exciting things that have
happened over the last two or threeweeks and some things that are coming up
that we think that you're really gonnalike. So I know what you're thinking.
We're these guys been It's been abusy summer, but we were able
to Finagle a little filming locations tripthat we're going to go through with you
(01:07):
in a few minutes. Before wedo that, New York Comic Con will
be here before you know it.And you found some really unbelievable variant covers
and a great story behind them.Really did Big Time Collectables dot com.
Nelson Chewa, who's the owner ofthat company, has done some amazing exclusive
variant covers for Superman seventy eight amongother comic books over the years, and
(01:32):
he's going to have a booth thirtyeight twenty five at the New York City
Comic Con in October. In fact, it's October twelfth through the fifteenth.
They are actually going to be availablefirst for pre order on the Big Time
Collectibles website starting Friday, September twentynine, eight pm Eastern Time. Here's
the first Now you've probably seen theseonline. I've put on both of these
(01:56):
on the Cape to Wonder podcast pageon Facebook, and aren't they beautiful.
I've got a glove on for onebut not for the other. So if
you're listening to these, are goingto be the responsible guy with the glove.
Yes, yes, these are foiland you can see how much they're
reflecting our studio lights here. Andthis is the comic book in it is
Superman seventy eight issue one. Theycame out last year, so identical content.
(02:21):
Two variant covers. Now, thiscover absolutely beautiful Superman flying up with
the Bob Peek inspired movie poster artin the background. And this was drawn
by Miko Sawayan, and he's goingto be at the New York City Comic
Con booth to sign these if youlike, so you can either pre order
(02:42):
them on the website later this monthor go next month to the New York
City Comic Con, or do both. Romolo Fhardo Junior is the colorist.
He is the colorist of the cover. And didn't they do a beautiful job.
And here's the back of them withthe Superman seventy eight logo and the
Big Time Collectibles logo. And they'reonly making a thousand of each j So
(03:04):
Nelson expects them to sell out reallyreally fast. There's no limit on how
many you can buy, so orderor buy as many as you want,
but definitely go to the CON's it'sgoing to be a whole lot of fun.
And Miko is very much excited aboutmeeting all of you and talking with
you about this. Obviously, they'rehuge Superman movie fans and we're really grateful
for that and great guys. Bythe way, the foil cover here is
(03:28):
a really nice kind of nod tothose great Milar posters from back in nineteen
seventy eight. Right. There weren'tmany of them, but they looked great.
Right. They made the one sheetsize Milars Silver Milar. They said
coming this Christmas, I think oneof the more rare ones say is coming
soon with big gass shield. Andthen they also made those green ones j
(03:50):
those smaller ones. Yeah, yeah, so get those. Absolutely good for
the collection. It's nice to seemin person love it can't wait. You
can't wait to reread series. Andwe've got a new series coming out,
Superman seventy eight, The Steel CurtainNovember, I think November December. Yeah,
it's going to be a six partseries, just like the first one.
We are celebrating the forty fifth anniversaryof Superman the Movie this year.
(04:13):
We are December fifteenth, twenty twentythree, the forty fifth anniversary of Superman
the Movie in theaters. And Iwas there forty five years ago, Jay,
and you were there shortly after.Shortly after many of you have asked
(04:34):
about and watched the segment that Idid on Fox two in Detroit about the
Superman filming locations. This was adream of mind to see. I would
never have done it without mister JimBowers, who has done it before,
and it was really special. Wewe crammed a lot into that three minute
television segment because that's typically how thingswork on TV, but Jim and I
(04:58):
were able to go there the endof all game. We spent a couple
of days and really the trip ofa lifetime that started in Calgary. I
want to ask you a couple ofquestions because you had not been to the
location of the photo booth from Supermanthree that famous seen with Aaron Smolinsky a
little older now you know goes thatChris runs in, comes out ripping of
(05:19):
the photograph. But your initial thoughtsof seeing that location today, well,
initial thoughts were it hasn't changed verymuch. Yeah, this is really cool.
We're at the filming location from Supermanthree right behind us. I mean,
this is we're standing right now wherethe car goes over the hydrant and
(05:43):
Superman flies across the street. Imean, this is it, This is
it? And Aaron Smolinski with thephoto booth and his mom remember that,
wow, flying right over cars,Jake. We've been lining up things and
looking at pictures. A lot alot has changed, but you certainly can
find a couple of really cool things. And that's what we've been doing.
We've been really lying things up here, even the bank robbery scene that part
of the billings, I'm in hereanymore. No, the stairs are gone,
(06:15):
and we also found the stairs.It was a great shot. Remember
we ask walking down his dream Jaygoes, I think those are the stairs
from the openings, welcome back tothe hotel. I'm like, look at
look at these over here, Andsure enough, Laura, that's where she
was walking down. At the beginningof Superman three, careful, there's a
(06:42):
scene where Christopher Reeves Clark Kemp kindof comes around this corner started the day
and those opening credits and Superman threeand takes out that newspaper from the Daily
Planet, you know news your ripset in half rust and half yeah,
And we found that spot, youdid, and you saw it from a
distance because of the unique architecture,And it turns out it's a beautiful old
church. But wow, you've gotsome real superpeapers on you there, Jay,
(07:05):
Yeah, it's cool, and youknow you can see why they said,
hey, this would be a greatspot. So it was great to
be in Calgary for a day.That was just kind of our rest up
and get ready to head out.About an hour away from Calgary kind of
the first set of Superman filming locations. We brighton early in the morning.
First stop was the Barons School.It so father with these huh, I'll
(07:29):
take them in with the other equipment, Thank you, Clark. Sure we
are in Baron's, Alberta, Canada, and what do we have behind us?
But the Barons consolidated school that wasSmallville High School and Superman the movie.
And you could not ask for amore peaceful and beautiful place as this
area is. And I absolutely lovecoming to this school. Jim, take
(07:54):
us back to that filming day innineteen seventy seven, Well, it was
unseasonably cold, Jay, when theyare arrived here in late July of nineteen
seventy seven and films through August andhad to wait for many many days in
between filming because Jeffrey Unsworth and RichardDonner wanted the perfect sky, the perfect
(08:15):
clouds, which it's part of thejob being team manager and all, we're
gonna head over to the football fieldwhere Clark kicks that ball that we love
so much, which you know itfilm film wise, it looks like it's
kind of right next to where weare, but it's a little while down.
I remember when I came here thefirst time, I was kind of
baffled, jam like, where isthis football field? What you've got to
(08:35):
do is go down the road alittle bit. So through the magic of
great cinematography and Stuart Baar's editing,it looks like it's all together. One
of the shots that didn't make itinto the television segment that we ran in
Detroit was the start of the trainbefore you know Jeff jumps the train tracks
(08:56):
there that opening shock. We foundthat location as well. Right, it's
a curve, It's just a bigcurve in the track, and you can
easily see it from the road,super close to the school, super close
to the school. Right, it'salso in Barance, just down the street
from the school. In fact,if you look down the train track you
(09:18):
can see the grain elevator, theseat cleaning elevator that we see on the
field right, so it tell usabout this filming spot. How did they
do it? A giant crane waspositioned right here on the road with two
arms on each side of the traintrack. They connected Jeff east to a
flying harness, hooked him up tothe wires and actually swung him backwards as
the train was backed up by theconductor away from Jeff. Then the film
(09:41):
was played backwards and that's what yousee on the silver screen, all done
in camera. It all happened righthere. It's a beautiful place. You
really can get a good sense ofthat shot when you're standing there and kind
of looking over that little hill wherethe tracks are, and you can see
how the road kind of curves down, and we remember that shot of Jeff
(10:03):
running in the background, and youreally it is very emotional when you stand
there and not much has been touched. A couple of new houses here and
there, but for the most part, pretty much the same right. And
we saw a number of vehicles goingup and down that road and you see
the same dirt cloud behind them asyou see when Clark's running away at a
(10:24):
distance, And that was actually achievedby a guy on a motorcycle dragging a
sandbag to get the desired effect.All of those scenes, or all the
shots the camera angles you see weredone in camera. Either they strapped Jeff
to the bumper of an El Caminoand had him do this, or they
had a crane, two cranes,one on each side of the track.
They hoisted him up on wires andswung him in front of the train.
(10:48):
Yeah, that's amazing. It's socool to see. We'll jump around a
little bit, but it would bereally tough to find the crash site for
when we've first get to meet AaronSmolinsky and we see Phili Staxter and Glen
Ford. But when you find it, you certainly get that awesome wow factor.
(11:09):
And a lot of it has todo what you see in the background.
And this is probably the most quiet, peaceful spot we've been to yet.
(11:30):
It really is. I mean there'sno one around. There's not even
hardly any animals, just bugs andbutterflies. Yeah, but we haven't had
any cars go by, and Ican see why, Jay, they chose
this spot to reveal the first superfeat of kylel You know, there's a
great scene too in the behind thescenes footage that we've seen in the making
of Superman before where you see Philistasterand Glenn Ford kind of walking up that
(11:56):
road. Right, it's a greatshot, right absolutely. If you why
the extended kind of Superman, you'llsee the static shot of the truck drive
away from the crash site and theglow inside the starship start to fade away.
And if you look on the otherside of the road as the truck
is driving away, you'll see agully or a gulch. And that's very
specific, you know, very specificshape, and it's still there and it
(12:20):
looks the same. And that's howwe were able to most easily line up
where we thought the starship would be. And the starship is not the trail
or the crash what do you wantto call that. The debris field is
not perpendicular to the road. It'sat an angle, not forty five degrees.
So that was a lot of fun. And you actually had me stand
(12:43):
where we think was the exact locationwhere Dick Donner stands up in the air.
It's pretty close, stands with hisarms up in the air to coach
Aaron to throw his arms up here, I am I will tell you It
was just like being with Dick Donner, just like that Jim the arms, all that
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