Still Believing A Man Can Fly: 40 Years of Superman: The Movie

Ah, Christmastime 1978. I had just turned eight, was a few months into second grade. Star Wars was more than a year and half old but its presence was still everywhere that holiday season, especially in the toy aisles where all those glorious action figures, vehicles and playsets had been trickling in throughout the year. The original Battlestar Galactica was just rounding the corner on its third month of must-watch Sunday-night TV and after months of being told "You Will Believe A Man Can Fly," Superman: The Movie was finally set to soar into theaters worldwide.

Like most kids my age, I'd spent the last few years reading Superman comics (Supes vs. Muhammad Ali, anyone?) and enjoying both the Super Friends on Saturday mornings and old '50s episodes of the Adventures of Superman after school, so the prospect of a big-budget Man of Steel movie, complete with Star Wars-like effects and music, was more than enough to get me to a theater opening weekend.

My mom and I caught it that first Saturday as a matinee at one of the larger, Dolby-equipped theaters in the area and as soon as that goosebump-inducing John Williams score began to play over that thundering opening-credit sequence I was hooked on the last son of Krypton's journey to Earth to fight for truth, justice and the American way.

For the next two and half hours I gleefully watched as Superman rescued Lois Lane from a dangling helicopter, saved a lighting-disabled Air Force One, tussled with a pair of nuclear missiles and reversed the rotation of the earth to cancel out a devastating earthquake. Oh, I believed a man could fly and spent the rest of the weekend proving it around the house, begging my mom for a red cape.

Superman: The Movie opened on December 15, 1978 and nabbed nearly $44 million in its first 18 days of release, a then-record, finishing with a worldwide theatrical take over $300 million, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of all time. The film garnered three Oscar nominations, winning a Special Achievement Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Its success spawned three sequels in nine years and made a household name of actor Christopher Reeve, a six-foot-four, Julliard-trained talent who would go on to star in dozens of films over the next 15-plus years but would always be remembered as the one, true Man of Steel.

40 years later Superman: The Movie remains the gold standard for superhero films, a glowing testament to the humanity, humor and heart infused by director Richard Donner, stars Reeve, Marot Kidder, Gene Hackman and composer Williams.

I screen it every couple of years and regularly spin the soundtrack on quiet Saturday afternoons. It always takes me back to those magical years of the late '70s/early '80s when anything seemed possible: a galaxy, far, far away, an abandoned alien hiding in your backyard or believing a man can fly.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!