SUPER HUMAN `HOLLYWOODLAND' EXPLORES THE PRICE OF STARDOM.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

At a live appearance, 1950s TV Superman George Reeves was entertaining a bleacher full of kids when a little boy with a loaded gun approached him. The child, of course, believed that Superman was invulnerable, and wanted to see bullets bounce off the actor just like on the show.

According to the new movie ``Hollywoodland,'' Reeves defused that unnerving situation, only to die from a real bullet in 1959.

Most evidence indicated a suicide, and the Los Angeles coroner declared it such. But there were enough people who had reason to want Reeves dead for murder theories to survive to this day.

``Hollywoodland,'' which opens wide in theaters today, explores several possible scenarios for the troubled TV star's death. It stars Ben Affleck as Reeves, Adrien Brody as the imaginary private eye, Louis Simo, who tries to prove foul play, and Diane Lane as Toni Mannix, the wife of a powerful MGM executive and Reeves' scorned, older mistress.

The film, which marks the feature debut of acclaimed television director Allen Coulter (``Rome,'' ``The Sopranos,'' ``Sex and the City''), is equally interested in examining what fame and success meant in 1950s Hollywood. And the talent involved seem more concerned with how that reflects, sometimes in exact opposite mirror images, the way those conditions manifest today.

None more than Affleck. While Reeves worried about being so identified with the Superman role, Affleck's career has suffered from people assuming they know too much about him personally and have trouble separating that from his movie characters.

``Obviously, George Reeves was an iconic guy because of who he played, and that was, in some ways, tragic for him,'' Affleck said. ``That very tragedy was kind of a paradox, in the sense that he got the thing he wished for but it ultimately was very destructive.''

Affleck himself won an Academy Award for writing ``Good Will Hunting'' and starred in a number of high-profile movies (``Armageddon,'' ``Pearl Harbor,'' ``The Sum of All Fears'') before his higher-profile romance with Jennifer Lopez, and their panned comedy ``Gigli,'' made him a bigger tabloid media presence than he was on screen.

``You become like an actor in a soap opera that you have no control over the script or direction of,'' admits Affleck, who's avoided the public eye since marrying and having a baby with his ``Daredevil'' co-star Jennifer Garner. ``You just look at the paper every day and find out what you did on this week's episode. The actual art -- the actual beauty and the grace and what it takes to do that -- people kind of aren't as interested in, really. It is really interesting, but what everyone wants to know about is the other side of it. You know what I mean? They don't want to see the sausage getting made. And it's a shame, because that's the stuff that I think is much more interesting.''

``Hollywoodland'' digs into both that creative side of the business and its seamiest scandals. We learn how the charming Reeves, after a pretty good start as one of the Tarleton twins in ``Gone With the Wind,'' was barely scraping by in B movies by the early '50s. The new medium of television, though, was to make him one of the most familiar faces of the decade -- at the cost of never being able to pursue his more artistic ambitions.

Contrast that with 2006, when just a couple of months ago, Brandon Routh was considered the luckiest unknown actor in Hollywood for landing the title role in ``Superman Returns.''

``It's a different world,'' director Coulter observes. ``In those days, getting the role of Superman was almost shameful. George Reeves wanted to be a mature, respected actor. When he got `Superman,' he just saw it as something for kids.

``Also, remember that TV was still kind of the graveyard for failed movie actors back then. And it was in its infancy. We hadn't seen `The Sopranos' or `Six Feet Under' or `Deadwood'; we had only seen `Lucy.' So he saw it as, I think, infantile and unimportant -- and the last gasp of his career. And he was right. I don't think any serious actor took George Reeves seriously.''

``The Pianist'' Oscar winner Brody also has pondered the ways in which actors were judged then and now.

``There was a real stigma attached to television, and it was detrimental to Reeves' film career. Now, actors can bounce back and forth from TV to film much more freely. But it has to be really quality, and you have to be very lucky that your show is successful.

``Intelligent and hip TV characters will get you hip roles as a film actor. But, just as it was then, if you do the wrong, silly thing, you can always be perceived as that.''

On or off screen. Just ask Affleck. Or Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan.

``In those days, I think it was the opposite of what the media has become,'' Lane suggests. ``I think they were interested in protecting people's images. There was a sense of what's right and what's wrong, covering up, going to desperate lengths to conceal the truth about something.

``Today, it's the opposite. People can't wait to flaunt their true selves and demystify any myth that may remain about somebody in the public eye. That's the opposite of what George went through.''

Another change that the movie implies began around the time of Reeves' death was an aspiration of fame in all walks of life. That, Brody feels, is what his confused investigator represents.

``Simo is very immature in a lot of ways,'' Brody says. ``The thing that both he and Reeves share is this desire for success and recognition. They both want to be known and respected for their work.

`Luck wasn't in his corner. He found himself with a kid and a wife in the Valley and probably had a different vision.

``The power of the notion that being a star gives your life value is at the center of the movie,'' Coulter says. ``Louis Simo, like George, wants to be a star, only now that desire has bled into the average Joe. George Reeves wants to be a star in Hollywood, wants Clark Gable's career, and Louis wants to be (top private detective) Rick Harris, a player with his picture in the paper.

``George Reeves decides his life is meaningless because he's not a star of the magnitude that he felt was important. And Louis Simo is the new guy, of this world that we live in now, which says, `I'm not important because I haven't been on `Star Search.' ''

All very interesting. But does ``Hollywoodland'' really crack the case of how George Reeves died? ``The simplest solution is probably the best solution,'' the director says, both enigmatically and not. ``But I like the idea that, since it is still unresolved, the door is open to the other two theories.''

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- cover -- color) HOLLYWOODLAND

Superman whodunit pulls the cape off seamier side of fame

(4) Ben Affleck stars as TV's Superman, George Reeves, in ``Hollywoodland.''

(5) Adrien Brody as private eye Louis Simo in ``Hollywoodland.''

(6) George Reeves

Box:

GEORGE REEVES